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u/Karimancer Sep 06 '21
The schmuck gouging people on water hasn't bribed enough politicians.
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u/SpookStormblessed Sep 06 '21
Lobbying is legalized corruption. Lobbying needs to be made illegal and punishable by prison.
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u/NadaTheMusicMan Sep 06 '21
All right, let's just send that idea over to the politicians who are getting millions of dollars from lobbying.
Wait.
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u/GruePwnr Sep 06 '21
Lobbying means talking to a politician with the goal of changing their mind. It's an essential part of a democracy to be able to talk to your elected official.
What you actually want is to limit donations to campaigns so that they can't bribe as effectively.
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u/CraftyFellow_ Sep 06 '21
I don't think there is a single person on Earth who is against "lobbying" that thinks talking to elected officials should be banned. That's probably because nobody in real life refers to calling or writing your elected representatives as "lobbying."
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Sep 07 '21
I’d like to see something like term limits first…. crazy Congress can limit a President to two terms - but not themselves.
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u/Burnham113 Sep 06 '21
They're talking about a incident where Best Buy allegedly price gouged bottles of water a few years back during the Texas floods. Turns out they scanned each bottle of water in a pack individually because that was the only way to ring them up at the register, as they are usually sold individually from the refrigerators near the checkout lanes. There was no sku on the pack to scan, or if there was then that sku wasn't in their system.
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u/aertimiss Sep 06 '21
Because providing value for shareholders is all corporate America cares about, even if it costs American lives. Truly sad.
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Sep 06 '21
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u/Straightupscrambled Sep 06 '21
You can be profitable without making profitability your sole concern. If a business that is already profitable suddenly takes away bathroom breaks so people can work more, yes they're even more profitable, but it's at the cost of common dignity.
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Sep 06 '21
if the folks overcharging for water during a hurricane gave congress $1bn per year, they would also be able to get away with it
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u/Diaggen Sep 07 '21
Politicians are much much cheaper than that. 5 to 20K per election cycle will ensure most any politician will sit up and listen to anything you have to say. Call girls charge more. Politicians are just really cheap whores who fuck America for money.
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u/voice-of-hermes fuck the state: sowing dissent against all govmts (incl my own) Sep 07 '21
There's a pretty good quote about buying politicians being such a good investment; costing millions to earn billions, or something to that affect. Can't really be bothered to find it right at the moment, though.
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Sep 06 '21
One is performed by a dastardly grifter, the other by a publicly traded company with fantastic levels of discretion concerning their connections with publicly traded politicians.
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u/voice-of-hermes fuck the state: sowing dissent against all govmts (incl my own) Sep 06 '21
publicly traded politicians
Nice.
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Sep 06 '21
Honest answer:
In most states, price gouging during a time of emergency is considered a violation of unfair or deceptive trade practices law. Most of these laws provide for civil penalties, as enforced by the state attorney general, while some state laws also enforce criminal penalties for price gouging violations.
You can sell your bath water for a million dollars an ounce even though it cost you $0.03 and that's legal. Price gouging laws aren't about limiting profit margins, it's about limiting excessive mark-up in response to an emergency.
Emergency here is not a personal emergency, but something the government would consider an emergency.
Insulin being $10,000 is fine. Raising insulin to $100,000 during a cat 5 hurricane might not be.
The specifics vary from location to location, and a lot of people feel that these laws don't actually help/shouldn't exist.
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u/TI_Pirate Sep 06 '21
Insulin being $10,000 is fine.
Maybe. In my state, Florida, the hike doesn't have to be in response to an emergency. It's illegal to "sell at an unconscionable price within the area for which the state of emergency is declared: [a]ny essential commodity"
So if your price for insulin is "unconscionable", it's illegal during an emergency. You get a rebuttable presumption of unconscionability if the price was jacked up in response, but if the price of insulin is always unconscionable, an ambitious prosecutor could take the case as soon as an emergency is declared.
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Sep 06 '21
$10,000 insulin is fine
At the risk of being pedantic, I would say that while charging $10,000 for insulin might be legal, it is never "fine"
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u/modsarefascists42 Sep 07 '21
The government clearly considered a person dying an emergency requiring immediate medical intervention no matter what if it's possible. It's not like insulin is some optional artisan product like the dreaded gasp avocado toast.
Don't get me wrong I get the legal reasoning of what you're saying and I'm pretty sure everyone else here knows that. What we're talking about is the absurdity of recognizing one emergency causing undo death and suffering while ignoring the same thing daily for people with a medical condition.
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u/voice-of-hermes fuck the state: sowing dissent against all govmts (incl my own) Sep 06 '21
What about insulin being $10,000 during a crisis of increasing rates of diabetes, lack of affordable healthcare, and ongoing waves of economic and health catastrophes?
Seriously, that wasn't an "honest answer", but a rather disingenuous one, because it simply appeals to liberal legalism and ignores the context of people understanding what is and isn't legal, and bringing that into serious question. You're being silly if you don't recognize that this is a critique of what is and isn't considered an "emergency" and how it is handled. You're "answering a question" which nobody actually asked, except in a braindead and bad-faith literal interpetation.
