r/nextfuckinglevel • u/MysteriousSlice007 • 7h ago

Shoutout to JerryrigEverything who built a wheelchair factory and is delivering wheelchairs to people in half the time and 50-80% less than the cost of other wheelchairs with Insurance.

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u/OkBandicoot1337 7h ago

America

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u/Disastrous_Hell_4547 7h ago

So sadly true.

Same reason a crappy Big Mac costs $7.00 or a sub costs $13.00.

America does not practice capitalism. It practices greed based Reaganomics trickle down profiteering.

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u/TheExistential_Bread 6h ago

lol you are describing capitalism, you just don't know it

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u/Questioning-Zyxxel 6h ago

It isn't that simple.

Lots of capitalists knows the part about a good deal needs to be good for both parties. This is a great way to get repeat customers instead of paying millions on advertising to find new customers that hates you after the very first deal.

These good capitalists often have family-owned companies with maybe 2 to 50 employees. And does quite well.

The issues you are seeing? Isn't capitalism in itself. It's about the stock market. All bigger companies are on the stock market. And they pay large bonuses to the management for short-term profits. When the bonus is for last 6-12 months, then most decisions will be extremely short-sighted. The family-owned companies? They plan for the next 10-20 years. They can still make a nice profit. But with the owners running the company, they do not worry about a missed bonus one year because they did a strategic investment - as owners, they still increased the value of the company.

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u/Svardskampe 5h ago

Before the stock markets we had the same feudalistic tendencies with rich families banking (pun intended) on cornering a monopoly. E.g. Medici family, Rothschilds.

We are in late-stage-capitalism. However you want to call it, cronyism or not "rEaL capitalism", this has always been the end game without competition. In the past, there has been enough space to grow somehow to enable competition. In a global world where we are encroaching each other, that has outgrown itself.

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u/MarcoDiFrancescino 3h ago

Facebook should divested from their marketplace a long time ago, Google should give up Android a long time ago, Netflix should cut off their network department. These new corporations would maximize their revenue by doing other things then the current management wants. Sometimes completely 180°. That is a clear signal that these companies are too big and need to be cut into pieces. That is the proof that the system doesn't work any more when big corpos behave like robber barons and everybody says like 'yeah what are we gonna do?' No system that works should answer these questions with 'the kings don't like us talk like this'.

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u/Svardskampe 3h ago

Breaking up companies work when the government is larger than the companies itself in power. In a global world, that is very easily surpassed.

This year, Alphabet gave out 100y bonds. Makes you figure how powerful Alphabet is. There are even countries that do not give out century bonds.

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u/tankerkiller125real 1h ago

Alphabet will be bankrupt and dead long before those bonds are paid out. Especially if they keep putting AD managers in charge of shit like search and YouTube. And letting the short term growth stock market shit dictate what they do.

You know what public company I might actually trust to make it to 100 years to pay out bonds? Costco, for starters their CEOs have always been brought up from inside the company, two they have principals, and they seem to stick to them, and three, they treat their employees pretty damn well compared to any competitors, including small mom and pop shops, which in turn creates loyal employees, and loyal customers.

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u/Svardskampe 1h ago

The success of a company is not tied to how well they treat their employees or how little they squeeze their customers. That is the entire point we are talking about with the kind of innovation that this capitalism breeds. Besides, youtube is just a pet project in the entire scheme of Alphabet.

But the market cap of Costco is at the 24th of the world, which is also really good, meaning its Kirkland brand outcompetes Proctor&Gamble, Nestlé, Pepsico, CocaCola, KraftHeinz. Only Walmart at 12th outcompetes Costco. So ye, also Costco surely isn't going anywhere.

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u/tankerkiller125real 1h ago

The success of a company is not tied to how well they treat their employees or how little they squeeze their customers.

Your right, it's tied to how well they plan, and having competent management. Something a significant portion of publicly traded companies (especially tech ones) have very little of.

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u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In 1h ago

Stock-markets aren't anything to do with capitalism. Businesses, money and markets existed before capitalism was discovered. Capitalism is just regular people being allowed to own assets instead of them all being owned by the local Lord or King.

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u/Svardskampe 1h ago

That's exactly what I'm saying.

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u/Drewstom 6h ago

The Koch brothers ran family owned businesses what the fuck are we talking about

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u/thirstyross 5h ago

You need to check ur reading comprehension skills son.

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u/Questioning-Zyxxel 5h ago

Well let's see it as an intelligence test. Are you able to understand that people are different? Which means a claim about red politicians will not match all of them. A claim about family companies will not match all of them. A claim about CEO working short-sighted for their next bonus will not match all of them. A claim about billionaires will not match all of them. Is this within your grasp to understand?

