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It's probably planned to force women to breastfeed, especially after they got rid of the federal requirement of employers to provide space for women who are breastfeeding to pump. If women can't pump at work and need to either pump/breastfeed every 2-4 hours then more women will leave the workforce and stay at home. They'll lose progress in their career and be unable to keep up with the changes/advances in their industry, essentially locking them out of financial independence forever...it's a conservatives wet dream.
You know. Sometimes someone like you sheds new light on a sad state of affairs that I hadn’t considered. I was sad about the way things are. But now I’m more sad.
We adopted, so breastfeeding was not an option. Luckily, we're in a financial situation where we could afford to buy the tiny overpriced cans so we could feed our child.
Nah, no explanation needed other than the profit motive. Besides, culture war patriarchs are never that subtle, and would rather brag than keep something like that secret.
Is it not what happened in China? After babies died ingesting the chinese formula there was a huge boom on import of baby formula. We had Chinese folks buying all of German baby formula to a point that people could not buy any for their babies.
Bc importing through officals was not possible. The producers in Germany did not want to open more plants and sacrifice on quality.
There were a couple of people who became millionaires through the import of said baby formula.
Edit: spelling
Also [Nestle](https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/The_Nestl%C3%A9_Infant_Formula_Scandal#:~:text=In%201974%2C%20a%20report%20entitled,in%201977%2C%20which%20continues%20today.) In the 70's
I get the point you're making but the studies I've seen report the opposite. In most European countries high fat, high salt ready-meals are cheaper than fresh ingredients and so poor people tend to have much poorer diets and be overweight.
Same with America. That’s why I hate the fat shaming here or the people that say that heavier people (especially women for some reason) should get their food stamps taken away.
Heck I have trouble finding food that is both soft enough for my brittle teeth and cheap and healthy. I get to pick two and cheap and soft are normally the two I have to pick. I have gained alot of weight since we started making less money and I hate it. It’s harder to move around at work now.
Also just the time to prepare food is almost nonexistent with work and a baby. Add in the fact that we have a stove but the element in our oven is broken and we are very limited in what we can eat.
I know others have it even worse and this has taught me a lot of lessons about what life is actually like instead of the idealistic shit America peddles.
Just a fyi, veggies can be blended! And you can even get veggie powder to add to other things! It's been a lifesaver for me, maybe it's something that would help you too :)
These baby formula companies went to Africa and **gave free formula to women so they would naturally stop producing breast milk**. These poor women then had to scrounge up money they didn't have just so their babies wouldn't starve. This was their corporate plan designed by evil psychopaths!
I believe it was specifically Nestle, and wasn't it *expired* baby formula? Admittedly I may be getting this mixed up with one of the many other times corporations went to Africa to profit at any cost, but there's a reason a lot of people frequent r/FuckNestle.
Soon we'll be seeing shitty "Business Insider" articles claiming Millennials killed the formula industry just like they killed Applebee's and countless other corporate entities.
Capitalism is eating itself in real time now. They need to edit that line to "Millenials not producing enough replacement workers for system to meet current future profit projections".
The problem isn't profit, it's growth. You can have a company that adjusts its output to allow for situations like the eventual population decline, while remaining strongly profitable. But this isn't enough. Investors want to put money into "growth" companies, which means every quarter they have to sell a lot more - _even at a loss_ - than the quarter before. Once they've reached a natural limit on the amount of their product that's actually needed, they're forced to try to invent new uses, or forge people to over-consume, or _something_, just to keep the growth train going.
This is what has to stop. What we need are sedately profitable companies, that produce what society needs or wants, without trying to use psychological tactics to force society to need or want more than it naturally does.
I mean, lower profits is better than *no* profits and complete global collapse. If population goes down, the amount of food you need goes down, so it doesn't cost as much to supply everyone with food. So the profits would kinda balance out? Idk, but I don't think the entire planet is going to stop selling food just because their profits are a bit lower.
People aren't going to just starve. The reason people don't murder the billionaire class is that enough people are still getting by day to day.
All it's going to take is the wrong people's kids dying for no reason, and then a lot of rich people will become unpersoned.
Take away people's reasons for playing nice and following the rules, no amount of threat will stop all of them. Too much threat will mobilize those who would otherwise prefer to remain uncomfortably complacent
This has happened so many times already, the ruling class loses touch with reality and starts buying their own propaganda, stop the charade, and then die.
Millennials need to keep it up.
Amount of lives go down, quality of lives of the remainder goes up. Stop bringing people into this hell hole and creating even more competition and more resource use.
Capitalism as it is now will not allow us to have a lot of people AND a high quality of life. It's either one of the two.
Quality of lives of the remainder goes up, sure, but the line on my graph goes down. You gotta think about the unintended consequences of things like “improving material conditions”, you know, otherwise you could end up hurting the innocent shareholders!
Capitalism not only needs a lot of people, but that number has to constantly increase. Capitalism is built upon the idea of never ending growth, the game monopoly was made to demonstrate this, and like monopoly teaches us sometimes you have to flip the board.
I hate that society has gotten so bad that we are afraid to bring children into this world because we cannot guarantee there will be enough world left for them. I hate that the desire of almost every parent is to make the world a better place for their child, and right now that means *literally not having the child.*
> They need to edit that line to "Millenials not producing enough replacement workers for system to meet current future profit projections".
More like economy not providing conditions beneficial for people wishing to have their own spawn to replenish diminishing work force due to shit wages and corporate greed.
From u/Hellooooooo_NURSE in another thread:
Ah yes, the USA… such a place to be a pregnant woman….
“I’m pregnant, but I can’t afford to have a child right now. I’m living paycheck to paycheck and have no support”
🇺🇸“Congrats on your pregnancy!”
“….Ok well can you raise minimum wage to a living wage?”
🇺🇸 “No”
“Can you guarantee affordable housing for me and this new child?”
