In an attempt to start an interesting discussion, Reddit user tycooperaow posted a question on r/AskReddit: "What is clearly a scam but Americans have been conditioned to believe that it is 'normal?'" And they succeeded. Even though the post has received 4.6K upvotes (far fewer than some of the most popular ones on the subreddit), it has accumulated over 5.5K comments. Non-Americans started sharing their take on the US, testing the definition of the word 'scam', and all the replies paint a pretty good picture of the way the rest of the world sees the country.
#21
The pledge of allegiance was actually an advertisement to sell flags.
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105points
#22
Tax Filing
For the majority of wage earners, the IRS can easily determine how much you owe and tell you, or tell you what you're owed in a refund. It's simple.
That they don't do so is only because tax preparation companies lobby lawmakers to keep the system as it is. Tax preparation companies only exist because they are legally allowed, middle men. They are slow, complicated, costly, and the opposite of free market efficiency.
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102points
#23
Health insurance. Studied abroad in France for a year. When I went to the hospital for urinary retention due to an infection and had to spend the night. The only thing I had to pay for was the antibiotics they gave me to take home for a week which was about $10 for 7 pills. Ours is a joke.
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99points
#24
Politicians talk about the need for healthcare, but create legislation for healthcare insurance.
Those are not the same things. In fact, the latter actually is a barrier to the former.
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96points
#25
'Overdraft protection,' which actually allows the bank to charge you when you use a debit card, instead of just declining the transaction.
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91points
#26
The push that 'college is for everyone!' Also, you aren’t able to default on your student loans, so banks will give them to anyone. Coincidentally, society started telling people that they should all go to college, no matter their situation, right after passing the bill that made student loans impossible to hide from.
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89points
#27
Rent To Own products. (Rent-A-Center, Aarons, Conns, etc..) You end up paying triple or quadruple the value of the product for virtually no other benefit than you'd get if you just saved a little money and bought the product out-right.
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79points
#28
Paying thousands of dollars for basic dental work
75points
#30
Identity theft. The bank fails to properly vet someone they gave money to, and now it's your problem.
You did nothing, the bank made a mistake. How is that your problem?
And look at credit monitoring companies, they claim they can detect fraud on your credit report. Yet, credit monitoring companies and credit reporting companies are one and the same -- literally the same company. So the real message is "pay us and we will not make false reports about you in our credit reports, we have the ability to detect falsehoods, but will only do so if you pay us". There should be a clear case of libel here. The credit reporting companies often report things that they reasonably know to be false.
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70points
#31
The war on drugs. Cheap informal pharmacopeia is what's left for anyone who can't afford or access doctors, psychiatric help, or prescription meds. Rehab for the privileged, prison for the rest. Political talking points, to get us riled up. A gray market with selective enforcement, like gambling and prostitution. Employment in the Informal Sector. Employment, asset seizure, bribery, and extortion opportunity for cynical Enforcers. Prohibition 2.0.
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67points
#33
For profit health insurance. We still pay for other people's healthcare, we just do it in a much more bloated and expensive way than universal healthcare.
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62points
#35
90% of ads you see in social media. Hair fruit gummies do not help your hair.
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51points
#36
Prescription eye glasses. They should be maybe $100 tops but we pay multiple times that for them.
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44points
#37
Insurance. Sure it works as intended, but it could be non-profit so rates are cheaper and rebates are given, not so someone can get filthy rich. All the unused money at the end of the year should go back to the insured, not the insurer less a fair wage.
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43points
#38
Car dealerships. They're literally just middle-man functions that do nothing more than raise the cost of the 'good' and produce taxation for the government on multiple levels of the transactions involved in purchasing a car through the third party.
41points
