The Holy Trinity of Financial Exploitation

Everyone is feeling the strain of rising living costs, ultimately as a result of nothing more than corporate greed and failed political regulations - no matter how much they want you to think it’s something out of their hands.

And whilst the solutions can often be hard to come by without drastic action taking place, we can all learn from understanding why this happens, what industries they’re likely to occur in, and of course, how we can stop them from happening again.

And one thing’s for sure is that the reasons are oh so simple. Scarily simple in fact, and they all play a part in what I’ve dubbed ‘The Holy Trinity of Financial Exploitation.’

1. Survival Necessities

There’s always going to be widespread profiteering in industries that provide products and services that you need for survival.

• Housing.

• Energy.

• Water.

Almost all of these industries are full of greedy bastards who want nothing but the money of ordinary folk, and they know the best way to do this is by operating in industries where demand is correlated to the need for survival.

Healthcare in the United States is also another example. Need a life saving operation? Cool, that’ll be 3 quadrillion dollars, please.

Here’s the thing… what’s the alternative? Homelessness? Starvation? Death?

There’s a reason why single family homes are being bought up in their thousands by trillion dollar private equity firms: people need homes! It’s like an infinite money glitch for these guys. Seriously, why invest anywhere else?

In the realms of basic necessities, you need regulation. With the amount of greed in today’s world, you can’t ‘leave it up to the market’ because the market is run by the rich and powerful, and it inevitably results in ordinary people getting fucked over.

Non-essential items? Cool. Free market. Do what you want. Let the market sort itself out.

But when people’s lives are at stake, you need to regulate markets to stop the ultra wealthy simply buying everything up (residential properties, water companies etc.) and hiking prices because they know that ordinary people have no choice but to pay it for the sake of their own survival.

This is a fundamental flaw of governments, and to be honest, they’re probably all being paid off one way or another so they leave it all alone.

It’s not outrageous to say that industries that provide basic necessities should be run like charities, not businesses, and this is the first factor that contributes to mass exploitation.

2. Lacking Competition

The second pillar of exploitation is thanks to (a lack of) the most important thing for any well functioning business market: competition.

Competition is essential to ensure consumers like ourselves aren’t getting fucked over, and it’s for a number of reasons.

Pricing - high competition ensures businesses are charging fair prices for their products or services. In a highly competitive industry, businesses are… ‘competing’ for revenue, which means they need to position themselves in a way that attracts customers.

What I mean by this is… affordable goods.

Without competition, and especially in an industry that is providing basic necessities, a business can charge as much as it wants knowing people have to pay the prices regardless.

Yes, I’m looking at you, Thames Water.

Innovation - as well as pricing, businesses need to spend high amounts to innovate and continuously make their products better, to remain competitive.

The car industry is the perfect example here. Think about all the ways cars have improved over the past few decades…

• Comfort

• Safety

• Speed

• Efficiency

That’s not because you have one company dominating an industry. It’s because you have fierce competition, and dozens of manufacturers fighting it out for sales.

No competition? No innovation. Why, you might ask?

Well, why would they bother? R&D is expensive, and if you know you’re making sales anyway, you might as well give yourself the money in the form of a hefty dividend rather than trying to improve your operations for a competitive edge.

Now imagine these two factors combined. A private company providing a basic necessity, operating in a monopoly. It’s a recipe for utter disaster.

And once again, I’m looking at you Thames Water.

3. Difficulty Switching

We’ve all been there…

…on the phone to a service provider of some sort trying to cancel a policy, and it’s like trying to perform brain surgery… on four people at once… with your toes.

This isn’t a coincidence. It’s so you’ll eventually give up and continue paying money to whoever it is you’re currently with.

There are a number of industries like this. Broadband, energy, entertainment, and a number of others. It’s not as straight forward as merely picking up a different brand of coffee on the supermarket aisle.

And once again, the difficulty of switching providers contributes to exploitation.

Again, it’s scummy, and one of the many flaws of modern day capitalism. And when you have customers who are busy, stressed, and don’t have a lot of free time, too many don’t have the patience to do what they need to do.

So, they give up, and once again, the big corporation wins.

The solution will only come from political legislation, but again, with an entire parliament full of politicians who are seemingly nothing but puppets to the corporate machine, I doubt anything happens any time soon.

Final Thoughts

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the concept of private companies. Most of the best things we have, have come from entrepreneurs taking risks, starting companies, and building something great. I’m not a fucking marxist, alright.

But there can be times where privatisation fails people, and this is almost always the case of industries where goods are…

• Necessary for your survival

• Lacking competition

• Difficult to switch

or a mixture of the three.

I wish there wasn’t a need for regulation, or even nationalisation, but there is because the concentrated financial power of certain corporations in certain industries is becoming too great.

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