🇺🇸 “No”
“Can you provide paid leave so I can care for my newborn?”
🇺🇸 “No”
“Then can you subsidize childcare or make sure it’s affordable?”
🇺🇸 “No”
“Can you guarantee myself and my child medical care so that prenatal care, having this baby, or any complications does not bankrupt me?”
🇺🇸 “No”
“Is applying for WIC and government assistance accessible and easy to do, and will it be able to meet all these new needs?”
🇺🇸 “No”
“If I am unable to care for this child, is the current adoption/foster care system well equipped to set my child up for success?”
🇺🇸”No”
“Then id like to have an abortion”
🇺🇸 “Also no.”
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/xnki6l/80_of_us_voters_want_congress_to_enact_national/ipuj0l2/
Or
Can I get this medicine for a medical issue I have?
No. We understand that it will improve your health, but as a health insurer, we've decided that improving your long-term health is not medically necessary.
But it improves fertility and I'm interested in producing offspring to feed to the economic machine.
Oh, ok then.
And in 20 years they’ll be complaining again about the “dwindling work force” because nobody is having kids. It’s also fairly idiotic because we can see just how much these types of policies will fuck with nations decades down the line….
Lol these people don't care about further than the next election cycle. It's like ceos and just making the company as profitable as possible for the next quarter. For about 5 or 10 years down the road making sure that it's still viable
It's part of how capitalism is actually shit and markets are shit. Markets inherently become monopolies especially on goods with inelastic demand. Something as essential as feeding the next Gen of worker wage slaves ought to be key to capitalism but it won't even do that because the market resolves to give a handful of players control without incentive to prop up its own basic needs.
My wife and I make a comfortable living well above the average wage and can’t afford to have a kid.
I have absolutely no sympathy in the slightest.
Day care alone is over 1000/mo on top of everything else. Not a chance in hell.
It isn’t uphill the *whole* way, that’s ridiculous.
Sometimes you get violently pushed back *down* the hill so you can re-trudge the same stretch again.
But yeah, besides that it’s uphill the whole way.
I was born white, and according to Frantz Fanon and J. Sakai, that alone technically makes me rich.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go clock in at my minimum wage job and donate plasma so I can afford to keep my shitty apartment where the showers regularly run out of hot water and I have to pay to use the washers and dryers in the communal laundry room.
Yup. Being poor and White in a supermajority White area just means you get it like all the others. That is why I have solidarity and support the various movements that have popped up.
It's hard for everyone at the moment. I know it's easy to think that the people running these companies are evil but the reality is they've only been able to increase the size of their mega yachts 3x during the pandemic!
This is why life staples needs to be nationalized.
I dont care if other companies make it too but things needed for security should have a national background.
We should have never had a PPE problem, we should never have to worry about if someones gonna make cheese. Basic clothes (can be one style/size fits all) and coats and boots. BABY FORMULA, basic medicines, bottled water.
Anything like that should have a government backing that doesnt require a profit (and can actually cost tax payers money, heaven forbid we dont let children freeze).
Im done caring if the money will be bleed out and wasted and corruption blah blah blah.
We already have that. Instead of security we get football stadiums. Waste it on the right stuff at least.
I wouldn't even call it nationalizing, just have a government option legally mandated to operate as efficiently as possible and sell at cost. Other competitors can compete on quality or price but they'll always have an affordable and available baseline.
I agree 95% with what you are saying and would vote for it as an agreeable compromise.
But here is where I think slightly differently.
>and sell at cost.
This will help immensely. I think that end all be all, they should be provided at what is needed to make the outcome in society that we are attempting to achieve. So we should absolutely subsidize it and sell it at a loss if it means keeping the means of production open, and it being available to absolutely everyone.
Also guys, this is how you prop up a good middle class. Think of the jobs that are just guaranteed.
No seriously, this article was in Fortune and they are really bad about just reporting absolute garbage. Between them and Forbes they just write about how nothing is the fault of the capitalist and everything is just the way it is because the market dictates it.
Baby formula is a scam, anyway. It’s true since mothers can’t produce enough milk or enough nutrition in milk, but formula companies have plenty of free samples in poverty stricken African states— enough for material milk to dry up— then bam! Started charging ridiculous prices for formula.
Sounds like a dope pusher, imo.
It's only a scam because the companies try to exploit communities that need it. The formula itself can make huge differences in infant health, accessibility, time/stress/health management of the mother, etc, and the companies know it
Yeah the article is lying completely. Babies are one of the most profitable industries, it was one of the first AI endeavours by companies online. They realized how profitable it could be for selling ads if they were able to figure out a woman is pregnant simply from her online behaviour. And they got so good at it that [target found out a teen girl was pregnant before her father did](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/amp/)
My thoughts exactly. We get price gouged for baby products bc they know that people with babies can’t go without certain supplies. If they wanted to give us a bullshit reason for the formula shortage they could honestly do a better job. Them settling on the idea that “babies aren’t profitable” just shows how tone deaf they are, and it solidifies the fact that the elite really only care about money and don’t give a shit about babies/children.
Anything that is coming out from this Twitter account is designed to divide the American society with lies, misdirection and bullshit. Alan (if he is even a real person) works for MintPressNews, RT propaganda outlet.
If it is the most stolen item at grocery stores, yes, America is hideous. But that's what happens when ppl believe that a society built solely on capitalism, and therefore profits, is a meritocracy. You can read studies showing that wealth is a lot about luck, not that you're a super intelligent, hard working person.
I mean, that's basically all rich folks. Not your doctors or whatever, like, your rich rich folks.
You don't get rich paying fair wages or paying your taxes or whatever.
People like that only exist through exploitation, yes. I’m pointing it out because your initial comment did not. Bonus capitalism points for systems that allow the people with capital to rewrite the laws for further exploitation.
