Biggest scam you didn’t know was a scam

[Sillysausage2]

Lighthearted 😂
I saw an Instagram post earlier about the biggest thing you don’t realise is a scam and we all accept as normal.
We all have stories about how our parents raised 7 kids etc in a 3 bed if they were lucky, my grandparents had 9 in a 2 bed 😂
the aim for everyone now is buying or building massive houses, 3 en suites at least, we spend the weekends in Ikea, home bargain etc buying shit we don’t need and cleaning the houses with the 4 bathrooms!
I swear I’ve spent more Time cleaning the legs of chairs than is reasonable and I seem to wash the walls of my bathroom far more than people ever mentioned.
I don’t remember my mother ever cleaning the panelling on the walls.
is it all a scam? Are we busy fools?
sometimes I got to centre Parcs like places and think how simple my life would be if we al only had one suitcase each

I’m annoyed that the magazines I read as a teenager and young woman persuaded me that my pale skin tone was somehow embarrassing and that I needed fake tan in the summer. These magazines were relentless in this message - for example, they shamed soap stars on the red carpet who didn’t have tanned legs.

These magazines also made me paranoid about body hair and encouraged me up spend my money shopping for clothes and cosmetics I didn’t really need.

I think social media is the devil here, everyone seems to want an instagramable wedding that stands out on social media so that their hundreds of followers will be impressed (and maybe jealous). A wedding I went to last year even had a sign up reminding us to use the hashtag #BenandLeahswedding (not their real names).

Back in the 90s and 00s a wedding meant the service, reception bit of dancing and everyone taking photos on their Kodak 35mm film cameras, that would then take at least a fortnight to get the photos developed. Once you finished the roll of course. And there were always some hilarious wrong ones, my poor nan was mortified to have cut the head off one of my cousins in every photo she took at his wedding.
No idea how as he's not ever that tall! But it's always made us laugh.
Nowadays a less than perfect shot on our phone is deleted right away.

Any clothing with the word equestrian in front of it!

From yesterday bus ticket pricing.

They've done away with return tickets after having them bus only for a while- so price had gone from £4.20 return to needing two £3.50 - so now £7 per adult to next twon.

I've seen no advertising about it and it wasn't clear on website so couldn't work out if a group ticket would be cheaper - it would have been - though no longer get one for local area. Currently children and under 25 can still get returns but as some point those will be phased out.

Last few years group tickets are now entire huge geographical area and the one that used to be to just nearest town are gone. So daily group or daily single same price to travel so costs same to travel 50 miles as it does to next town. However I don't need to travel 50 miles on regular basis but next town or city would be useful.

So tricket prices haven't gone up as such just range of tickets reduced so it now way more expensive. There starting to the same with train tickets - taking away soem options that mena you pay more.

About academic qualifications without work experience - both this friend of mine and me were told by the same university lecturers that a PhD in her case and a Master's in mine would do just that - not only improve our career prospects, but would virtually guarantee a job, specifically, for her in the EU and for me, in one of the UN Europe-based organisations. They were very specific and we had no reason not to trust them. In my case it was also a pre-requisite for applying. You could not (at the time at least) get the relevant work experience for those sort of jobs in those organisations if you did not have connections in them. Early 1990s.

I agree that 'advanced' capitalism (and capitalism will always drive itself forward until it's 'advanced') is a scam.

One upshot is that it's now the norm for both parents to work full-time when babies and toddlers are still very young.

Research has always shown that babies need a secure attachment with one consistent care-giver - not chaotic, crowded, loud environments where staff turnover is high. We know that the standard of 'industrial' - sorry, but that's what it is, and needs to be to sustain this model - childcare is exceptionally low when compared to many other developed countries. I (genuinely, and not just to enrage or upset people) think we will see the results in the next decade and it won't be good either for individual children or for society as a whole.

It's a massive social experiment and a massive con. Capitalism needs us to buy, on and on and on, and it will always adapt and coopt and shift in order to keep consumption increasing. Thus it's successfully convinced us that a certain standard of living is the minimum we deserve - and that without certain objects and services we're not 'living'. So families work full pelt to afford this lifestyle - and pay out even more in convenience foods and extra services in order to make family life even vaguely possible.

It's true that housing costs make it harder to survive one one income. But my honest belief is that, with serious cutbacks in spending, it would be possible for many families to survive for a few years on one or 1.5 incomes.

What should have happened is that men should have been forced/enabled to take half the load - so both couples go part-time and care is split between them. That's child-centred, but also equality-focused.

