50 Ironic Pics That Perfectly Showcase The Absurdity Of Capitalism, As Shared On This Group

China is actually a weird combo of communism in politics and powerful capitalism in economics. Besides, lots of western (and very capitalist) companies, transfer their production lines to countries where the environmental (and workforce) laws are more lenient, if not non-existent, including China, India and others.

I agree with Raabh's assessment of China, but it is absolutely true that pollution is not an exclusively capitalistic problem. I think including this in this post is misleading.

The USA is #3 after China and India....

Europe recycles roughly one third of plastics, and the rate is rising fast, so fast the current set target has been already surpassed and the target of 55% of plastics recycled by 2030 will be likely met and surpassed. 25% is landfilled, the rest is recovered as energy in thermal plants. Europe is developing new recycling technologies that can recover previously unrecoverable plastics (such as thermohardening or multi-material). Central Europe does it best, eastern countries not so much, but YES, WE DO RECYCLE and we do it well enough that among the top 20 countries worldwide for recycling there is exactly ONE non European country, and that is South Korea. US is 24th.

A lot of Europe's "recycling" is exported for other countries to deal with, this is often how they deal with it.

Mumbai, India, 2018, but it could be any year because it's a recurring event.

Might be around Brazil or somewhere in South America? Not sure by the way, just throwing around other options

If you need to go into Medicaid-assisted living, this is basically true in the US, too. You can try to protect your assets but there’s a 5 year look back.

In the USA medicaid facilities will do something similar. If a living spouse still uses the home, they'll let you keep it. But you have to pay as much as you can to cover the cost of the facility. Which with married couples only getting one social security check means that the other spouse usually winds up selling or moving in with their relatives.

Social care isn't medicine. Medical treatment is free as is time spent in a care home for recovery purposes or respite care. Needing to move into a care home permanently for non medical care isn't. And since the story is from the UK I was commenting on the situation in the UK. And yes I agree it sucks. Social care should ALSO be free but it's only free for those who do not have assets. Social care at home does not count your home as an asset as obviously if you sell it then you have nowhere to live, but if you are permanently required to live in an old people's home then your home will be used to calculate how much you pay unless your spouse still lives in it. There is a reasonable argument that wanting to leave your home to your descendants is not a good enough reason to be subsidised by the system and I understand that but frankly the bureaucracy for assessing who pays what costs somewhere near what they recover in costs and causes a lot of stress.

The fact that educated people with full time jobs can no longer afford to own and maintain modest property is the whole point.

But that is exactly the problem. You should be able to afford to own your own home without worrying financially, unfortunately that has become near impossible

I'm with ya, Fluffy. Renting is not always a bad thing.

You will it usually pay more in rent than in mortgage repayments.

You pay for it regardless. Your rent is higher than mortgage, and every single cost associated with fixing anything also gets passed on to you. Renting is a scam that does nothing but steal money from the pockets of the working class.

Admitted right-winger here, even. Fluffy, you should be able to afford to buy AND upkeep your home. Renting is pouring money down the sewer. It only makes sense if you simply couldn't make full use of a home, like if you're single. I blame artificially restricted supply on why housing has become so damned unaffordable, but for God's sake, recognize that the situation in states like California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, etc. (huh... what party runs all of these?), wherein well-educated people can't afford to own their homes... it's just messed up. OTOH, please talk to a realtor; You really only need enough money to pay for closing costs. I screwed myself over by believing I need a 20% downpayment, like in the old days.