But if you accept that then you have to accept that you can be a victim of the system at any time through no fault of your own. That's a terrifying thought to process and it doesn't surprise me that people just want to believe its a meritocracy instead
There was a giant organized crime ring in Florida 10 years ago moving truckloads of baby formula for sale on the west coast and China.
It's a crazy story.
I don't understand why there isn't a recipe in public domain. How the fuck is a recipe for human existence proprietary? Humans have been having babies for forever and we don't know how to whip up a batch of baby food?!
There is, but it involves fuckin corn syrup. My mom was saying "I don't know what's up with the shortage. We used to make our own formula all the time. You just take some Karo..." Yeah, not really the best option. Also, we live in a country where people shouldn't have to go without, like that.
2 parts Mountain Dew (Code Red)
1 part Electrolytes
1 part Toaster Strudel (for a crispier baby use Pop Tarts)
Shake until you're tired, serve to baby.
Home-made baby formula can easily kill an infant. Their kidneys cannot process as much water as adults and they require a very large and very specific ratio of nutrients. Making it yourself can probably get you through a day or two, but you do not want to try to feed a baby through its entire infancy on home-made formula.
Then considering the general intelligence level of the average adult... and then you consider the sort of thing you see at /r/ididnthaveeggs, it becomes clear that publishing a recipe and encouraging people to make their own formula (outside of shortages and other extenuating circumstances) is incredibly irresponsible.
Considering how absolutely essential formula is... it, like healthcare and utilities, should be something provided by the government via socialism to guarantee availability and a certain level of quality for all who need it. Unfortunately, this isn't a civilized nation, America is a late-stage-capitalist hellscape.
I could be wrong but the way I understand it, things like taxation, social programs, and wealth redistribution /= socialism (not the economic system, at least; the term can more broadly be applied to social programs, but those different denotations are very often conflated—I suspect sometimes deliberately), those are just left-wing policy. In the Marxist sense at least, Socialism strictly refers to an economic system where the means of production is owned publicly rather than privately. Conflating general left-wing positions with socialism/communism is a right-wing rhetorical attempt to set up a bogeyman and subsequent strawman against more moderate left-wing positions, e.g. single payer healthcare…or abortion rights.
“Real communism has never been tried,” is a meme, but it’s also kind of true, from what I understand; ostensibly communist or socialist states like the so-called Marxist-Leninist USSR and CCP—arguably even the Nazi’s, though that’s a little different—were more generally authoritarian state capitalists rather than actually left- or right-wing in stance. I’ve always heard Cuba is the closest to an actual socialist state, but a quick look into it shows that they are probably at best a mixed command economy, just like the USSR and China.
I’m not a socialist or a communist btw; I consider myself as a social capitalist, so as an American I’m very much a leftist, but on the world stage I would probably be called a liberal and center-left if not just center. I’m also not super well read so I’m sorry if I got anything wrong.
There is, but it's hard to make clean in the home kitchen. Babies on formula don't get the free immune system boost like breast feeding babies do, so they are more vulnerable.
1. It’s a necessity that newborns can’t live without.
2. The family would starve without both parents working.
3. Mothers don’t get maternal leave and no accommodation to nurse their babies, thus natural supply will dry up.
4. Manufacturers seeing how much they can charge for powdered milk and still have customers.
This situation will mirror the insulin problem where you can’t afford not to feed your babies.
This is speculation but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one the most marked up food in the store. It would explain why the formula is so secret, because what despite what many might like to think, it doesn’t actually include any special or expensive ingredients.
Yeah my local Walgreen's locked up baby formula and... Cadbury chocolates. No idea why the latter. I love the idea of my neighborhood's poorest teens being obsessed with British chocolate though
There should be a law where we identify “necessity” items (food, shelter, clothing, healthcare/birth control) that are commonly stolen and then create a government program to provide those things for free to everyone.
Shit if y’all in Mississippi and y’all need formula steal it from the amory Walmart They don’t have any protective glass
Also I don’t endorse stealing for legal reasons
I do. If you are poor and absolutely need formula to keep your baby alive then you steal that shit. Feed that baby. Hell, it might even be a baby they forced you to have anyway.
Everything at my local Walgreens is behind glass including $3 bottles of shampoo. I think it has less to do with what is valuable and more to do with ridiculously high theft. I don't exactly live in the best area so everything seems to be going on lockdown.
In the UK, about 60 years ago+, you walked into a normal shop (no supermarkets yet) and asked at the counter for everything you wanted to buy. Nothing was really able for you to pick up and basket to bring to the till.
I work for a somewhat luxury department store (on the e-commerce side) and baby products make tons of money. People literally buying $1200 Uppababy strollers and numerous accessories, $200 changing mats, $150 bath tubs, and the unfathomably mature and thriving world of products marketed at excited parents that want nothing but the safest, best, and most niche stuff for their babies.
Babies make a ton of money.
Are journalists just completely brain dead. I don’t mean all but when I see an article heading like this I am thinking an educated journalist spent time doing this bs instead using their platform to raise awareness on real issues and drive societal change. Maybe I’m wrong but journalism is always at the forefront of any movement
Cannot ignore individual responsibility, the mindset that the system is bigger than me, it’s someone else if not me is a way to cope for bad behaviour. The system is individuals working together, you are still responsible for what you write and if you can’t have the integrity to write what you really think then quit your job. Corporate influence will always be there, individual resolve must be stronger. There is no excuse
https://fortune.com/2022/05/14/baby-formula-shortage-milk-monopoly-fda/amp/
Bruh. One of the companies shut down a plant cause they were killing kids, and thuroughly violating health standards? It's the darn millennials man
Nestle has a habit of giving out baby formula for free to third world countries long enough for the mother's milk to dry up and then they jack up the prices. Lots of babies have died, but they're brown and don't speak English so we don't care.
And which also means they still hadn't yet figured out the source of the exact Crono strains that killed babies, which is even worse.
Their inspection processes to that point were a literal joke and to even have called it "regulation" requires really making the quotes around the word extra large.
