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Living within a living, loving planet
Posts tagged capitalism
Flight Prices
Sep 24th
Thomas Cook customers in shock over flight prices
By Katie Hope Business reporter, BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49805534
“Thomas Cook customers have accused airlines of cashing in on the holiday firm’s demise after being faced with high bills to book replacement flights.
People who booked flights with the company, now trying to find replacement deals, told the BBC that in some cases prices for the flights have tripled.
Holidaymaker Angela Mills said a flight from Glasgow to Rhodes, Greece, was £280 on Sunday, but was now £1,000.”
This is full on exploitation and seems to be the behaviour of an economic system that has reached maturity. For instance, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, there is an annual balloon festival lasting for a week. For many years, almost all Albuquerque motels raise their price significantly, some nearly double, for that week. Two years ago, I only found one motel, where I stayed, that did not raise their price. last year, that motel followed the rest. For many miles around Albuquerque, prices were significantly higher. In California, south of San Jose and down to at least San Luis Obispo, motel prices nearly double every Friday and Saturday nights. The answer to how much is your house worth? Is what somebody is willing to pay. The principle, of course falls under the subject of supply and demand. Notice the screaming absence of cost of production here. In many restaurants in the UK, the cost of a couple of the cheapest vegetables on a plate is right up there with the cost of a plate of 1 veg, a roast potato and roast beef. So, actually you pay for the room you take up in the restaurant.
No wonder Russia finally adopted capitalism!
“John Strickland, an airline analyst at JLS Consulting.”
“If the airlines don’t make profits where they can on a minority of flights then they don’t stand a chance of surviving.”
A Nationwide Scandal
Jul 21st
The Nationwide Scandal Hiding in Plain Sight
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-nationwide-crisis-hiding-in-plain-sight/
“While the investigation mostly focused on California care homes, what Gollan discovered is a nationwide problem hiding in plain sight, “blend[ing] in to neighborhoods. What’s worse is that the proliferation of these homes, made possible through lax regulations is leading people to join what many see as a get-rich-quick scheme by opening and operating an elderly care facility.
“[Operators] know they can suppress workers’ wages, and then take in $4,000 a month from seniors and make up the difference,” the journalist tells Scheer on the latest installment of his podcast. “There are many, many entrepreneurs on YouTube promoting this business in particular as a money-making machine, and a place where you can get into the business, the real estate end of the business, flip a house, make a few adjustments, and care for a bunch of seniors, open a care home and make a lot of money.”
“JG: Well, so that’s the median cost per resident to stay in one of these care homes per month. So these care homes can often make, from six residents, about $250,000 a year. And so you can see why it would be quite lucrative. And they’re basically promising to provide all of the care that many, you know, working parents cannot provide to their parents, because they’re caring for their children, for example. So they’re filling a need, and the industry has grown incredibly over the last decade, and they’re taking on these increasingly ill patients.”
This reminds me of the “Grapes of Wrath” John Steinbeck, 1939. Could it really be that these kinds of exploitative practices have been going on for centuries? Capitalism has matured and become the most exploitative institution the world has ever known. Married to materialism, this union has established a worldview that will take this civilisation down.