Doesn't add up

Comments

• BussyGyatt@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Jesse Welles - The Poor

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• bobbyfiend@retrolemmy.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  A lot of it (definitely not all of it) seems to be that Americans want things and don’t want to pay for them. They demand care for the elderly but refuse to pay what it costs to staff a decent facility. They want healthcare but refuse to pay what healthcare workers are worth. But far more than that, they refuse to pay more than absolutely minimal taxes, unless they are terrified into doing so–fear of foreigners, Black people, immigrants, communism, etc. They’ve been believing politicians for decades who promise them the moon with no tax increases.

  So Americans want healthcare but refuse to vote for a candidate who will divert money from cops or weapons toward making it affordable. They want college education for all their kids but keep voting for candidates who are Tough On Crime and Tough On Government Corruption while dodging questions about funding public education. They want better wages and jobs but keep voting for “pro business” candidates who remove regulations so companies can outsource the jobs to nations with cheaper labor. They want cheaper prices on everything but keep voting for candidates who block antitrust regulations and remove barriers to shareholder stock buybacks.

  There’s just enough distance between the voting decisions and their consequences that voters can convince themselves–they’re motivated to–that the consequences are not connected to their decisions, and they’re always provided with a raft of rationalizations in case they figure it out. It’s motivated reasoning on top of ignorance. Like all good cons, these prey on the selfishness and greed of the hundred million or so marks.

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  • Dnb@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Swing and a miss

    The issue isn’t paying for it. It’s paying for it and not getting anything in return.

    Daycare costs the same as a full time job, and there are a dozen kids there, yet the workers there earn minimal wages.

    Healthcare is the same, pay thousands yearly for insurance just to pay thousands more of you ever need to go to the hospital or anything outside a routine preventative checkup

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    • bobbyfiend@retrolemmy.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I never said we get what we think we’re refusing to pay for, just that Americans think they can get something for nothing.

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  • Doomsider@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This is not up to your average American worker. They don’t choose where their money goes after they spend it and they don’t the have a real choice otherwise. There is no well known burger joint that pays their workers a living wage. These are ultimately the decisions American business leaders make.

    American managers do generally pay a much better salary to healthcare workers but only because the profit margins are insane and often literally made up.

    As far as paying taxes it really depends on where you live. Certainly the fear of paying taxes exists in depressed red states but most blue states and metropolitan areas pay more taxes and get more services because of it. People live in these areas because they are good for families.

    What America wants and what they vote for are two different things and this is related to politicians not being held accountable for anything. You can say you will do one thing and the moment you are elected you can do just the opposite without consequence.

    Voting in the US has pretty much become just a rubber stamp for what the wealth want. If people won’t vote for it, they just do it anyways as seen in the current administration. This is because the government was designed by the wealthy for the wealthy and democracy exists only as a facade at the Federal level.

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• minorkeys@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  You can’t wrap your head around the economy being a wealth extraction system and not a society?

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• atro_city@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  !twnw

  The money is flowing upwards

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• Emi@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’ll never understand the economy. To me it’s just imaginary money. I did understand some parts of it thanks to the explained with bananas videos by Primate economics but that’s about it.

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• Zephyr@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I think someone wrote a manifesto about this once.

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  • Patrikvo@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Another one got caught today, it’s all over the papers. “Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal”, “Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering”… Damn kids. They’re all alike.

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• Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The rent is super expensive, that’s the answer

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• UnspecificGravity@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Just like with everything, the US economic system creates a bunch of rent-seeking middle men who need to get paid to deliver any service that the public needs. The more necessary the service the bigger the piece they get, we call these “insurance companies” and their job is to take money out of every public service and they are effective because they can get the government to create a system that makes the mandatory in order to conduct business.

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• themaninblack@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  What’s the cost difference between this and hiring rotating shifts of nurses anyway? I know the equipment wouldn’t be there but yeah

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  • CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    A lot of people need more care than just a nurse, they need meds and to be monitored and medical aids or devices, like special beds or lifts.

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    • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Also the social aspect is pretty sognifcant

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• fira@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Corporate greed pal. No one tell Luigi

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• cavitationfetishist01@quokk.au ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The ‘I just don’t understand’ shit pisses me off so much.

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• WoodScientist@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’m no libertarian, but a major problem is that a lot of our industries are severely over regulated. Regulations are usually a good thing, but often they are pushed by big business to prevent future competition. If the only way to comply with the law is to retain a staff of lawyers, then it becomes impossible for individuals to set up small operations.

