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Comment by wolverine876 | Hacker News Reader

How does are business culture accept people who squeeze profits out of vulnerable, trapped elderly people? Why aren't those people ostracized and defunded.

It doesn't have to be this way, and it wasn't always this way.

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Probably when the stock market became more prominent. Henry Ford wanted to pay his workers a decent wage, enough for them to afford his vehicle, but GM sued and now we have maximize profits having more say than other aspects of business.

Chicken filet is closed on Sundays. —giving their workers a day of rest. Unlikely the case if they were public.

> giving their workers a day of rest

I think it has more to do with the religious observance of the owner than a desire to give their workers a day of rest.

Yeah, not to mention the majority of fast food workers are part time. Why would any employer want to pay one person for 7 days a week which will almost certainly trigger full time benefits

Because there is a group of business that have identified 'basic societally necessary services' as things where they can effectively do as they please and charge what they please. Eldercare isn't the only one - c.f. child care[1], health care, basic services like power and water.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/16/us/child-care-centers-pri...

Higher education too.

don't remind me.

Business is essentially the practice of deferring accountability and delegating responsibility. Nursing homes themselves only exist because people won't or can't take care of their parents; essentially, you commodify care for the elderly, and now they're a resource to be gamed. The exploitation seems like it's kind of baked into how we Capitalism.

While all people have parents, not all people have children.

Well all of us are going to die, maybe when we are old, but could be earlier.

There is an incentive for everyone to build a model for our old age.

"Elders" might have been a more accurate wording. It's a community/social concern (hence, to some degree, and to great but non-comprehensive use, "social security").

Fair enough. I'm a bit dubious of the idea of having children as a means of securing your retirement plan on a few grounds. I'll skip any moralizing about it and just say that I've seen people for whom it has failed somewhat spectacularly on a practical level and in a variety of ways.

It would be nice to have that care provided by the community who can hopefully scale it a bit better.

> Why aren't those people ostracized and defunded.

Even Jeffrey Epstein wasn't ostracized, people who are responsible for corporate mandlaughter aren't defunded.

Can you name a single person who was? I dont think this ever really happens.

Money

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