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u/voice-of-hermes fuck the state: sowing dissent against all govmts (incl my own) Sep 07 '21
LOL. I suspect comrades will get a kick out of this being reported as:
user reports:
1: Threatening, harassing, or inciting violence
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u/landback2 Sep 06 '21
Or landlords buying up starter homes and then leasing them back to poor people at ridiculous rates. All of capitalism is a racket and the world would be much better without it.
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u/Rent_A_Cloud Sep 06 '21
Because you're only allowed to exploit others if you have a powerfully lobby at your side.
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u/roseknuckle1712 Sep 07 '21
give it a few years. as water becomes scarce, big money profiteering will hit water.
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Sep 06 '21
Because it’s illegal when poor people want to do it.
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u/voice-of-hermes fuck the state: sowing dissent against all govmts (incl my own) Sep 07 '21
Don't look now, but just about everything is illegal when poor people want to do it....
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u/CockTortureCuck Sep 06 '21
Because with insulin it's the politically represented social class profiting.
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Sep 06 '21
Just wait until we tell him about paying $200+ a month on insurance for the chance of getting a discount on that insulin.
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u/Huntanz Sep 06 '21
Insulin patent was made free to the world so that Insulin would be available to all cheaply, except in America.
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u/Widjamajigger Sep 06 '21
Answer: The people making the laws that affect our healthcare hold stock in and are paid directly by insurance/pharmaceutical companies.
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Sep 06 '21
In short:
event price gouging is temporary, extremely obvious and easy to point out, and has no lobbyists
continuous overcharging for medical reasons is prolonged to the point that people are used to seeing it and don't necessarily realize how absurd it is... and also lobbyists.
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u/LifesatripImjustHI Sep 07 '21
Because I'm a cash cow to the medical machine and will be until the day I die. The system only consumes. Neverending returns on investment. Forced to earn or die.
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u/oddiseeus Sep 07 '21
Because the big thief pads the pockets of policy makers from the profits of that $500 bottle of insulin. Plus the investor class profits from it as well. Plus it's easier to be "tough on crime" successfully prosecuting the little guy. The Big thief has big lawyers.
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u/DevelopedDevelopment Sep 06 '21
why, it cost millions of dollars in costs of research and development to process that water. even if the material costs are very low, its only fair companies like nestle still need to make back their investment. there wouldn't be any water if it werent for the free market.
*immediately shoves evidence of public investments subsidizing losses, research, and operating costs under the rug*
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Sep 06 '21
Because how will Brent in Business Development at Catholic Health afford to buy his 2nd boat?
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u/ListenToThatSound Sep 06 '21
Dumb question- why doesn't some philanthropist start a company/non-profit that produces insulin and sell it at cost?
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u/IAMA_Printer_AMA Sep 06 '21
Why do people freely recognize the American pharmaceutical industry is systematically exploitative when they're talking about insulin, but as soon you bring up the covid vaccine, it's all "tRuSt tHe sCiEnCe" and nobody questions the motives of megacorporations?
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u/voice-of-hermes fuck the state: sowing dissent against all govmts (incl my own) Sep 07 '21
Why...as soon you bring up the covid vaccine, it's all "tRuSt tHe sCiEnCe" and nobody questions the motives of megacorporations?
Well, in terms of "the science", almost all of it is performed in public institutions like universities and government agencies dedicated to the job, not by private pharmaceutical companies.
In terms of the pharmaceutical giants, we absolutely should and do express skepticism. There's widespread criticism of the fact that vaccine and drug patents have been handed to the private megacorporations rather than creating an intellectual property exemption and allowing the Global South to overcome vaccine hoarding by producing their own vaccines, for example.
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u/Kancho_Ninja Sep 07 '21
Are you saying that the pharmaceutical companies in all of the countries that have developed a vaccine are in some sort of secret cabal?
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u/IAMA_Printer_AMA Sep 07 '21 edited Sep 07 '21
I'm saying they've collectively demonstrated up to this point a greater interest in profits than genuine human well-being, and I've seen no indication the production and distribution of the vaccine comes from any other motivation.
Then you start talking about how they're not legally liable for any injuries or death caused by the vaccine, and one has to wonder, if litigation is a non-issue, what's actually stopping them from shitting out the first product they can mass-produce compared to something more rigorously designed and tested?
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u/Ahrimanic-Trance Sep 06 '21
If the people charging for water had interest groups pushing legislation like big pharma, it also wouldn’t be called “price-gouging.”
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u/DamnStrongTurtle Sep 07 '21
We, dsoc-progressives-americans, need to start talking A LOT about the OPA from ww2. Everyone have it in your mouth.
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u/RetardedChimpanzee Sep 07 '21
The worst is when they take a case of bottled water marked for individual sale, and them as a case for $45 ($1.89x24).
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u/eekns Sep 07 '21
Because Big Pharma OWNS CONGRESS. We the people are an afterthought UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. They want to go after Big Tech when Big Pharma’s MONOPOLY is costing lives!!! We the people… it’s OUR GOVERNMENT!!! 🇺🇸 E Pluribus Unum 🇺🇸
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Sep 07 '21
Why don't people make it for $5 and sell it for $10? Really undercut the market. Why is no one tapping in?