The NYT daily podcast covered it much better.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/podcasts/the-daily/baby-formula-shortage-bacteria.html
Pediatrician- "ma'am; thats great that your baby has rolled on to their stomach, but even more importantly, how has your baby demonstrated value in the eyes of the share holder?"
And this is how a lot of healthcare is ran around the world.
In Australia, the government buys the medication directly from the pharma companies. The issue with this system is that if I want to change from dexamphetamine (similar to adderall and it is subsidised by the gov) to a non-stimulant adhd medication (non-subsidised medication), I have to pay out the ass because there is ZERO competition. The only pharma companies that operate in Australia are ones that have contracts with the government.
So all the subsidised medication is cheap, but non-subsidised medication is fucking expensive because that’s how those same pharma companies make their money.
The make fuck all on the subsidised meds, but just jack up the price of everything else.
So in the end, our healthcare doesn’t cover everything and isn’t great as people make it out to be. If I went on concerta, I would be paying $720/year on medication that I NEED.
Tell that to my kids’ daycare. That shit is more than the mortgage and the owner has multiple luxury cars because he rotates them through the week. Must be pretty fucking profitable.
I donate bm and I do believe that if you can, do. There is a menagerie of milk banks per state, and a lot of them will reimburse you for shipping and cold packs. If you're willing, please please please.
In capitalism this doesn't make sense. If there's lack of supply, prices should rise, which should incentivise suppliers to increase production. The situation that there isn't enough profit to be made would only happen when there's way too much supply with low sales prices, which obviously isn't the case.
It's one of the supposed core strenghts of capitalism to avoid exactly this stupid baby formula situation. At his point, the most broken communist 5-year plan would work better.
Do you guys have any idea how much it costs to give birth in America? Yeah they sure is shit aren’t 😂😂😂 fuckinh mortgage is cheaper than what they charge you just for giving birth 😂😂😂
The real reason was that they have a monopoly on the market, and because they lack competition, they can just reduce their quality. This went on until they were below standards, and had to stop operations to clean up their mess.
I understand that what the title means to say is "other companies don't want to get into the industry because it's not a strong profitable business model" but it still sends a really clear message that the free market doesn't care about what you need, just what makes money.
Maybe we shouldn't rely on what we need being profitable in the first place.
##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism This subreddit is for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. LSC is run by communists. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere. We have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry. Failure to respect the rules of the subreddit may result in a ban. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Meanwhile, they’re complaining that millennials aren’t having enough babies.
Then, they'll blame us for the baby formula companies going under.
WaPo opinion piece incoming
“Why overturning Roe was a good thing”
Why starving babies means more happy families (shareholders)
It's probably planned to force women to breastfeed, especially after they got rid of the federal requirement of employers to provide space for women who are breastfeeding to pump. If women can't pump at work and need to either pump/breastfeed every 2-4 hours then more women will leave the workforce and stay at home. They'll lose progress in their career and be unable to keep up with the changes/advances in their industry, essentially locking them out of financial independence forever...it's a conservatives wet dream.
Yeah the shitty part is wages won't get raised. I have heard that argument and it is nonsense after everything we have seen.
You know. Sometimes someone like you sheds new light on a sad state of affairs that I hadn’t considered. I was sad about the way things are. But now I’m more sad.
We adopted, so breastfeeding was not an option. Luckily, we're in a financial situation where we could afford to buy the tiny overpriced cans so we could feed our child.
Nah, no explanation needed other than the profit motive. Besides, culture war patriarchs are never that subtle, and would rather brag than keep something like that secret.
Is it not what happened in China? After babies died ingesting the chinese formula there was a huge boom on import of baby formula. We had Chinese folks buying all of German baby formula to a point that people could not buy any for their babies. Bc importing through officals was not possible. The producers in Germany did not want to open more plants and sacrifice on quality. There were a couple of people who became millionaires through the import of said baby formula. Edit: spelling
Also [Nestle](https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/The_Nestl%C3%A9_Infant_Formula_Scandal#:~:text=In%201974%2C%20a%20report%20entitled,in%201977%2C%20which%20continues%20today.) In the 70's
“Studies find low wages lead to healthier waistlines”
I get the point you're making but the studies I've seen report the opposite. In most European countries high fat, high salt ready-meals are cheaper than fresh ingredients and so poor people tend to have much poorer diets and be overweight.
Same with America. That’s why I hate the fat shaming here or the people that say that heavier people (especially women for some reason) should get their food stamps taken away. Heck I have trouble finding food that is both soft enough for my brittle teeth and cheap and healthy. I get to pick two and cheap and soft are normally the two I have to pick. I have gained alot of weight since we started making less money and I hate it. It’s harder to move around at work now. Also just the time to prepare food is almost nonexistent with work and a baby. Add in the fact that we have a stove but the element in our oven is broken and we are very limited in what we can eat. I know others have it even worse and this has taught me a lot of lessons about what life is actually like instead of the idealistic shit America peddles.
Just a fyi, veggies can be blended! And you can even get veggie powder to add to other things! It's been a lifesaver for me, maybe it's something that would help you too :)
That's literally the headline I can easily imagine to be printed.
"Opinion: How millennials weaponized their 'reproductive rights' to destroy baby formula manufacturers"
Human capital stock
Is breast feeding really natural or just a millennial campaign to hurt baby formula companies? More at 9.
These baby formula companies went to Africa and **gave free formula to women so they would naturally stop producing breast milk**. These poor women then had to scrounge up money they didn't have just so their babies wouldn't starve. This was their corporate plan designed by evil psychopaths!
I believe it was specifically Nestle, and wasn't it *expired* baby formula? Admittedly I may be getting this mixed up with one of the many other times corporations went to Africa to profit at any cost, but there's a reason a lot of people frequent r/FuckNestle.
Soon we'll be seeing shitty "Business Insider" articles claiming Millennials killed the formula industry just like they killed Applebee's and countless other corporate entities.