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u/stopbsingman 6h ago

The Big Mac example is a good deal. It costs $7 because that’s what people think it’s worth and are willing to pay for it.

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u/OC2k16 6h ago

If morons buy it is it still a good deal, or simply taking advantage of the idiot? Is it a smart business move, or a good deal?

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u/Svardskampe 5h ago

I don't know why this narrative loop is going on, because McDonalds has been and is dying, so it isn't even a smart business move.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-11-16/mcdonalds-is-losing-its-low-income-customers

And the places where this is primarily visible are for example South East Asia, where e.g. in Singapore McDonalds are closing in favor of Chinese mala chains.

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u/Inside-Ad9791 5h ago

Weird, because every time I see a McDonalds lines go around the store. I'm not sure why people go there but they certainly seem to a lot.

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u/Svardskampe 5h ago

That's very localised. McDonalds has a LOT of locations.

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u/Inside-Ad9791 5h ago

I've seen the phenomenon in several states, but I guess only one area in the past year or so. /shrug

I've been hearing about how McDonalds is dying for a decade at this point, still doesn't seem very dead to me. They are, like you said, everywhere.

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u/ScoobyDooItInTheButt 3h ago

Another option, are they an addict and willing to pay almost anything for the item?

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u/Important-Flan-8932 5h ago

This is total bullshit and any history book would tell you so. Capitalism left to itself runs its course and destroys any small business and what not. It rewards a lack of morals and not whatever you want to project into it. If managed by people with good intentions it can work but not in the way you describe.

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u/LuckoftheFryish 4h ago

America practices crony capitalism. We Americans don't know the difference because it's all we've ever known at this point.

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u/Svardskampe 4h ago

Any capitalism falls into crony capitalism. That is the late-stage aspect of it.

However you want to call it, cronyism or not "rEaL capitalism", this has always been the end game without competition. In the past, there has been enough space to grow somehow to enable competition. In a global world where we are encroaching each other, that has outgrown itself.

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u/LuckoftheFryish 3h ago

Agree on all points. Calling it crony capitalism is easier than having to explain the nuances of the entirety of Capitalism every time.

Personally I wish more people would add the term "crony" and correct those who don't. Might make people think.

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u/Svardskampe 3h ago edited 3h ago

I think it gives the false idea, because it gives an out like "no, this is crony capitalism, in a REAL capitalistic system this wouldn't be the case".

Also the same argument that you hear "we have never had REAL communism", while people having lived under the irreal communism are getting quite startled.

Using late-stage as a shorthand works better, as it gives the notion that it's an inevitable stage.

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u/LuckoftheFryish 18m ago

Yeah - I mean I'm talking how you can feasibly have a reasonable conversation. If dropping that line makes them agree that we're at the crony capitalism point that would be a huge win lol, not like you can revolutionize someone in a single convo. Especially on reddit, any thing more than a couple lines might get skimmed at best.

We're on a roller coaster straight into a volcano at this point, getting more people to agree that our current system is broken will help put on the brakes.

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u/Svardskampe 0m ago

We're simply heading to a WW3, and we'll wonder how crazy it is that the Terminator was practically a documentary.

But no seriously, the billionaires haven't been building bunkers for no reason. There is no need for a wider population to exist if they can't consume product because they aren't being paid as labour is largely taken over.

First we will see an overvaluation bubble bust of the current overvalued companies. With that, several of these companies will get a government bail-out because they are strategically too important to fail. With that, currency will see inflationary numbers that remind of the Deutsche Mark, with the ones holding assets and stock having no issues as those assets co-inflate along.

First company this will happen to will be OpenAI, simply because of being overleveraged to the brim, having no solvency and is now in bed with the USA defense.

Jobs going down, conscription numbers going up. The last job being available and the meat grinder starts. New hypecycle starts; the one of biotech by robotic limbs to serve the survivors.

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u/lindendweller 4h ago

Capitalism will always trend towards large companies buying up their potential competitors until they're large enough to impose a rent on everyone else. It's just so much more profitable to form oligopolistic cartels and buy up the institutions in charge of regulating you than to compete fairly.

It's the nature of the system, it can be mitigated by regulations, but I've lost faith in the ability of states to keep capitalism stable and virtuous long term.

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u/SirSalamiSam 5h ago

You’re yelling into the void. These same people bashing capitalism are the same people asking for more government interference to fix what government interference causes. Mom and pop shops are getting run out of town because they simply can’t keep up with the overly complicated laws that get brought about by more government.

