A group of investors sued UnitedHealthcare Group on Wednesday, accusing the company of misleading them after the killing of its CEO, Brian Thompson.
The class action lawsuit — filed in the Southern District of New York — accuses the health insurance company of not initially adjusting their 2025 net earning outlook to factor in how Thompson’s killing would affect their operations.
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The group, which is seeking unspecified damages, argued that the public backlash prevented the company from pursuing “the aggressive, anti-consumer tactics that it would need to achieve” its earnings goals.
I’m old. 53. I never gave too much thought to the whole capitalism vs communism vs socialism debate until my early 30’s.
But at my age, it’s become blatantly, obscenely obvious that unregulated, laissez-faire, free market capitalism is evil. That “fiducial duty” to prioritize stranger’s money is more important than human lives.
Putting investors above common, basic decency is abominable, and irredeemable.
I don’t give two fucks about shareholders, or their “investment.”
I’m just a hair younger than you. I’ve never for a moment entertained communism. I’ve always been a believer in capitalism, but with the regulations and constraints we had in maybe the 70’s (not going to imply there was a golden age of capitalism, but if there was it was before god damned Reagan). And if we can’t regulate capitalism, I’m all for strangling it. Fuck everything about this dystopian bullshit. No one gives one single shit what happens beyond the next quarter. No one is in business to build things or solve problems—they are here to make fucking money.
Fuck. Unfettered. Capitalism.
The reason why communism is not great is because to implement it (at least now) it leads to authoritarianism.
IMO social democracy (which is regulated capitalism) which we see in Scandinavian countries looks the best right now.
This is why I am a Social Democrat. I think it’s the only system we have that works well enough for mostly everyone.
There is no way from here in the USA now to Scandinavian balance, using any path of democracy.
You arnt old. And I also feel the same as you. I am becoming anti consumer. I hope as a last chance Gen x get to go out in a blaze. I am becoming more activist. We have been fighters all our lives. Time to use it for good.
It’s as simple as this, my mom explained it to me at 8 years old: “A lot of parents give their kids money for good grades or doing chores, but that teaches them to do things for the money and not because it’s the right thing to do.”
It’s a habit, like a drug addiction, your brain is rewarded by profit and molds itself around that, altering your view of right and wrong.
Agreed.
Rapacious greed is a mental illness that is instilled in childhood.
Adam Smith was the biggest proponent of free markets.
However in “The Wealth of Nations” he makes clear that if all participants cannot choose NOT to participate, it is NOT a free market and should be regulated.
He also proposed regulation, and limits.
He also died 235 years ago…
Like, if you asked any of those “great thinkers” if people 200+ years in the future should still be relying on their opinion and not a single one would agree.
Humanity’s greatest strength is exchanging ideas and building on them, the rate we do so has skyrocketed since then. So much shit has changed that what people said back then should really only be useful on trivia night or when learning history.
If it’s still applicable it means we stagnated, and that’s a bad sign for society.
We should understand the framework and what came before, but under no circumstances looking to them for literal guidance from the ancients type shit. We live in drastically different worlds.
Oh, I’m in agreement.
It’s the reason “The Founders” of the Great American Experiment included the device of Amendments to The Constiution. They knew things would change, and need to be “amended.” Most of them were also rich land owning white men who thought only they deserved to make any important decisions, and a lot of them were slave owners.
I’m in no way fanboying anyone.
Yeah, didn’t mean it personally, just in general it gets old debating centuries old economic plans like we can’t figure out what works.
But amendments was the compromise, lots of the framers wanted to start from scratch every 20 years with a large vote on what makes it in the new.
Agreed.
So, how did he envision his ideal free market in which participants could choose not to participate? How was that supposed to work?
We can’t exactly opt out of capitalism.
Like at my local store. I can choose to buy a bottle of water or I can get water somewhere else.
With healthcare or utilities, for example, you don’t have an option so they cannot be considered free markets and should be regulated.
Clean drinking water, of course, is not something you can choose to be without, so maybe not the best example. Also, fuck Nestle.
Corporate monetary fiduciary duty is such a fucking insane bizzareoland concept to me.
I see you’re not familiar with The Rules of Acquisition…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvFYBkesqGU
Funny unverified rumor, but it’s believed that the GOP thought that The Ferengi were a mockery of Milton Friedman, and they stated the fictional race was “antisemitic.”
I have no problem believing it.