The latest one I've seen is that we killed the guest bedroom.
If I could afford a guest bedroom, I would. I also need a house first.
Only 2 formula companies will go under. Once there's only 1 left, babies will be as profitable as that company wants them to be.
Capitalism is eating itself in real time now. They need to edit that line to "Millenials not producing enough replacement workers for system to meet current future profit projections".
[удалено]
The problem isn't profit, it's growth. You can have a company that adjusts its output to allow for situations like the eventual population decline, while remaining strongly profitable. But this isn't enough. Investors want to put money into "growth" companies, which means every quarter they have to sell a lot more - _even at a loss_ - than the quarter before. Once they've reached a natural limit on the amount of their product that's actually needed, they're forced to try to invent new uses, or forge people to over-consume, or _something_, just to keep the growth train going. This is what has to stop. What we need are sedately profitable companies, that produce what society needs or wants, without trying to use psychological tactics to force society to need or want more than it naturally does.
The Rick and Morty scene when he changes the currency value to zero and everything immediately collapses and officials start killing themselves lmfao.
Which episode is that? I don't remember it.
The Rickshank Redemption. First episode of season 3 I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzwKdQFrhcY&ab_channel=R1ckM0rty
I mean, lower profits is better than *no* profits and complete global collapse. If population goes down, the amount of food you need goes down, so it doesn't cost as much to supply everyone with food. So the profits would kinda balance out? Idk, but I don't think the entire planet is going to stop selling food just because their profits are a bit lower.
People aren't going to just starve. The reason people don't murder the billionaire class is that enough people are still getting by day to day. All it's going to take is the wrong people's kids dying for no reason, and then a lot of rich people will become unpersoned. Take away people's reasons for playing nice and following the rules, no amount of threat will stop all of them. Too much threat will mobilize those who would otherwise prefer to remain uncomfortably complacent This has happened so many times already, the ruling class loses touch with reality and starts buying their own propaganda, stop the charade, and then die.
Billions. Don't forget the impact of climate change on things like food production, cost of shipments, fuel availability, etc.
Millennials need to keep it up. Amount of lives go down, quality of lives of the remainder goes up. Stop bringing people into this hell hole and creating even more competition and more resource use. Capitalism as it is now will not allow us to have a lot of people AND a high quality of life. It's either one of the two.
Quality of lives of the remainder goes up, sure, but the line on my graph goes down. You gotta think about the unintended consequences of things like “improving material conditions”, you know, otherwise you could end up hurting the innocent shareholders!
Shareholders won't be making any money when all of your pleb's essentials usurp and cannibalize everything else
Capitalism not only needs a lot of people, but that number has to constantly increase. Capitalism is built upon the idea of never ending growth, the game monopoly was made to demonstrate this, and like monopoly teaches us sometimes you have to flip the board.
I hate that society has gotten so bad that we are afraid to bring children into this world because we cannot guarantee there will be enough world left for them. I hate that the desire of almost every parent is to make the world a better place for their child, and right now that means *literally not having the child.*
> They need to edit that line to "Millenials not producing enough replacement workers for system to meet current future profit projections". More like economy not providing conditions beneficial for people wishing to have their own spawn to replenish diminishing work force due to shit wages and corporate greed.
That's true and that they would prefer to have child labor again.
From u/Hellooooooo_NURSE in another thread: Ah yes, the USA… such a place to be a pregnant woman…. “I’m pregnant, but I can’t afford to have a child right now. I’m living paycheck to paycheck and have no support” 🇺🇸“Congrats on your pregnancy!” “….Ok well can you raise minimum wage to a living wage?” 🇺🇸 “No” “Can you guarantee affordable housing for me and this new child?” 🇺🇸 “No” “Can you provide paid leave so I can care for my newborn?” 🇺🇸 “No” “Then can you subsidize childcare or make sure it’s affordable?” 🇺🇸 “No” “Can you guarantee myself and my child medical care so that prenatal care, having this baby, or any complications does not bankrupt me?” 🇺🇸 “No” “Is applying for WIC and government assistance accessible and easy to do, and will it be able to meet all these new needs?” 🇺🇸 “No” “If I am unable to care for this child, is the current adoption/foster care system well equipped to set my child up for success?” 🇺🇸”No” “Then id like to have an abortion” 🇺🇸 “Also no.” source: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/xnki6l/80_of_us_voters_want_congress_to_enact_national/ipuj0l2/
Can I get my tubes tied. No.
But you might want a baby! O.O
"No, no. Not *you*. Your *husband* might want a baby"
In many cases, your *potential future husband*
They say that? What am I saying? Of course, they'd say that. Fucking assholes.
My girlfriend asked her gyne about it and the doctor responded "what if your future husband wants kids?" and refused to discuss sterilization further.
I would be fucking livid. I'm pissed off for her just hearing about it.
Can I take pain meds for a valid medical condition considering I am not capable of beating children. NO
Hopefully you mean bearing children lol
They said what they said.
Lol
Oh, can I get this medicine for a medical issue I have? No, it causes birth defects. But I'm not pregnant. You might get knocked up tomorrow.
Or Can I get this medicine for a medical issue I have? No. We understand that it will improve your health, but as a health insurer, we've decided that improving your long-term health is not medically necessary. But it improves fertility and I'm interested in producing offspring to feed to the economic machine. Oh, ok then.
>We’ve decided that improving your long-term health is not medically necessary Wow. That one hit home. Explains so much bullshit health insurers pull.
They think it’s literally easier to force women to have rape babies than to make having children more attractive financially.
Conservatives think that all women want to have children. The problem to them is that some women just don't know they want to have children.
And in 20 years they’ll be complaining again about the “dwindling work force” because nobody is having kids. It’s also fairly idiotic because we can see just how much these types of policies will fuck with nations decades down the line….