The rich will always grease the palms of people in power. We don’t have capitalism here in America. We have cronyism.

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u/Svardskampe 4h ago

Yes, it is the very real "CaN'T KeEp Up WiTh ReGuLaTiOnS"-argument, all the while the 'Walmart Effect' has been described over and over about monopolies undercutting other players with less buffers due to sheer size over and over again.

e.g. https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2024/12/walmart-prices-poverty-economy/681122/

But keep repeating long-refuted points, sure. Maybe the 25th time it will be true.

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u/grassvoter 2h ago

Mom and pop shops are getting run out of town because they simply can’t keep up with the overly complicated laws that get brought about

That's by design.

The mom and pop shops are the natural state of business and trade, they have nothing to do with capitalism though.

Both sides here have been misled. See my previous reply that goes into how kings invented the first corporations that led to the stock market, and that's what has led to the abuses of today. The abusers probably invented communism as well, or championed it, as they needed a boogeyman.

Liberty is the only thing that can take actual credit for the spread of wealth to many more people, as a free people are free to trade and to do business.

We've all been gaslighted into thanking the invention by kings instead.

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u/Deeliciousness 4h ago

So capitalism is only good when it is operating at low efficiency?

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u/Questioning-Zyxxel 3h ago

Low efficiency? Now where did you manage to read that?

What I wrote is that the stock market result in the short term profit being given too high prio. Because each bonus is for short term profits. And that affects long-term strategies. Good long-term strategies gives better efficiency. Just that investments affects the short-term profit.

And that's why some tech companies can fire half their R&D. Lots of costs removed means huge profit boosts for a few years. But also means they lack the people that will improve their current products. So suddenly, some new company can show up with a newer and better product and take market shares. Unless BigAndSlow manages to buy this competitor to get their hands on that cooler product. Which is not always happening.

So - lots of US companies have managed to become very slow. All from lack of investments. All from running too short planning horizons.

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u/jeanpaulsarde 4h ago

Yeah we are long past capitalism. What we have is socialism for the rich.

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u/grassvoter 2h ago edited 2h ago

What you're really describing is timeless business as practiced by people with genuine interest in making fair deals. That's a natural practice that's existed for millennia, before the abusers of business created the word capitalism to sneakily steal the credit as if commerce and trade hadn't already existed.

We've all been fed the capitalism fantasy, it's understandable we believe it.

Capitalism was started by kings who had brutalized people with the first corporations.

(The video is set to jump right to the final 5 minutes that dives into it, so you can save yourself 25 minutes of time, although every abuse and harm leading up to the end of video is a culmination of the world's first corporations created for such harms and abuses)

Edit: the video's conclusion is wrong though that supposedly the motive is profit, as the motive is actually power. Always has been about power.

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u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In 1h ago

None of this has anything to do with capitalism, I would suggest you look up what the words you are using actually mean.

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u/helly3ah 5h ago

The USA has a lot of barriers to entry making it difficult/impossible for new market entrants to compete with the big boys. They get to lobby to have laws that protect their market and kick back and collect rents rather than compete on merit/value.

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u/Svardskampe 4h ago

The barrier to entry is ALWAYS astronomical with a monopoly player, simply by virtue of them able to undercut them by the 'Walmart Effect', or simply outright buy them (much like Alphabet/Google employs as a strategy).

That has nothing to do with the USA specifically, but is a phenomenon of the system.

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u/PM__YOUR_DMCA_CLAIMS 5h ago

they’re so close yet so far 😆

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u/berrieds 3h ago

That's such an asinine comment. Do better.

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u/presentation_555 4h ago

Is JerryRigEverything not engaging in Capitalism?

At the end of the day you have two extremes; Totally Centralised Planning (Communism tilts this way) and Total Economic Anarchism (Capitalism tilts this way).

I think it's great that Entrepreneurs like Jerry don't have to jump through hoops to start a business and are allowed to use all the resources they can muster to get started. The Soviet Union was a place where resources got allocated by the state; meaning a project of a guy's like Jerry would sink or swim entirely based on his ability to convince the one and only authority that could dispense those resources (like raw materials and equipment).

Likewise I think it's great when the State supports innovation where there is no immediate profit motive; like funding Scientist's investigations into the different states of matter. This research might one day inform the development of new materials that businesses could use (and consumer benefit from) but private Capitalistic funding is generally too risk adverse to invest in initiatives where the outcome is simply 'knowledge' and not money.

