• MangoCats@feddit.it
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    1 day ago

    What I’m talking about is abuse of those complaint systems which is only rectifiable via lawsuit. The abuse lies in the low cost (50€?) of filing a complaint, the corruptability / apathy-indifference of the complaint handling agency, and the relatively high cost of seeking justice vs un-just complaints. In theory, complaint processing at the agencies should filter out frivolous, harassing and otherwise improper complaints - but that’s very frequently not how things run, not all the time.

    just corruption shining through, something like that (samples) should only be done in set intervals f.e. Man, the US really sucks.

    Yep. I’m thinking more and more what “made us great” in the past was the relative youth of our institutions. The longer these things run the further from ideal they tend to become. I would be very much in favor of institutional reform to attempt to continually improve these situations, but of course “institutional reform” is often a cover for fast-track corruption enabling.

    A lot of the money from massive companies doesn’t end up inside the US government’s treasury.

    Dystopian future stories about global corporate rule making governments irrelevant have been around for a long long time - the US is continuing to develop in that direction, but we do have at least a little further to go before we completely get there (even with recent accelerations in some areas.)

    • Vinstaal0@feddit.nl
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      1 day ago

      Yep. I’m thinking more and more what “made us great” in the past was the relative youth of our institutions. The longer these things run the further from ideal they tend to become. I would be very much in favor of institutional reform to attempt to continually improve these situations, but of course “institutional reform” is often a cover for fast-track corruption enabling.

      I am not sure if this is even correct, The Netherlands as it currently is, is pretty young, but people have been living in Europe for ages. We are one of the countries with the lowest corrupt, we do pay a lot of corrupt nations/people though, but that is a different story.

      Dystopian future stories about global corporate rule making governments irrelevant have been around for a long long time - the US is continuing to develop in that direction, but we do have at least a little further to go before we completely get there (even with recent accelerations in some areas.) It is hard for people in the US to make a choice other than support these companies, mom and pop stores are an alternative. In Europe, I am seeing a trend that we are more focusing on EU based alternatives or even better national based alternatives. (or open source, even better imo)

      • MangoCats@feddit.it
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        3 hours ago

        people have been living in Europe for ages. We are one of the countries with the lowest corrupt, we do pay a lot of corrupt nations/people though, but that is a different story.

        Netherlands specifically did a pretty significant reboot after WWII, and again in 1983? even if the base Constitution was established in 1814 / 1848. The US has been screwing around with a women’s rights amendment to our Constitution for over 100 years and we still can’t get that done - which I attribute to all kinds of entrenched interests blocking change for the better for most people because the special interests might be a little inconvenienced.

        It is hard for people in the US to make a choice other than support these companies, mom and pop stores are an alternative. In Europe, I am seeing a trend that we are more focusing on EU based alternatives or even better national based alternatives. (or open source, even better imo)

        My grandparents’ generation (born in the 1910s, formative young adult years during the Great Depression) pushed a strong “never spend a cent you don’t have to” ethos on my parents, and my parents pushed that hard on me. That ethos is pervasive throughout rural America, and when a Wal Mart Supercenter opens they undercut Mom and Pop stores by just enough margin to push that “can’t pass up a better deal” ethos in the local population. Mom and Pop stores usually go unprofitable and close within a year or two of a WalMart opening anywhere within 100km. The customers could afford to still patronize Mom and Pop and ignore WalMart, but that “save a penny whenever you can” ethos wins out. Of course once Mom and Pop are out of business, WalMart goes on to raise prices higher than Mom and Pop used to charge - big data analysis tells 'em just how much they can charge for each of their tens to hundreds of thousands of items to achieve their customer acquisition / retention goals. Meanwhile, Mom and Pop still had stick-on paper price tags on their merchandise when they went out of business.