I know lots will disagree, but what we have is horrible.Thirty odd years ago it was very much not the norm, and I don't think anyone - women, men, and most of all babies and toddlers - has benefitted.

Academia in the humanities.

You pay 11k for a masters. Then 15k for a PhD. Only a handful of people get jobs and the academic jobs are low paid and short term. Only a few people then move on to tenure. Early career lecturer posts pay less than secondary school teaching jobs. Such a scam.

I agree with every single point you made here but found myself being a bit of a devil’s advocate..

• private school: you often pay for the privilege and connections rather than necessarily schooling.
• I probably would try and pay for private school IF there was one which would do significantly more than schools do nowadays. More outdoor learning, more activities, everything being a lesson - for example eating - how to pair foods, why we eat these foods, macros and micro nutrients, etc etc.
• Learning more life skills like cooking, mending clothes, changing a lightbulb (tongue in cheek), replacing a lock or door handle. How to use a saw or a drill, etc.
• learning about finances, how do bills work, direct debits?, how does finance work, how do mortgages work, so on and so forth.
• Learning more about the world of work, how to do interviews, how to present yourself, how to improve your skills, etc etc etc.

Now this type of schooling is something I’d work myself to the bone for. A lot more life skills and a lot less learning about Hamlet. - (Ok, that’s really important too but between the two maybe the others a touch more so and maybe have additional clubs to learn more).

Skin cleansers that dry out your skin then claim you need oily moisturiser to redress the balance. Repeat.

Couldn’t agree more! For me it’s the expectation also that as soon as your child reaches secondary they can be home alone every afternoon for a few hours until a parent gets back from work. No, they need us more than ever during the teenage years.

I thought I answered this.... I get the "bigger is better" house dream as not a scam but an illusion, but don't EVER tell me the past was better, the people were happier and tless stressed and he rest of that rose tinted crap. I was there. It wasn't.

I think putting fuel in cars is a scam. How do we actually know what comes out of the nozzle and into the car? We don't see it but we pay for it.

Childcare was essential, £2k a month (luckily did not have more than one in nursery at the same time). So also expensive. The other stuff added up too, but it was a drop in the ocean compared to childcare fees. There was no way round it. If I'd given up my job instead that would have "cost" £5k+ a month.

Well I think that's a reasonable expectation TBH.
Teenagers need you to talk to; you can do that when you're all in the house together.
Why would a NT teenager need a parent in the house with them at all times ?

1. The petrol gauge in your car shows you how much petrol you're putting in.

2. Trading standards departments routinely check fuel stations in their area.

It amazes me that people think they are the first people to consider these things!

I worry about the heritage sector DD1 looking at they want lost of qualifications and experience and seem to want to pay peanuts and have short term contracts.

My Dsis had the PP experience field you needed contacts to get on in - which my family didn't have - it's not unquie a series of books got written about it - yet uni kept offering more and more post graduate qualifications racking up her debt.

The degree itself got her work but not in that field - so wasn't useless but Uni and her aims were clearly not as aligned as she'd expected. Something we've warned out kids about - the need to do their own research into sectors.

Without diabetic drugs people with type 1 DM would die (this was typical before insulin was available). Many people with type 2 can't control it without medication - making a moral judgement on them is very unhelpful and unpleasant, as are the complications of DM - visual loss, ulcers, heart disease, stroke & limb amputation (due to failure of blood supply)

Statins have been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease & stroke - check your risk of heart disease here: https://www.qrisk.org/

In the UK doctors get NO financial kickback for prescribing drugs. We get told off by
management if the drug bill is too high! Statins & DM drugs are hardly the problem there as mostly off patent & cheap.

ummm the car runs for the expected number of miles?

Agree I haven't ironed in a decade. If it can't be tumble dried and liim fine it goes on Vinted or to the charity shop

To be fair to her, It's as much as scam as a lot of things mentioned on this thread are. Some of the wealthiest/successful in ways other than wealthy people I know didn't do well at school and/or left early. A lot of my degree-having friends struggle. Schooling in itself isn't great for many, many children-me included!

This in spades.

Articles and News items behind paywalls...

They need us more than ever? Really?! So you think that a teenager is less independent than a 3 year-lld or a 6 year-old and you would leave a toddler at home for a few hours rather than a 15yo?

Oh I loved the Betterware catalogue! It assumed no previous knowledge of any of it's products! So the blurb would run: 'kitchen bin: great for putting rubbish in!' 'scissors: great for cutting!' I miss it!

Go back to the first word in the OP's post.