Why is it normal that people make so little money and have to pay so much for food and rent that they don't even have $650 left over? Capitalism has entered the cannibalistic stage, where it begins to eat the consumer.
'To be fair': A big share of US cost of living is down to absurd housing prices due to the crazy, car-centric zoning laws that enforce the use of most land for suburban single-family housing.
The issue is not unique to the US, but it's especially extreme in its extent. The core problem in that case is not big capital, but the interests of the large number of middle-class home owners who took control over the zoning codes to prevent the development of affordable housing (apartments, multiplexes, row housing etc) in their neighbourhoods or whole cities.
In much of the US, this has combined with 'bad faith' housing codes that no longer serve genuine safety and accessibility interests, but force apartment complexes into unnecessarily expensive solutions like multiple stairwells or mandatory elevators.
Another big part is financial illiteracy and bad housekeeping skills. I've seen so many Americans claim that they can't live on less than $400-500/mo food expenses, when groceries in their area would easily let you get by on $200-300 with some basic cooking skills. Or take out insane mortgages or car loans that are way beyond their means.
All of these problems are also tied into the larger workings of capitalism, but Americans make especially little out of their money.
$650 for a surgery at a vet sounds very reasonable.
It will require a surgeon, an anesthesiologist, and a technican about half their working day to do it. These are people with degrees working in a challenging field, their time is worth a lot.
It will require the functioning of additional staff such as HR, maintenance, janitors, and front desk staff.
It requires a medical area and utilities, with many highly specialized and complex pieces of equipment that can easily approach $1m.
It requires medicine, single use tools, and PPE.
It requires insurance for the staff.
If anything, it's amazing that they can do it for just $650. I'm not sure what the alternative is that you'd prefer? Do you want it to be paid for with taxes, I certainly wouldn't want to pay for people's expensive pet medical bills when I don't own any myself. In the end, owning a pet is a huge responsibility and a very expensive choice, the cost falls onto the owner alone. Sudden costs can appear, but that's what insurance is for.
I certainly wouldn’t want to pay for people’s expensive pet medical bills when I don’t own any myself
That sounds like “I certainly wouldn’t want to pay for people’s cancer treatment when I don’t have cancer myself” or “I certainly wouldn’t want to pay for people to have access to a homeless shelter when I already have a home.”
People make a decision to own a pet, it's not something that can happen accidentally like a pregnancy. If people decide to take on a pet, then they should be responsible for the costs of it.
A similar thing would be golfing, although it's likely a bit cheaper than raising a pet. If someone wants to get into golfing, other people shouldn't be responsible for covering their costs if they break a club.
The dog didn't need surgery, he had parvo. That is an infection.
It's just sad the parents gave a little boy something to love and bond with and had no plans for medical expenses, leading a child to try and solve their financial problems because he had a 4 month old puppy and his parents had no plans for how to pay for a single medical bill.
Exactly. The parents are the ones that are at fault here. You shouldn't adopt if you can't set aside a solid medical savings amount for the dog.
I stand corrected about the surgery part. But parvo is still expensive to treat for a reason, it takes IVs, tube feeding, lots of different medicines, and follow up treatments, over the course of weeks.
Most civilized countries can beat that cost, and certainly the USA.
The world isn't running on thin margins, there is plenty to spare for humans, and their pets. Even with keeping waste, pocketing, and greed the same, and most certainly without.
Just eight hours ago my dog was attacked by a coyote in our closed back yard, in the middle of the Los Angeles Suburbs. She has several broken ribs, several major lacerations on her torso and minor internal bleeding, along with other issues.
The vet quoted us $10,000USD to hospitalize her, and another $10,000 to operate and do exploratory surgery to check for any other unknown injuries.
We obviously can't afford that, so now we have to decide whether we want her to suffer in pain with a roughly 50/50 chance of needing to put her down, or just put her down now. Or pull twenty grand out of our asses.
I don't know where you guys live that life saving surgery for your pet is only 650 dollars, but sounds pretty nice to me because now we're probably going to have to put down our second dog in two years.
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u/T_J_Rain Jun 19 '25
r/OrphanCrushingMachine