The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

Post by ta1243 » Mon, Sep 22, 2025, 10:20 AM UTC

rkomorn wrote: post #42

Workaccount2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that most people just want stuff free. They say stuff like they whitelist, or donate (it certainly brings lots os social praise) but if you have ever been on the other side, you know that virtually nobody does this.

There's also a very real factor that we now consume from dozens if not hundreds of sources per month. The overhead, as a consumer, of managing any of this as actual subscriptions, transactions, or membership to some (likely multiple) sort of ecosystem would be substantial, even beyond just the money aspect.

Post by croon » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 8:18 AM UTC

croon wrote: post #130

spwa4 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that is not a property of private industry ... or I should say, it is, but it is not a difference with public industry. In public industry the name of the game is to maximize subsidy for minimal actual work done. Lots of people, but nothing happens. If you were alive in the 80s you would have seen this in action. People who "work" ... but not much at all. Many people, but zero activity. I'm told it was much worse…

There are inherent incentives for the behavior I described (and I described those incentives) with the private industry, but those are absent from public institutions. An absence of an incentive does not equal an opposite or corresponding countering incentive. It could of course pan out like you describe, but the only guarantee for it is if humans are inherently lazy, and while I agree some are I don't believe this t…