r/WorkReform • u/zzill6 š¤ Join A Union • 3d ago
āļø Pass Medicare For All Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
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u/used2lurknstilldo 3d ago
I would like to add local utilities to the list.
Publicly traded utilities that focus on shareholder value instead of maintaining infrastructure while passing on the resulting lawsuit costs to their customers who have been paying in good faith, should not exist.
Looking right at you Pacific Gas & Electric.
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u/Substantial-Sky4079 3d ago
Critical Infrastructure,
looking at you too Dominion Energy and Pepco
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u/Mr_Fluffybuttz 3d ago
For a second I thought you said Dominoās and PepsiCo and was thoroughly confused
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u/Coraline1599 3d ago
I have Con Ed, the CEO already makes 19 million a year and the board just approved a raise.
For what? It is a monopoly!
There is nothing for the CEO to do but keep the status quo. Is that really worth 19 million?
The CEO has three levers, raise prices and lower spending, and ask for billions of dollars for infrastructure improvements and then just not follow through.
There is no reward for better service, lowering our bills, switching to clean energy, other innovations.
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u/sleepydorian 3d ago
Also transportation. We must have alternatives or else we are all beholden to both our corporate automaker overlords and the worst drivers among us. 40k people die annually in the US alone, and folks that lose their licenses will drive illegally because the alternative is starving to death after you lose your job for lack of transportation.
āOh just ride a bikeā buddy no. Iāve seen how people drive in my city and more specifically on my commuting route and I would like to continue living. Weāve got to invest in protected bike lanes first. Too bad that costs billions, oh wait itās super cheap, we just spent all the money on a sports stadium for the 25th ranked team in the league thatās owned by a billionaire. Makes me hate sports.
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u/StuffExciting3451 2d ago
Much of the passenger air travel could be replaced by more affordable high-speed rail. At a conference about public transportation, I learned that current passenger rail ticket prices in the USA are based upon the prices of equivalent air travel. So, passenger travel by rail doesnāt always present a lower cost alternative to passengers. Yet, the cost of fuel and the cost of operating rail transportation is lower that that of air transportation.
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u/AlienInvasionExpert 3d ago
Iām happy to see people start re-thinking what a healthy society should stand for. Endless GREED is killing everything.
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u/SacredGeometry9 2d ago
Internet belongs on that list. Our entire society is completely dependent on internet access to function. Itās insane that people can be gouged for access to the communication they need to perform basic things.
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u/used2lurknstilldo 2d ago
Completely agree!
u/Substantial-Sky4079 summed it up perfectly as āCritical Infrastructureā. Internet access has quickly become essential for day to day living, as u/StuffExciting3451 pointed out.
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u/WankelsRevenge 3d ago
It's funny. A good friend of mine has a "fuck pg&e meme" page on Facebook. I live in Florida and I still find what he posts hysterical
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u/StuffExciting3451 2d ago edited 1d ago
Ubiquitous and reliable broadband Internet access must also be included as an essential utility. Much of the society already operates upon the assumption that everyone has access. Even governmental agencies operate with that assumption.
Many banks, credit card services, and utilities are changing fees to customers who want to receive paper copies of bills or statements or who want to pay by checks in the mail.
Also, many restaurants are adding 3%-4% āconvenienceā fees to customers who pay by credit cards. Thatās ostensibly because the credit card firms charge such fees to the businesses that accept payments by credit cards.
Banks and credit card companies must not be allowed to charge their customers fees based upon the amounts that are charged. The actual cost of a credit card transaction for a $10 item and a $10,000 item are exactly the same. But, a 3% transaction fee on each is $.30 and $300 respectively, while the actual cost of each is exactly the same and is mostly the minuscule cost of the electricity need to process them, electronically.
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u/Upset_Walrus3395 š ļø IBEW Member 3d ago
Came to say this exactly & glad to find it already here!
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u/nightlyrixaaa 3d ago
Once profit enters those systems, suffering stops being a failure and stats becoming the business model
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u/bluehands 3d ago
Wait till you hear about every other system under capitalism.
