• protist@mander.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Everyone seems to think saying this is all he’s doing, but that’s incorrect.

    He issued an executive order in 2021 to orient his entire administration to increase enforcement of antitrust law among all departments and promote competitive practices wherever possible. There has definitely been an uptick in antitrust cases since then, and inflation has also decreased significantly.

    https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-case-filings

    • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There’s a shit load of people who would disagree with you… inflation might have decreased based on some metrics no one uses…but my $100 at the grocery store does fuck all to buy food now.

      • meco03211@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Inflation doesn’t stop though. The rate your $100 is losing value has slowed from when inflation was highest.

      • protist@mander.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Disagree with me how? The inflation rate has objectively decreased from last year and the year prior. That doesn’t mean prices have gone down, just that they’re going up now at a rate closer to the historical average over the past century. People absolutely can afford less now than 3 years ago after inflation spiked, but with it returning to average levels, wages are also starting to catch up more.

        These are all general population trends also, and can’t be used to describe or predict any one person’s situation

      • CapeWearingAeroplane@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        You have to remember: Inflation tells you how fast prices are increasing. We want a certain degree of inflation (typically around 2% is healthy for the economy). The problem occurs when inflation is too high, so that wages don’t keep up, that’s what we’re seeing now. When inflation decreases, that means prices are growing less fast, not that they’re decreasing.

        Decreasing prices (across the board) would be deflation, which is terrible (think Great Depression / 1930’s Germany terrible). If your 100$ is worth more tomorrow than it is today, then why would you spend it today? You wouldn’t (except for necessities). That leads to a massive drop in investments, not only in the “Wall street” sense, but in things like building houses, building factories, hiring people etc. it also causes wages to decrease. This goes on until production and wages hit a low point where there’s huge amounts of money in circulation, very low production/employment, and very low prices. That’s when you get a whiplash to a situation where everyone has money to buy stuff, but no one is making it, aaaaand we have HyperInflation™

        In short: Your 100$ has in fact never been worth less than now, and that’s a good thing. We just want it to decrease in value more slowly, and things are going in the right direction. It could still take a year or two for wages to catch back up, but we’ll get there. Current policies are helping the situation.

          • CapeWearingAeroplane@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            I won’t repeat the whole argument, but I have to admit like it seems you didn’t catch the core part.

            You should be able to get food and survival on basic pay. Prices should increase slowly over time. Basic pay should therefore increase at the same pace, or slightly faster, than prices are increasing. The issue you have now is not really the current inflation, but that inflation has outpaced wage growth for the past couple of years. Price growth isn’t a problem if everybodies wages increase at the same rate as the prices grow, or faster, agree?

            Now that inflation has slowed down, wages just need a little time to catch up. <= That right there is an important point. You don’t want prices to decrease to match your current pay. That breaks the economy bad. You want your wage to increase to match the current prices.

            Another major issue you have is that minimum wage hasn’t kept up with inflation, that’s a regulatory issue. Also your unions had their collective back broken a couple decades ago, that didn’t help either.

      • Techmaster@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        That’s because the inflation already happened. What you’re complaining about is that there isn’t any deflation.

        • rchive@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          When Trump dumped a bunch of money on the economy in 2020, he did contribute to a bunch of inflation, yes.

        • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          “Would you prefer the beating continue?” is not a great campaign slogan. Getting inflation under control is a good thing, and the Biden administration should receive credit for its efforts. But ordinary people are suffering right now from the effects of inflation, and when the cost of living is already unsustainable, one doesn’t want to hear that it won’t be getting significantly worse, one wants to hear that it’s getting better.

          It’s not fair that Republicans get to wreck shit (which is comparatively easy) so that Democrats have to come in and spend all their time and energy just fixing the last guy’s mess and hardly have any left to try and make any actual improvements. It’s a fundamentally broken aspect of our politics. But most voters don’t think in those terms, they think in terms of what they need to get through the day. If you can’t figure out a way to make real tangible improvements in normal peoples’ lives, you’re going to have a bad time come election day, deserved or not.

          • CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It’s just… the place where truly significant things can happen on that front is in the legislature, and they’re completely fucked. But people either put all the blame on the president, or if they recognize Congress’s role, they don’t appreciate that the Dems never had the numbers at any point during Biden’s term to do more than they managed to do.

        • rchive@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I’d prefer that the people who did the beating not be allowed to be in office anymore. There’s a lot of people on that list.

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        You seem like the kind person who, if firefighters rescued you from a burning building, would be pissed at them for not preventing the fire in the first place.

        • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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          Pissed at the firefighters, no, but I’m also not going to be jumping for joy that my house isn’t currently on fire when it is in fact a smoldering wreck. Ordinary people, people who vote, are hurting right now due to unrestrained corporate greed, and they need help beyond “It’s not getting worse right now!”

