The Predatory Society

An interesting theme to life in the Empire has recently bubbled up into Chaos' consciousness...along with some recent items in the media, of course. The first, oft-commented upon here, is Michael Moore's Sicko, wherein the healthcare industry (and Chaos is quite deliberate in word choice here) takes full advantage of those customers who have little or no power to fight back. This last is not an unreasonable interpretation of people's experiences depicted in the film. Further, Chaos recently viewed a somewhat similar documentary dealing with the credit card industry, Maxed Out, in which individuals who have gone bankrupt (made more difficult by the changes pushed through by the same credit card companies) are then targeted by these same companies, simply because their track record establishes them as the prime candidates for more irresponsible running up of debt. Finally, this article in the nation's paper of record reveals that private investment companies have bought up chains of nursing homes, insulated themselves from liability by creating networks of interlocking corporate entities, and then cut services and staff, resulting in unnecessary deaths among the "customers." This theme of the predatory society is, to Chaos' experience, new, and has attracted the attention of some rather esteemed people. To add to the commentary, Chaos notes that a good deal of the Empire's economy is now devoted to impoverishing the lower and middle classes through the machinations of these greedy corporations. How long can you gamble, readers, that you will not find yourself caught in one of these nefarious schemes that masquerade as "services?"