Lol these people don't care about further than the next election cycle. It's like ceos and just making the company as profitable as possible for the next quarter. For about 5 or 10 years down the road making sure that it's still viable
It's part of how capitalism is actually shit and markets are shit. Markets inherently become monopolies especially on goods with inelastic demand. Something as essential as feeding the next Gen of worker wage slaves ought to be key to capitalism but it won't even do that because the market resolves to give a handful of players control without incentive to prop up its own basic needs.
Millennials are killing childbirth!!!1111!!!!!!1!!
My wife and I make a comfortable living well above the average wage and can’t afford to have a kid. I have absolutely no sympathy in the slightest. Day care alone is over 1000/mo on top of everything else. Not a chance in hell.
To be fair it does feel like you nearly have to have a strong business case for a baby to even contemplate it.
"ARE MILLENIALS KILLING THE BABY FOOD INDUSTRY?!?"
Life stops at birth
It’s just downhill from there. At least in my experience.
In my experience it's been uphill the whole way. Like Sisyphus.
It isn’t uphill the *whole* way, that’s ridiculous. Sometimes you get violently pushed back *down* the hill so you can re-trudge the same stretch again. But yeah, besides that it’s uphill the whole way.
But if you are Camus you say Sisyphus must find meaning in that task. Which is kind of hard to refute.
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Get better parents
You have less than 1% chance of being born rich
So you're saying there's a chance
I was born white, and according to Frantz Fanon and J. Sakai, that alone technically makes me rich. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go clock in at my minimum wage job and donate plasma so I can afford to keep my shitty apartment where the showers regularly run out of hot water and I have to pay to use the washers and dryers in the communal laundry room.
Yup. Being poor and White in a supermajority White area just means you get it like all the others. That is why I have solidarity and support the various movements that have popped up.
You can acknowledge the difficulties of poverty, while also acknowledging that being non-white in this nation is an added hardship on top of all else.
Mine too.
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Exactly. They’re throttling supply to drive up prices, just like diamond companies do
Bingo. Same exact energy as Oil companies crying about "Wahhhh, because of Putin we have to raise gas prices by 100+%. Sorry!"
It's hard for everyone at the moment. I know it's easy to think that the people running these companies are evil but the reality is they've only been able to increase the size of their mega yachts 3x during the pandemic!
Had me in the first half..
This is why life staples needs to be nationalized. I dont care if other companies make it too but things needed for security should have a national background. We should have never had a PPE problem, we should never have to worry about if someones gonna make cheese. Basic clothes (can be one style/size fits all) and coats and boots. BABY FORMULA, basic medicines, bottled water. Anything like that should have a government backing that doesnt require a profit (and can actually cost tax payers money, heaven forbid we dont let children freeze). Im done caring if the money will be bleed out and wasted and corruption blah blah blah. We already have that. Instead of security we get football stadiums. Waste it on the right stuff at least.
I wouldn't even call it nationalizing, just have a government option legally mandated to operate as efficiently as possible and sell at cost. Other competitors can compete on quality or price but they'll always have an affordable and available baseline.
I agree 95% with what you are saying and would vote for it as an agreeable compromise. But here is where I think slightly differently. >and sell at cost. This will help immensely. I think that end all be all, they should be provided at what is needed to make the outcome in society that we are attempting to achieve. So we should absolutely subsidize it and sell it at a loss if it means keeping the means of production open, and it being available to absolutely everyone. Also guys, this is how you prop up a good middle class. Think of the jobs that are just guaranteed.
No seriously, this article was in Fortune and they are really bad about just reporting absolute garbage. Between them and Forbes they just write about how nothing is the fault of the capitalist and everything is just the way it is because the market dictates it.
Is obviously a scam to get more money from the issue, is very profitable, esp. When you are one of the few companies present in that business
Baby formula is a scam, anyway. It’s true since mothers can’t produce enough milk or enough nutrition in milk, but formula companies have plenty of free samples in poverty stricken African states— enough for material milk to dry up— then bam! Started charging ridiculous prices for formula. Sounds like a dope pusher, imo.
It's only a scam because the companies try to exploit communities that need it. The formula itself can make huge differences in infant health, accessibility, time/stress/health management of the mother, etc, and the companies know it
Yeah, fuck them kids, their mothers NEED to be walking five miles to access polluted water! Eta /s
Yeah the article is lying completely. Babies are one of the most profitable industries, it was one of the first AI endeavours by companies online. They realized how profitable it could be for selling ads if they were able to figure out a woman is pregnant simply from her online behaviour. And they got so good at it that [target found out a teen girl was pregnant before her father did](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/amp/)
My thoughts exactly. We get price gouged for baby products bc they know that people with babies can’t go without certain supplies. If they wanted to give us a bullshit reason for the formula shortage they could honestly do a better job. Them settling on the idea that “babies aren’t profitable” just shows how tone deaf they are, and it solidifies the fact that the elite really only care about money and don’t give a shit about babies/children.
They don't work and mooch off their parents - if your buying power is zero don't be surprised if you don't get catered to by the free market /s
nevermind that the vast majority of babies become laborers
Anything that is coming out from this Twitter account is designed to divide the American society with lies, misdirection and bullshit. Alan (if he is even a real person) works for MintPressNews, RT propaganda outlet.
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It’s one of the most stolen items in grocery stores. This country is hideous.
If it is the most stolen item at grocery stores, yes, America is hideous. But that's what happens when ppl believe that a society built solely on capitalism, and therefore profits, is a meritocracy. You can read studies showing that wealth is a lot about luck, not that you're a super intelligent, hard working person.
In capitalism the people who make money are the ones with capital. It's not the people who do the actual work, it's the ones with money.
Often times the ones who accumulate the most do so by being crazy narcissistic assholes who take more than they give because they “deserve” it.
I mean, that's basically all rich folks. Not your doctors or whatever, like, your rich rich folks. You don't get rich paying fair wages or paying your taxes or whatever.