  • EveningPancakes@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    This is going to do fuck all.

    Geico decided to raise my monthly insurance rate by 129%, despite nothing on my end contributing to that (no tickets, no accidents). When I called them to make sure this wasn’t an error, essentially I was told “Sorry, parts got more expensive. Fuck off.”

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Oh boy! The president telling his bosses to stop screwing over the common people! Surely this will not backfire in any way whatsoever! /s

    • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      If history is any indication, Republicans will definitely not take the side of corporations over consumers, right?

        • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Republican Party is pro-corporation above all else.

          Democrats could probably do more for consumers, but I have way more faith that they will actually try to do more.

            • Captain Poofter@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              How many Republicans can you list that specifically don’t accept corporate donations? As far as I know, that’s only among democrats.

          • kttnpunk@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’m happy for you, but I don’t share that optimism. Biden is a self-proclaimed capitalist, he’s let ICE and the IDF keep doing their horrible crimes, certainly doesn’t give a fuck about COVID, and time has practically ran out in regards to the climate situation…

            • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              While I agree, I do think there’s a major difference between Biden and Trump and between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party when it comes to all those things.

              Yes, Biden and the Democratic Party could do better. Sure. But it’s still a thousand times better than anything Trump and the Republican Party want for this world. That’s how I see it anyway.

              • kttnpunk@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                “Could do better” is useless when we need “exceptional” more than ever, IMHO. The goalposts have shifted so far right since 2016…

                • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  Sure, but I’m going to support the party that wants to do the most. Voting Republican or not voting will just go the opposite direction. That doesn’t help anyone except those who want to take up back to the 1950s.

        • cameron_vale@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Which do you prefer?

          We’re all vampires here. You, me, them. Everybody.

          Or

          Those guys are vampires but we aren’t. Let’s hug.

  • Endorkend@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Since corporations are expected to display near continuous growth, they literally can’t stop the gouging.

    Until they are forced to somehow, things will get worse.

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      1 year ago

      Absolutely and that is how they should behave,with the law/regulations reigning them in. It is the latter part that has been hijacked by highly centralized groups with lots of money and we the people not making much noise about it. They think they are cleaver, but what they fail to understand is that tipping the rules to make it a free for all, sucks the oxygen out of the economy as we are seeing and all will suffer including their businesses. Fools

  • Hominine@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Was traveling last month and just saw Xfinity decided to raise my internet-only bill by 40 bucks a month, and the second charge just went through. Not even an email on the rate increase from what I can tell, just a notification that I got Peacock streaming “included” (a 5.99 value).

    Looking forward to the call tomorrow. Any advice outside of staying zen and remembering the human on the other end of the line?

    • flipht@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Just remember that it’s business. It should be boring. They raised your rate, it isn’t worth that price to you, and be bored with asking them to process the cancellation.

      If it is worth some price to you, they may offer you another deal. Know what you’re willing to accept, but don’t expect anything.

      Also, you may be able to bypass all of this by checking to see if you can cancel from their app or website.

      • TechyDad@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The problem with Internet service providers is that they are pretty much needed in the modern era and they are often monopolies.

        For example, I have Spectrum. I use the Internet for light data items like posting on social media and checking email, but also heavier data uses like working from home and streaming videos.

        If Spectrum decided that my monthly rate was going up by 100%, I could theoretically cancel my service, but I wouldn’t have anywhere to go to. There are no other ISPs in the area. I work from home as a web developer and so can’t be without Internet access.

        Spectrum has me and they know it. Thanks to being a monopoly, the price isn’t “whatever the customer will pay,” it’s “whatever the monopoly says it is.”

        • SwampYankee@mander.xyz
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          1 year ago

          Ah, but see, they’re not a monopoly because you can get DSL or a 5G hotspot! Those are viable alternatives, right?

          ~ FCC

        • Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          This is why I consider Starlink, despite being owned by Elon Musk, so important. It’s creating competition in places where there is none, because it doesn’t need to run cables which nobody wants to do.

          You should check whether it’s available in your area, and if it is, when you talk to Spectrum you know you have a backup, and can even say so.

          Similarly, if their service isn’t as fast as Starlink, you can say that as a reason for cancelling, and if you convince a bunch of neighbors to do the same, the landline isp may be inclined to upgrade the cables to try and get the business back.

          Though really, we should have a government run satellite internet like Starlink as a ‘base level’ provider for all. Let companies compete and do better if they want business.

          • TechyDad@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’ve looked into satellite Internet before and it’s typically slow speeds with low data caps for a lot of money.

            I just checked StarLink’s site and it doesn’t look like much competition to cable Internet. The cost is $120 a month which is double what I’m currently paying. In addition, I would need to pay $600 for the equipment to connect to their service. Meanwhile, I get a free cable modem from Spectrum or can buy one for well under $100.

