Squilliam wrote:Parasitism:
Rising health care costs. Doctors get paid in the U.S.A. twice that what other countries get paid, rising costs of prescription medicine and they work the system to get it.
Copyright laws that never expire. Means never ending profit streams for large media companies, and lower competition for media. Keep wanting to extend them too.
College/education costs rising at a fast rate. Everyone looks at everyone else it seems, but no-one claims they are raking in the money and yet the money is being raked in.
Zoning laws designed to prevent development to keep prices up. Massive drain on the economy at ~10% of GDP, and it is a significant reason preventing social/economic mobility for the poor.
Development of new government agencies of dubious benefit. Nice jobs for a certain segment.
Retirement benefits that exceed the money paid in -- Many, but not all baby boomers.
Alimony/Child support payments that are crippling. Shared parental opposed to prevent this gravy train, also means if you hate your job you're stuck in it. Lose your job, but don't lose the payments -- nice... Lifestyle choice for some to find a relatively wealthy guy and get pregnant off him.
Monopoly/Oligopoly companies: Where did anti-trust go? Oh that's right. Lobbied out of existence.
Crony capitalism. Get nice kickbacks if you lobby the right people. You can see it in the excessively expensive contracts. Tell me again why it costs 5* more to build a tunnel in the U.S.A. as compared to Spain, and Spain isn't exactly the lowest graft country out there. Maybe the ones in the U.S.A. are significantly better at it?
Not-for-profit sector: Really cushy jobs, but don't neglect to pay their upper echelons extremely well. Funny example -- our homeless problem in Auckland is massive, but they pay their 'team leaders' over $100,000 and their 'managers' over $150,000 and yet can't afford to paint the front of their building or improve the quality of the beds/expand their services.
Middle class welfare: Essentially transfer payments from the rich to the middle class, but somehow not the poor because they don't vote. Tax credits/bonuses are everywhere, and spending 'somehow' gets captured by the middle classes, wonder why...
Excluded: Poor sobs. They're already miserable enough anyway. If you're on 'disability' and drugged off your rockers on legal heroin then I doubt you're living 'the life'.
Parasitism is an essential part of capitalism because of the use of money combined with maximization of profit due to competition.