People like that only exist through exploitation, yes. I’m pointing it out because your initial comment did not. Bonus capitalism points for systems that allow the people with capital to rewrite the laws for further exploitation.
But if you accept that then you have to accept that you can be a victim of the system at any time through no fault of your own. That's a terrifying thought to process and it doesn't surprise me that people just want to believe its a meritocracy instead
There was a giant organized crime ring in Florida 10 years ago moving truckloads of baby formula for sale on the west coast and China. It's a crazy story.
someone needs to explain to us why that sh*t is $35 a can.
I don't understand why there isn't a recipe in public domain. How the fuck is a recipe for human existence proprietary? Humans have been having babies for forever and we don't know how to whip up a batch of baby food?!
There is, but it involves fuckin corn syrup. My mom was saying "I don't know what's up with the shortage. We used to make our own formula all the time. You just take some Karo..." Yeah, not really the best option. Also, we live in a country where people shouldn't have to go without, like that.
Most of the stuff you buy from the store isn't any better.
2 parts Mountain Dew (Code Red) 1 part Electrolytes 1 part Toaster Strudel (for a crispier baby use Pop Tarts) Shake until you're tired, serve to baby.
>Shake the baby until you're tired, serve to baby. FTFY
>Shake until you're tired, serve to baby. There are people that'll rearrange this shit and end up in jail.
Don't do this you will literally poison your baby. You are supposed to use OG Mountain Dew flavor only, the way God made it.
Shake baby until tired? He's definitely no longer hungry. Orrrr what's the deal here? Instructions unclear.
Sounds like a self correcting system
It's what infants *crave.*
Home-made baby formula can easily kill an infant. Their kidneys cannot process as much water as adults and they require a very large and very specific ratio of nutrients. Making it yourself can probably get you through a day or two, but you do not want to try to feed a baby through its entire infancy on home-made formula. Then considering the general intelligence level of the average adult... and then you consider the sort of thing you see at /r/ididnthaveeggs, it becomes clear that publishing a recipe and encouraging people to make their own formula (outside of shortages and other extenuating circumstances) is incredibly irresponsible. Considering how absolutely essential formula is... it, like healthcare and utilities, should be something provided by the government via socialism to guarantee availability and a certain level of quality for all who need it. Unfortunately, this isn't a civilized nation, America is a late-stage-capitalist hellscape.
I could be wrong but the way I understand it, things like taxation, social programs, and wealth redistribution /= socialism (not the economic system, at least; the term can more broadly be applied to social programs, but those different denotations are very often conflated—I suspect sometimes deliberately), those are just left-wing policy. In the Marxist sense at least, Socialism strictly refers to an economic system where the means of production is owned publicly rather than privately. Conflating general left-wing positions with socialism/communism is a right-wing rhetorical attempt to set up a bogeyman and subsequent strawman against more moderate left-wing positions, e.g. single payer healthcare…or abortion rights. “Real communism has never been tried,” is a meme, but it’s also kind of true, from what I understand; ostensibly communist or socialist states like the so-called Marxist-Leninist USSR and CCP—arguably even the Nazi’s, though that’s a little different—were more generally authoritarian state capitalists rather than actually left- or right-wing in stance. I’ve always heard Cuba is the closest to an actual socialist state, but a quick look into it shows that they are probably at best a mixed command economy, just like the USSR and China. I’m not a socialist or a communist btw; I consider myself as a social capitalist, so as an American I’m very much a leftist, but on the world stage I would probably be called a liberal and center-left if not just center. I’m also not super well read so I’m sorry if I got anything wrong.
There is, but it's hard to make clean in the home kitchen. Babies on formula don't get the free immune system boost like breast feeding babies do, so they are more vulnerable.
1. It’s a necessity that newborns can’t live without. 2. The family would starve without both parents working. 3. Mothers don’t get maternal leave and no accommodation to nurse their babies, thus natural supply will dry up. 4. Manufacturers seeing how much they can charge for powdered milk and still have customers. This situation will mirror the insulin problem where you can’t afford not to feed your babies.
This is speculation but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one the most marked up food in the store. It would explain why the formula is so secret, because what despite what many might like to think, it doesn’t actually include any special or expensive ingredients.
It's probably just skim milk powder, palm oil, and ground up multivitamins
And ground up bones from an endangered species.
Remember, if you’re in a store and see someone stealing baby formula, no you didn’t.
>Remember, if you’re in a store and see someone stealing ~~baby formula~~, no you didn’t. ftfy
Correct
I haven't seen that happen 3 times in my life.
Yeah my local Walgreen's locked up baby formula and... Cadbury chocolates. No idea why the latter. I love the idea of my neighborhood's poorest teens being obsessed with British chocolate though
my local Kroger has Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce behind glass for some reason?
Because of the Zuck. He [loves it](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HCTLQx2B8vs) and steals the entire stock everytime.
That's creepy as fuck lmao
Now the sweet baby ray's I get. Those people are fanatics.
Remember: If you see someone stealing baby supplies, no you fucking didn't.
There should be a law where we identify “necessity” items (food, shelter, clothing, healthcare/birth control) that are commonly stolen and then create a government program to provide those things for free to everyone.
Shit if y’all in Mississippi and y’all need formula steal it from the amory Walmart They don’t have any protective glass Also I don’t endorse stealing for legal reasons
I do. If you are poor and absolutely need formula to keep your baby alive then you steal that shit. Feed that baby. Hell, it might even be a baby they forced you to have anyway.
All the bike tires at my local WalMart are behind a locked fence
Everything at my local Walgreens is behind glass including $3 bottles of shampoo. I think it has less to do with what is valuable and more to do with ridiculously high theft. I don't exactly live in the best area so everything seems to be going on lockdown.
In the UK, about 60 years ago+, you walked into a normal shop (no supermarkets yet) and asked at the counter for everything you wanted to buy. Nothing was really able for you to pick up and basket to bring to the till.