            The speeds seem more reasonable than other satellite Internet providers, so there’s at least that plus. I also couldn’t find any data limits, which is good.

            Still, that price point keeps it from being an effective competition to Spectrum. If Spectrum threatened to increase my rates to $80 a month, I couldn’t exactly threaten to leave for a $120 a month (and $600 initial equipment cost) service.

            • KnightontheSun@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              The costs and it’s owned by the Muskrat, so I could not do it. I went with the T-mo home internet ($50/mo) option as a backup to our crummy DSL (20Mb). The cell service is faster during off-peak times and it is nice having the backup service since we WFH often.

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      1 year ago

      YMMV, but I’ve ended up with substantially better deals twice now just by calling. It’s getting harder to get a live human, but they have more flexibility. I too have internet only, so no bund discounts either.

      • Maxxus@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I had to get Xfinity on the line for my grandmother last year. The phone options for modifying or canceling an account or service went to holds that eventually just dropped the call. The option for adding a service went right to a human though and they were able to cancel the services anyway.

        • sramder@lemmy.world
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          Even the “tip” one of their support people gave me for getting a live human faster stopped working this year… it’s a crap company, but they are definitely the best deal on my block.

          This years evil award goes to Frontier Communication who we’re charging my folks $35/month for DSL that maxed out at 7 megabits a second. And (I kid you not) commercials for those “I’ve fallen and can’t get up pendants” if you call the support line after 5 or on a weekend. Scamming old people is now an acceptable corporate business model.

      • liara@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        A bit late to your comment but they simply don’t want you to talk to a human. It’s that easy. Talking to a human results in empathy, which results in giving away of deals the management doesn’t really want you to give out.

        They’d rather you get frustrated at being able to not reach a human and then you just give up and be a good sheep and pay what you’re expected to.

        Oh, unless you want to cancel, in which case it will take no less than 10 different humans bouncing you off various departments and scripts because making it easy to cancel also results in bad metrics

    • Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Spectrum pulled some similar BS on me. They magically added their tv streaming subscription to my bill when all I have with them is internet. I will say the cust service rep was extremely helpful but that shit better not be on my bill anymore.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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    1 year ago

    Too tired to cook tonight, my wife already cooked for herself, so I hopped on GrubHub:

    That’s before GrubHub fees, delivery fees, driver tip.

    A single Whopper meal with all that included:

    Meal - $16.47 (large sized)
    Delivery Fee - $0.99
    Service Fee - $2.14
    Total - $19.60

    Add a tip for your driver (20% suggested) $3.72

    (No idea how they’re getting that… $3.72 would be 20% of $18.60 so I guess they’re calculating it based on the meal + the service fee?)

    Regardless, $3.72 is a shit tip for a delivery driver, $4 is my minimum.

    So dinner, for one person, delivered, $23.60.

    Anyone remember when a Whopper was $0.99?

    (yeah, no, made a sandwich instead)

    • Vespair@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      That’s not actually before all fees though, because on top of the fees you mentioned that GrubHub/door dash/etc list clearly, they also directly mark-up the food prices from the menu of the restaurants they list. If you ordered the same exact items for pickup through the BK app, they would be noticeably cheaper.

      Not to say fast food prices haven’t and aren’t rising, or that they haven’t become expensive for what they offer, but listing a GrubHub price as prove of that point is disingenuous and misleading

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        1 year ago

        Well, it’s not quite fair comparing a pick up price to a delivery price either, but here’s what I’ll do… When I go out today I’ll get you the menu price at the drive through and the app price with pickup and delivery.

        • Vespair@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Yes but when you say “remember when a whopper was $0.99” that implies apples to apples, not apples to oranges as is the reality of your comment. Further, it is not BK that upcharges the prices, it is GrubHub.

          So yes, it’s not fair comparing pick up price to delivery price, but you were the one who first did that, not me.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        1 year ago

        Exact same meal, for delivery, through the official BK app is the same price. Fees make a minor difference, it actually comes out to be slightly more expensive than GrubHub.

        vs. $13.18 for picking it up myself.

        • Vespair@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Yes, because BK doesn’t deliver. They contract Doordash or Grubhub for delivery, and thus use their pricing. Again, comparing delivery to pickup is unfair, yet you did it in the first place. This was literally the entire point of my comment.

    • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If you don’t like delivery fees then go pick it up yourself. It’s always been this way.

      • sue_me_please@awful.systems
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        1 year ago

        It’s not just the delivery fees, it’s the markup of the food. It used to be that you paid the same menu prices for delivery or pickup, and the only additional fee was the tip for the delivery driver if you didn’t pick it up yourself.

        Here we have the food being significantly marked up (a Whopper meal is usually ~$8 dollars depending on where you are, not $18), on top of a delivery fee, on top of platform fee, on top of a delivery tip.

        • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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          Yes so stop using these stupid apps. Get in your car, drive the 5 minutes it takes to get there, and order it straight from the restaurant.

          Otherwise you’re spending a fortune to be lazy. No point complaining about the prices if you can’t pry yourself off from your couch.

          • sue_me_please@awful.systems
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            1 year ago

            I don’t use them, but this is a false dichotomy. It isn’t “don’t use them or shut up”, I’m going to talk about the blatant price gouging whether you like it or not.

            • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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              Talk about it all you want. As long as there are idiots out there supporting the business it will be around and will continue to price gouge. It’s the entire nature of the business and it won’t be going away.

              You’re paying for convenience. I just don’t see the point in complaining about it.

              • sue_me_please@awful.systems
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                You’re paying for convenience for literally everything, and this price gouging has effects on the market as a whole by raising price points.

                If delivery apps find that people will pay 30% more for a Big Mac, plus several additional fees and tip, it only makes sense for McDonald’s to eventually raise Big Mac prices by 0-30%, minus any fee or tip because there are none.

            • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Ya driving to get food is so iNsAnE.

              Better to just starve to death instead.

              • KeenFlame@feddit.nu
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                1 year ago

                Yep. Car, bike, bus, or buy food and cook. There are ways of not destroying the planet that exist

                • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  How do you buy food and cook without going to the store? How do I get to the store when there isn’t a bus service near me? How do I ride a bike to the store when the nearest store is several miles away?

                  Telling someone that using a car to get food is insane is literally the dumbest shit I’ve ever read on this site when America wasn’t designed for what you’re suggesting. If you live in a major city not using a car is doable, and practically impossible any where else.

                  Way to be ignorant. Typical internet arm chair warrior without a clue. Thanks for your “advice” dumb ass.

                  You sound like a kid who still lives with mommy and daddy.

    • Cheems@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You realize getting food delivered is a luxury right? Use coupons and go pick it up yourself

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        1 year ago

        To some extent, sometimes the capitalist meat grinder of work, commuting, lack of time for self-care, parenting expectations, mental health struggles, etc. etc. means people have exactly zero energy left to leave the house after getting home (esp. if there’s no one to stay home with the kids so it means herding tired kids into the car), let alone cooking something up if there wasn’t a recent grocery order and all the easy stuff has been eaten.

        Jesus, I feel exhausted just typing out the hypothetical.

        • Captain Poofter@lemmy.world
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          Am disabled. If it weren’t for grubhub i wouldn’t eat anything but canned soup and frozen meals, and the absurd prices for all the fees and mark ups kill my measly ss payment. Some luxury. I’ll get downvoted for this, I’m sure.

  • halfempty@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I would like to see more concrete actions limiting corporate price-gouging, and not just words. Corporations aren’t going to do anything just because the president says “stop doing it”.

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      There’s a big uptick in antitrust action under the Biden administration. There’s more than just talk here and the administration is trying to push this in a progressive direction. Unfortunately, the regulatory agencies and courts are infected with neoliberalism due to 4 decades of neoliberal domination of our government, economy, and society, so it’s not as successful as it may have been in, say, the 70s. But that just means we need to keep that rudder pinned to the left until we get there. The absolute worst thing we could do right now for this and so many other reasons is elect a republican.

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      Until we get a wealth tax, nothing will change. And even then, all the rich folks will just move out of the country.

    • KeenFlame@feddit.nu
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      Why do you assume that’s all he do? I like that news headlines make you think sweetie but don’t just take them literally

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        1 year ago

        It’s not even a start. You should be able to criticize ineffective or inconsequential actions that are clearly made to assure the public that something is being done without actually accomplishing anything without someone calling it “a start”.

        To be clear, while my tone here could easily be interpreted as aggressive towards you, I don’t meant it to be that way. It’s nice to think that maybe someone in the government actually wants to help the average worker and is actually willing to stand up to our capitalists but it simply isn’t the case. Our government officials not only profit from the capitalist we are asking the to limit but they often are those very capitalist.

    • CapeWearingAeroplane@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      There have been actions as well. Among them an EO to the administration to work harder on antitrust enforcement. This has resulted in a significant increase in antitrust cases.

      When you see Biden “just talk about something” it’s a pretty safe bet to assume that quite a bit is already happening behind the curtains, or even in the open. He’s talking about it to bring attention to it as well.

  • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Our union finally got our contract after 11 months of negotiation signed… and our health insurance immediately hiked to eat the difference in raises and COLA.

    Every level of employee is just getting their wages hoovered by insurance, just about everywhere.

    • rchive@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      This is why individual insurance is better. You can switch to a better provider without convincing a large bureaucracy first.

  • profdc9@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Wait! I thought free market competition was supposed to ensure the consumer gets the best value for the lowest price. Don’t tell me that the free market isn’t working?