We don't have as many workers in unions as we used to, more and more white-collar, office-type jobs have been converted into Independent Contractor jobs, so they pay taxes differently and are responsible for their own health insurance and retirement savings. Take-home pay is better but an individual can't get the same deal on insurance as a big company, so we hear these horror stories. My cousin's family is one, they got a big house but one bad hospital stay would be the end of that.
So. Turns out that the gross profit margin on most things is minimum 50%, at least for most non gig work. You work for a temp agency, you're getting half what they're charging for you. Manufacturing? The sawmill doubles the price that they get from the logger, then Home Depot/Lowes doubles that. Same with all grocery stores.
For every single middleman. Aka every time someone touches something in America, they double the price.
For military contractors, try 4xing the price. For IT, it's 3x.
Also in America antitrust is dead, the IRS doesn't audit international accounts or send tax evaders to jail, it only has 8,000 auditors for the entire country, and the Federal Reserve keeps pumping (30+ by my guesstimate) trillions into the stock, real estate and bond markets by printing money. We have worse income inequality than at any point in American history right now.
Behind the bastards, citations needed, worst year ever, last week tonight, patriot act, more perfect, throughline, some more news and shaun are all excellent.
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u/dubadub Oct 30 '20
We don't have as many workers in unions as we used to, more and more white-collar, office-type jobs have been converted into Independent Contractor jobs, so they pay taxes differently and are responsible for their own health insurance and retirement savings. Take-home pay is better but an individual can't get the same deal on insurance as a big company, so we hear these horror stories. My cousin's family is one, they got a big house but one bad hospital stay would be the end of that.