That 90% of the people who don't watch sports on Cable TV subsidize it to the tune of 10% of their bill for the 10% of people who watch it
this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
386 points (98.2% liked)
Asklemmy
43965 readers
1254 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
capitalism
ITT: Things people personally think are scammy, but not actual legally-defined scams.
load more comments
(3 replies)
HR departments in corporate jobs.
Iβm not sure you know what the word βscamβ means.
You don't want to deal with the shit HR handles for you.
I'm sure there are plenty of bad, bureaucratic messes, but 3/4 of the HR departments I the last 10 years have been quite helpful.
The outlier was just not very communicative, but otherwise good.
Maybe it's the industry. I work in clinical so we're used to documenting the fuck out of everything. HR mandated documentation is just another step to cover all of our asses.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Lottery's the expected value is always lower than the prize of a ticket. And even if you win it is on the back of other poor desparete people who lost. An then there is the fact winning often leads to a lot of other problems.
load more comments
(3 replies)
in general.
When some talking head talks about why 
today or today, the real reason is "insiders traded it that way" with a mix of "this is how rich assholes feel."
Neither are scams but the UK is fond of permanently doing temporary things. Income tax in the UK was first imposed as a temporary measure to fund the Napoleonic Wars but after Waterloo it was never repealed since it brought in so much. Same sort of deal for the 70 mph national speed limit, it was a temporary measure in the 1960s apparently in response to someone caning it down the motorway in an AC Cobra and as we know, thereβs nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Enron, perhaps. I think it qualifies.
A good documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron:_The_Smartest_Guys_in_the_Room
Phoebus Cartel, essentially the few oligopolistic light bulb companies got together and colluded and intentionally reduced the lifespan of light bulbs.
load more comments
(6 replies)
Battle Passes
But in history it took forever for people in Holland to realize that Tulips are not worth entire plots of land
load more comments
(4 replies)
Neoliberalism!
The second is financialization.
Both are huge scams still running.
1950 to present antipsychotics whose severe side effects are written off as crazy talk.
load more comments
(4 replies)
The Bernie Madoff investment scandal. Started in the 1970βs and continued into the 2000βs. It eventually dissolved in 2008 during the financial crisis. Thereβs a really great documentary on Netflix about it.