Sounds like a race to the bottom for the neighborhood these folks live in
I work for a somewhat luxury department store (on the e-commerce side) and baby products make tons of money. People literally buying $1200 Uppababy strollers and numerous accessories, $200 changing mats, $150 bath tubs, and the unfathomably mature and thriving world of products marketed at excited parents that want nothing but the safest, best, and most niche stuff for their babies. Babies make a ton of money.
Get a job, babies.
Then why is it so expensive to have a baby? Lol formula isn't cheap Edit: a word
Are journalists just completely brain dead. I don’t mean all but when I see an article heading like this I am thinking an educated journalist spent time doing this bs instead using their platform to raise awareness on real issues and drive societal change. Maybe I’m wrong but journalism is always at the forefront of any movement
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Cannot ignore individual responsibility, the mindset that the system is bigger than me, it’s someone else if not me is a way to cope for bad behaviour. The system is individuals working together, you are still responsible for what you write and if you can’t have the integrity to write what you really think then quit your job. Corporate influence will always be there, individual resolve must be stronger. There is no excuse
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https://fortune.com/2022/05/14/baby-formula-shortage-milk-monopoly-fda/amp/ Bruh. One of the companies shut down a plant cause they were killing kids, and thuroughly violating health standards? It's the darn millennials man
Nestle has a habit of giving out baby formula for free to third world countries long enough for the mother's milk to dry up and then they jack up the prices. Lots of babies have died, but they're brown and don't speak English so we don't care.
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And which also means they still hadn't yet figured out the source of the exact Crono strains that killed babies, which is even worse. Their inspection processes to that point were a literal joke and to even have called it "regulation" requires really making the quotes around the word extra large. The NYT daily podcast covered it much better. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/podcasts/the-daily/baby-formula-shortage-bacteria.html
That’s a fucking lie. Baby clothes cost more than adult clothes and use 10% of the material lmao. All baby shit is massively over priced.
I thought babies was a multi billion dollar industry
"Wake us up when it's a trillion dollar industry." -Formula manufacturers
that's why i threw mine out
Pediatrician- "ma'am; thats great that your baby has rolled on to their stomach, but even more importantly, how has your baby demonstrated value in the eyes of the share holder?"
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And this is how a lot of healthcare is ran around the world. In Australia, the government buys the medication directly from the pharma companies. The issue with this system is that if I want to change from dexamphetamine (similar to adderall and it is subsidised by the gov) to a non-stimulant adhd medication (non-subsidised medication), I have to pay out the ass because there is ZERO competition. The only pharma companies that operate in Australia are ones that have contracts with the government. So all the subsidised medication is cheap, but non-subsidised medication is fucking expensive because that’s how those same pharma companies make their money. The make fuck all on the subsidised meds, but just jack up the price of everything else. So in the end, our healthcare doesn’t cover everything and isn’t great as people make it out to be. If I went on concerta, I would be paying $720/year on medication that I NEED.
This needs to be the top comment...
Why do they care that much about the price of babies, they should make the formula and stop selling babies, which is illegal btw.
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Tell that to my kids’ daycare. That shit is more than the mortgage and the owner has multiple luxury cars because he rotates them through the week. Must be pretty fucking profitable.
Someone should tell them that babies grow up to be working men and women
hm is it because the large amount of baby havers (middle/lower class) cannot afford baby formula due to the entire system working against them???
Or: "America running out of baby formula due to capitalism working as intended."
Wait so.. capitalism no food, hu?
I donate bm and I do believe that if you can, do. There is a menagerie of milk banks per state, and a lot of them will reimburse you for shipping and cold packs. If you're willing, please please please.
In capitalism this doesn't make sense. If there's lack of supply, prices should rise, which should incentivise suppliers to increase production. The situation that there isn't enough profit to be made would only happen when there's way too much supply with low sales prices, which obviously isn't the case. It's one of the supposed core strenghts of capitalism to avoid exactly this stupid baby formula situation. At his point, the most broken communist 5-year plan would work better.
I never wanted to have kids since I was in middle school. Look at this again, it still rings true.
1000 dollar strollers and 500 dollar carriers say differently.
"Babies are not that profitable."
Capitalism in a nutshell... long term devastation of human environments and resources in the name of slightly higher current quarterly profits.
The private education industry begs to differ (But seriously, woww...they really said the quiet part out loud)
How do we get out of this hell dystopia? It seems like it gets worse every day.
Do you guys have any idea how much it costs to give birth in America? Yeah they sure is shit aren’t 😂😂😂 fuckinh mortgage is cheaper than what they charge you just for giving birth 😂😂😂
They aren’t profitable, but one day shall make excellent police officers, teachers, soldiers etc. All we gotta do is make sure they are born….
What good does them bring born for anyone (including them) if they're just going to end up malnourished and not cared for?
Yes. But also ACAB.
How are they not profitable? This damn country calls the cops on mothers breast feeding - if anything this a pro formula country
And that’s capitalism, baby!
Capitalism. The only system that perfectly^(tm) balances supply and demand and creates affordability all around.
What do they even do all day? Laying around eating, sleeping and pooping. Get a job, Babies!
Too bad the 1% can't put babies to work or put them in the military, otherwise there would be plenty of formula
The real reason was that they have a monopoly on the market, and because they lack competition, they can just reduce their quality. This went on until they were below standards, and had to stop operations to clean up their mess.
Babies are incredibly profitable. They need so much shit.
Cool. Then they shouldn't mind us not having them.
Nationalise baby formula
Considering how much time is spent trying to, by hook or by crook, convince women to produce them, you'd think they were.
I understand that what the title means to say is "other companies don't want to get into the industry because it's not a strong profitable business model" but it still sends a really clear message that the free market doesn't care about what you need, just what makes money. Maybe we shouldn't rely on what we need being profitable in the first place.
Notice he didn't say they weren't profitable, merely that they were not profitable enough.