For the record, I’m not American nor live in the US, but I have a 19-year-old son who started attending the University of Chicago this year, studying economics. Just the tuition itself is $70k. My husband and I are lucky enough to be able to afford it - I still believe it’s an outrageous amount of money to attend college.
I’d put money down to Kickstart a documentary series where we fly American Redditors (and Lemm users) to Europe to film their reaction when they see that, yes, they still need to pay for items with money (and perform labor to get the money! 😱😱)
Honestly, same. I’m so beyond tired of this “free” stuff Americans like to latch onto, not realising how much is stolen from the average Joe and Josephine before it becomes “free”.
I mean, I’m aware that France has a capitalist economy. I mostly meant to say that Americans let capitalists step all over them in many ways that the French would riot over
The French aren’t the bastions maintaining rights they seem to be known as. Yes, they’ll throw a tantrum over political changes they don’t like, but late stange capitalism is still pretty bad and the average store is extremely bad for the standard competition that would favour the individual. Any mention of “I can get this cheaper at X.” is known to be followed up with “Cool. Fuck off over there then.” In as many words. Returning a faulty item will see the item getting a rigorous inspection to check that it’s still in pristine condition so it can be put back on the shelf to be sold to the next sucker (this is in the large supermarkets, not just the rare shady mom and pop stores). And electricity bills are double customer usage because the primary electricity supplier is owner by the state so they’re “legally” able to add 3 different taxes and their R&D bill to your bill. The telecoms companies do similar, partaking in that fun practice of adding nothing services to your plan you didn’t ask for and then “making things even” by raising your bill. And don’t get me started on the standard for customer support.
Consumer rights are a joke in France and for all of these death-by-a-thousand-cuts capitalist agenda BS practices, the people of France do nothing.
Gotcha, I didn’t know that. Thanks for all of the information!