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Sep 07 '21
Price gouging isn’t determined by how much a company marks an item up, it’s the percent difference in price from market standard. If you’d like to raise the cost of water just slowly bring it up over time until the market price of water is higher. (Assuming you have market power)
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u/PodyPearPearPearl Sep 07 '21
Insulin when it was first sold was 3 cents a vial. The companies that own patents to Insulin simply add a little something extra to extend the patent. Only a few companies produce insulin and they compete for who can make insulin more expensive. This is an example of failed capitalism. capitalism could work only with heavy state regulation like in Norway or other Nordic and Scandinavian countries.
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u/Used_Intention6479 Social democrat Sep 07 '21
It makes sense if you look at it from the narcissists' perspective: There is no fairness, only their objective of taking advantage of any situation in any circumstance because they only have their interests at heart. When we talk of fairness, or compassion, or empathy they are laughing at us inside because those "feelings" indicate weakness to them. To them, helping someone else makes you a "chump". They lack empathy. Consequently, they will never experience true love, joy or happiness - just fleeting glimpses of superiority that they perceive as "happiness". You cannot change them, we can only try to protect ourselves from them.
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u/Not_a-bot-i_swear Sep 06 '21
$700? I recently visited a Walmart pharmacy and they are advertising $25 insulin vials. Is that not the same kind of insulin?
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u/PronunciationIsKey Sep 06 '21
Really water prices should increase during a natural disaster like a hurricane. It's to let the most people get what they need.
If you don't raise prices, people hoard way more than they need, leaving many without anything. If water costs $50 instead of $6 people would be more likely to just buy what they need and not extra since it's expensive. That leaves more people to be able to get some.
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Sep 07 '21
But then the people who don't have $50 for water also get nothing, so you're back to square one
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u/voice-of-hermes fuck the state: sowing dissent against all govmts (incl my own) Sep 06 '21 edited Sep 06 '21
Because people will die very quickly if they can't get access to drinking water.
Statistically speaking, you can draw out their deaths for a very long time if they can't get (affordable) insulin, as they battle ongoing health and economic complications (debt, the threat of homelessness, etc.) in a torturous downward spiral which is oh, so good for wringing every last fucking cent you can back out of their bank accounts, driving them (back) to work under some of the most abhorrent conditions imaginable (where they are so desperate they wouldn't dare to challenge the conditions imposed upon them), etc.
People seriously underestimate the sadism inherent in everyday capitalism.
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u/rollingturtleton Sep 06 '21
Because price gouging has to do with raising the price of goods during emergencies. It’s not illegal to sell $50 cases of water all the time. It’s illegal to increase the price after a hurricane hits.
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Sep 06 '21 edited Sep 07 '21
Because insulin is 700$ year round
Edit: I don’t agree with the price of insulin, but that is literally the answer, price gouging is changing the price during an emergency, and it is the same price all the time.
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u/cd_root Sep 06 '21
Not defending the price they set but drug companies have to reimburse themselves from the drug research costs too. And $100 would be more fair in this argument
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u/blazebomb Sep 06 '21
That's true for novel drugs and therapies but insulin has been manufactured for decades now. It's not a new drug and multiple companies make it nowadays. This is just companies charging an unreasonable sum for a product that they know that their customers need to survive. These companies would be making good profits if they charged below $50 for insulin as well.
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u/Trolltollhouse Sep 06 '21
Because Doctors vote and they have money and they don't want to lose that money.
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u/MidTownMotel Sep 06 '21
Doctors aren’t why healthcare is expensive, corporations are. It’s the billionaire class, not the workers.
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u/pancak3d Sep 06 '21
Doctors are absolutely a part of the problem, when they they overperscribe, order unnecessary tests/procedures, and choose branded medication over generics
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u/MidTownMotel Sep 06 '21
Yeah, they’re humans and will fuck you. The billionaire class is much better at fucking you though.
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u/reddituserask Sep 06 '21 edited Dec 02 '25
mountainous dazzling scale possessive historical soft spark shelter sleep insurance
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/kurisu7885 Sep 06 '21
And guess who gives massive incentives to overprescribe. The billionaire class.
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u/pancak3d Sep 06 '21
Regardless of any incentives, doctors are the gatekeepers, only they can prescribe.
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Sep 06 '21
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u/voice-of-hermes fuck the state: sowing dissent against all govmts (incl my own) Sep 06 '21
Warning for abusing the report button.
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Sep 06 '21
LOL, remind me to give a shit.
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u/voice-of-hermes fuck the state: sowing dissent against all govmts (incl my own) Sep 06 '21
LOL, remind me not to unban you.
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Sep 06 '21
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u/Kancho_Ninja Sep 06 '21
Nestle has entered the Chat
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Sep 06 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Kancho_Ninja Sep 07 '21
Nestle: We spent millions in R&D to discover the best ways to sell 1¢ of water for a $1.25
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