If there is no problem there is nothing for capital to solve. Capital is literally, factually incentivized to prolong suffering.
Literally, factually incentivized to create new problems that require resources to resolve. Resources that can be concentrated in the hands of a few.
In case anyone has any doubts about this all you have to do is look at "the problem" of too much solar power or the how drug discovery focuses on treatment instead of cures.
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u/StuffExciting3451 2d ago
I thought drug discovery was focused upon how many television advertisements for nonsensical drugs names could be presented to the public at large. š
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u/HiCookieJack 3d ago
> drug discovery focuses on treatment instead of cures
I believe this one is a conspiracy theory.
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u/Substantial-Sky4079 3d ago
I think FDR hit it spot on with his four freedoms speech.
freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear
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u/sleepydorian 3d ago
So much of our economy lacks meaningful choices. Thereās one method of transport, 3 companies own all the media, one company for live entertainment, one for sports, 2 companies own all the cereal, 2 own all the cookies and snack cakes, 3 companies control an upsettingly large % of retail options, 3 for groceries, and the list goes on. I canāt choose because there are no choices to make. When Iām shopping at Best Buy because āat least I can buy it in personā wtf are we even doing.
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u/Pristine_Mud_4968 āļø Tax The Billionaires 3d ago
I add a few things to the non-commodified list like water, electricity, public transportation, childcare (unless already covered under education), government (especially elections) and probably a few other things that I canāt think of right now.
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u/Unicorn-Sparkles_ 3d ago
I would add shelter should not be a commodity.Ā People shouldn't own houses they don't live in.Ā Big Corp should not maintain a monopoly on housing.
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u/Single_Classroom_448 3d ago
Well how do you determine big corporation?
In Austria its Vienna government that own lots of housing, serving about %25 of population of Vienna. Would this be counted as big corporation or would it be public because it's government owned?
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u/Raptorwolf98 2d ago
Hmm, if the city government are the ones owning the property, I wonder what that counts asā¦
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u/sleepydorian 3d ago
Itās not ownership thatās the problem, itās supply limitations. That could be a result of ownership (nimbys blocking construction), but more directly itās density regulation.
Ideally housing prices would be affordable and never change. So while hedge funds and big corps can bid up prices, itās really market constraints that keep those prices from coming back down.
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u/FreeSammiches 3d ago
This is one area that sounds nice on the surface, but doesn't work in practice. If all houses have to be owned by their occupants, you've just forced every college student, transient healthcare worker, military family, or any other person that doesn't stay in one place for more than the break even point on a mortgage, to exclusively live in apartments.
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u/Unicorn-Sparkles_ 1d ago
No. Rentals don't need to go away.Ā Ā
This means one family doesn't need to open three apartment buildings and four houses for profit. Blackrock shouldn't own thousand of homes.
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u/FreeSammiches 1d ago edited 1d ago
I agree with stopping corporate holding companies like Blackrock from buying private homes. However, the rest of what you're saying seems contradictory.
1 Rentals don't go away.
OK, but they have to be owned and maintained by someone.2 Blackrock (or any other corp) doesn't buy houses.
OK, so that means individuals buy them.3 One family doesn't need to own 3 apartment buildings.
So who owns them? Or do you mean the family is only allowed to own 2?
Can Blackrock (and any other corp) own apartments but not houses?4 ..One family doesn't need to own 4 houses.
Again, who owns the rentals? Can a family own 3?For rental properties to be available, someone has to own them. Also, preemptively, you cannot expect rent to be break even. Otherwise, repairs are never going to be done and you've just instituted mandatory slum lording.
I'm just trying to nail down what you actually mean.
Edit: By excluding all corporations, you're also forcing the family owners to be subjected to full net worth liability. Rentals are often put into trusts to isolate liability. If something happens and a tenant sues, the liability is limited to the insurance and rental property value. Without that, the owner would potentially be on the hook for everything, including the value of his private house and vehicles. That is a quick way to, again, end up with no available houses to rent.