  For example, there’s no reason we couldn’t have micro nursing homes set up in individual private homes. Maybe a trio of licensed nurses can operate one out of a home. Maybe they can care for up to half a dozen patients.

  Yes, this does induce additional risk of abuse and neglect, but I would argue that is probably less likely to occur at such a human facility than one run by a big corporation. And maybe accepting a bit more risk is worth it if it allows people to get card they otherwise would be shut out from.

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  • AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Like a group home?

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    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yes, but more for nursing home care.

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• dewey_mcbrewster@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Well, let’s look at the math briefly.

  First, what should a nurse make?

  Add 20% cut to this for your risk and management.

  Then, how many people should the nurse care for?

  (Nurse pay * 1.20)/patients=cost per patient

  (22*1.20)/5=5.28 per hour 24 hours per day So 126.72 a day Roughly 3,8000 a month per patient just for nurse care. Not including housing, utilities, food, or medication.

  Alternatives could be mandatory civic or military duty at 18 for a few years and nursing duty could be in there?

  Another alternative could be inmate care, paying minimum wage in municipal bonds, as a way to work off a sentence?

  Pay nurses less, requiring less certification?

  Outsource nursing to countries where wage arbitrage can be leveraged?

  Obviously this was fast and dirty but illustrates the expense.

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  • Dookieman12@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    “Sorry, we can’t afford $3,800/month for nurses; this year, we only made $100 billion more than last year. Sorry, it just isn’t in the budget. You know times are hard, we all have to be a team player and buckle down here if we’re all gonna get through this together.”

    That’s what you sound like.

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  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Why the actual fuck would anyone think admin fees per employee would be percentage of salary?

    That makes no sense.

    It’s roughly 17k/year, regardless of if you pay $5/hr or 5k/hr.

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    • dewey_mcbrewster@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I was thinking more like 20 percent markup as a profit margin. Other fees not included yet

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  • atro_city@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    "we can't pay for basic services because we started another war that's costing us trillions"

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  • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    While better pay for care workers could end up being a problem resulting in higher costs, when people like you bring up this topic it is without addressing the potential cost savings to be had by clawing back “administrative” costs.

    Yes, there is absolutely some level of administration needed, and no one is arguing that we should make some aspect of care worse to enable better pay for nurses and other care staff.

    The argument generally is that there is more than significant overpay happening at high levels (executive and levels close to them) which could be drawn from at little to no noticable difference to the executives and overpaid themselves while significantly improving things for the levels below them.

    Oh no, one of them made 3m in a year instead of 4m? That’s 5 whole six-figure positions even with your 20% overhead.

    Until such time as these sorts of hypothetical talks about the impact of raising pay begin to also including the hypothetical that this additional pay could come by redirecting money that already exists and already goes into these systems, examining executive compensation packages and the like, you aren’t going to make any ground on the “costs” argument.

    Because there’s currently a lot more than 20% of expenses going to “overhead”. Maybe 20% to administrative overhead, plus 50% to executive compensation packages.

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    And look, I get that not every exec is Musk, and the margins can be smaller than people may assume. I have family that run a small family business who have to make those sorts of decisions and costs absolutely do add up fucking quick.

    But that’s all the more reason to be open and honest about this shit instead of trying to frame this with only one side.

    There probably are some hospitals out in podunk nowhere where there isn’t anything left to cut from the execs and administration, but there are plenty of places (at least in the US) that are explicitly for profit.

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    So just as I have family running a small family business where things are fair for their grand total of… four employees I think, my wife’s family used to be close with the elder care magnate in their area. Wife’s family matriarch was close friends with the lady who married the elder care magnate.

    We had to sit and watch this entitled bitch have a puff-piece novel ghost-written about the trauma of having a dedicated live in care team for her own mother while she declined, dedicated driver and multiple handlers so they could go on beach days still… while her former supposed best friend (my wife’s mother) suffered in one of her husband’s facilities. Had the audacity to message asking if there was anything she could do, but couldn’t even get off her ass and visit. To even risk seeing the true mess of elder care as her husband ran it.

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    So yeah, all that shit to say: Yes, the money has to come from somewhere, but there’s a whole bunch of fucking money right fucking there that keeps going into hoards instead of actually being put to use for the betterment of the company/workers/etc.

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• stoly@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Something something government is bad something something private industry.

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• Malyca@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It adds up when you consider the parasites.

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