That's not the fundamental problem.

The fundamental problem is that we have ceased demanding that our government produce reasonable outcomes.

The reasons for that are many, but it's a core sign of how far we've fallen that there's even a discussion or argument about this obvious fact. We are in charge. We can just ban private equity companies from doing this you know.

There didn't used to be ambiguity about the point of having a society and having that society governed by the people and having those people's representatives solve problems like this.

That ambiguity was created on purpose, for money, by specific people. Not coincidentally, they're the same people making the profits in this story.

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bradleyjg 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> We can just ban private equity companies from doing this you know.

Ideologues love to identify some small group of bad guys that if we only rein in everything will be great.

It’s private equity! It’s health insurance executives! It’s trial lawyers! It’s CNN!

The actual truth is far worse. It’s 100 million homeowners, it’s 20 million healthcare workers, it’s an entire generation too online, etc.

There’s no magic bullets. Propagating the idea that there are is how we end up with garbage legislation and regulations that don’t improve anything.

What people need to start respecting and demanding from their government is competence. The ideologues of every stripe need to go sit in a corner for a decade or three while we build back up working institutions.

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_DeadFred_ 2 days ago | parent [-]

it's private equity.

We have more private equity funds than McDonalds, looking to do this kind of extraction everywhere, because we have huge wealth inequality and therefor those at the top needing to park more money in more places. Then end goal is modern feudalism, with the top owning everything and extracting more and more from every single transaction/event in a person's life.

We can't fix competence when we have one political party working to make the government incompetent so that they can leverage that to tear down government. They have internal politicides such as 'starve the beast', all with the goal to make American government unable to function.

	▲	bradleyjg 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		No it really isn’t. That’s just the latest in a long line of boogeymen. The prior ones being banned somehow didn’t lead to paradise on earth. California is the world champion and banning boogeymen. How’s that going for them? And it’s not just one party that’s working to make the government incompetent. Both are. One for the reasons you cite, the other because it is beholden to public employees that want more money and less work. Just visit nyc or Chicago to see how that goes.

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rayiner 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> We can just ban private equity companies from doing this you know.

From doing what exactly? Do you think small businesses are any better about cutting corners for profit? They're often worse because they have worse economies of scale and face more cost pressure.

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jfengel 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We have done quite the opposite. We have insisted that the government allow, and even encourage, unreasonable outcomes, so long as they benefit the right people at the cost of... well, if you have to ask, it's you.

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s1artibartfast 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

What was the standard of care that the government used to provide for elderly nursing in the good old days?

It seems like you are remembering a history that never existed