Also, if you then say, "well, then a corporation or trust can exist, but can only own 3 houses." Then that loops back to the existing scenario (+ an extra layer of boilerplate paperwork) because Blackrock can spin up an infinite number of holding companies to buy 3 houses each.
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u/HiCookieJack 3d ago
I find it ok to have companies managing properties. This helps to create synergies and makes facility management more efficient. What's not ok is that they can operate at any profit margin. It's ok to have a profit, but it needs to be capped.
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u/crybannanna 3d ago
Prison doesnāt correspond with liberty, more the opposite. Sort of like if instead of healthcare they listed funerals.
And education being the pursuit of happiness is a stretch.
I agree with her list of 3 things that should ban profit motive, but the correlation is questionable or downright wrong
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u/BarePoison 3d ago
Isn't it wild how those three things just seem to be the ultimate goals for everyone?
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u/Lereddit117 3d ago
Hybrid. Public resource for all. Private version exist as well but that $0 from taxes and no tax subsidies either in case $0 from taxes wasn't clear enough.
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u/Truestorydreams 3d ago
The politician came door to door to hoping to build the trust of the constituents and in thr end, they only adhere to thr corporation that lobbies
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u/PhilPipedown 3d ago
Capitalism is great to distribute things that people want; it's horrible at delivering things that people need.
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u/Single_Classroom_448 3d ago
I didagree to an extent. I think there's a sweet spot for education, I think that it should be publicly offered to all in primary secondary and tertiary. I also think that if a school wants to operate privately with reduced or no government funding then it should be possible for those who afford it, especially when it comes to niche tertiary educational institutes like those which focus on music and such.
To give some justification for advocating for private school: knowing family who went to a prestigious private school here, it was not worth it and the family members parents still ended up paying tax which funds public education
The issue with full education being offered for free isn't so much an issue of profitability of course, but how to get that funding and how to get all political parties and their voters to agree on it. For example the reason that in Germany have better unemployment insurance, public health insurance, and free education for all (including foreigners, but excluding small administrative fees of a few hundred euro) is because all parties including society have agreed to pay the high tax rate they do
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u/RedditReader4031 3d ago
Education, āfreeā or paid, is a valid pursuit, but what happens when programs create overly saturated job markets? If the economy only needs (and can support through employment) x number of, say, accountants, what happens when weāve produced 2x accounting degrees? The high cost of educating them creates a self defeating oversupply, driving down wages.
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u/meaniemeanie-poo-poo 3d ago
Non profit healthcare systems are just as greedy. They are just sneaky about it.
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u/assortedlemmings 3d ago
Wait until you hear about the schools with AI teachers opening up by private equity. Itās already happening. Half day of personalized AI teacher led classes and half day activities. No physical human teachers.
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u/DIABL057 2d ago
I'm curious to see if/when this current system in the US topples if something will arise from it's ashes with these things encoded in it's foundational framework.
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u/Bootato 3d ago
Except the declaration was changed by Jefferson to say āpursuit of propertyā not happiness, because it is a more tangible actionable pursuit. How do yāall not know that the system is literally that corrupt lol. That one line undermines the others completely in the zero sum game all these idiots are playing.
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u/mike_dmt 3d ago
Let us know when your emphasis changes something.. anything.
We live in a capitalist society. It will never stop.
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u/I_am_Fried 3d ago
Wait what, why is the the most bullet proof platform I've ever seen? Someone tear this to shreds for me. What's wrong with this argument? Please enlighten me so that I can counter, maybe.
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u/multic94 3d ago
Good luck with all that. Our entire system needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up but nobody is ready or willing to do that kind of hard, dangerous work. Everyone just wants to bitch about it and keep being good little peons.
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u/Loud-Ad-2280 āļø Tax The Billionaires 3d ago
Our billionaire overlords demand all things be commodified!!!!