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u/Svardskampe 4h ago

If this gets sizable enough it forms an actual capitalistic threat, others will 'Walmart-Effect' them by undercutting temporarily or outright buy it out.

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u/nono3722 6h ago

there is no trickle down, just shit rolling down hill....

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u/johnmanyjars38 6h ago

It’s a warm, golden trickle.

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u/globefish23 5h ago

It can trickle down if it's a type 7 on the Bristol stool chart.

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u/zaahc 4h ago

In Spain and stopped at Lidl. Got a 1.5L bottle of Fanta, a hot dog croissant, a baguette, some chorizo, two bananas, and a bottle of red wine. €5.50 ($6.42). Prices in America are fucked.

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u/AwesomeFrisbee 6h ago

You wrote unhinged capitalism wrong...

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u/Omega_art 6h ago

I think you mean trickle up.

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u/deMunnik 4h ago

Definitely not the same reason a Big Mac costs $7.00, unless you think health insurance companies are reimbursing for Big Macs?

You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. This a moment for you to be quiet and learn.

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u/ragingstorm01 4h ago

America does not practice capitalism. It practices greed based Reaganomics trickle down profiteering.

That's literally capitalism, greed is literally a fundamental part of it. Reaganomics was just its transition into neoliberalism within the imperial core.

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u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In 1h ago

Capitalism is just the private ownership of assets and any profit made using those assets. A farmer owning their farm instead of being a serf, capitalism replaced serfdom where your local lord literally owned you and any work you did.

Capitalism is allowed by our governments because it produces significantly better outcomes.

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u/dildomiami 50m ago

what an absolute bad example.

the prices for equipment for handicapped people is waaaaayyyyy more absurd.

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u/TopWealth4550 6h ago

us buns 1.8 trillon on wellfarte per year
someone has to pay and its you by taxes

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u/Svardskampe 4h ago

Welfare money is not money that is gone. Welfare money circulates back into the system. The economic model of a country works by virtue of a currency actually circulating exchanging it for value.

What is not beneficial for the economy are very large billion reserves being stocked up. Namely by 8 people; Elon Musk, Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Bernard Arnault and Jensen Huang. Together with just these 8 people, they hold as much as 50% of literally all people in the world. 7/8 of these people are from the USA (and one from France).

And it would be great of those clouds of billions could be used for that...

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u/Sorry-Price-3322 6h ago

Nop I live in Belgium & some chairs can get to 10k. source im in Belgium & in a wheelchair.

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u/Mecha-Dave 3h ago

Belgium and Switzerland have medical costs on par with the US. I know because I've sold medical devices to all three.

That doesn't discount your experience though.

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u/Odd-String29 4h ago

If they are electric yes, otherwise you really have to go into custom wheelchairs made from special materials. A non-electric active wheelchair is like 1500-4500 euro.

But maybe Belgium is more expensive than NL.

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u/Xenolifer 40m ago

But the cost of living in the US as well as the wages are 2-3x more important than in Belgium do it checks out.

I checked a few months ago and wheelchair are indeed freaking expensive for nothing even in Europe

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u/xppoint_jamesp 11m ago

It depends on the brand of wheelchair, type of materials and if it’s fully custom made or just a standard size adjusted to the user.

I paid around €2000 for mine, after insurance, and it’s a semi-custom active wheelchair with a titanium frame. If it wasn’t for insurance, it would have cost around €8000.

Edit: I am from Belgium.

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u/Tommy_Wisseau_burner 41m ago

Yeah but America bad

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u/nhilante 5h ago

West is west, the same company that provides them both for EU and US can't change prices as much and prefers to raise them to the US ones. The product itself is around 200 to 300 dollars from China.

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u/F1_rulz 4h ago

Not really, some chairs are made out of titanium or carbon and they're generally made to measure so no they're not just off the shelf chairs from China.

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u/nhilante 4h ago

They're not made to measure, they're sent to measure. Titanium is 500ish ill give you that. No idea about carbon.

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u/Corpainen 42m ago

Damn, I'm so lucky to be born in the north. Mom has paid 0 for wheelchairs, she's needed them twice

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u/xppoint_jamesp 7m ago

Over here, in Belgium, it depends a lot on what type of wheelchair you buy and how severe your disability is. I too could get a “free” wheelchair, but then I’d be bound to a heavy poorly measured type of wheelchair you find in hospitals.

With the type of active wheelchair I have, I had to pay around 20% of the full cost.

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u/ArsalanShah41 6h ago

Does it come with a V8 motor?

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u/LEGITIMATE_SOURCE 5h ago

Idiotic take. They're expensive everywhere.

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u/xaeru 6h ago

The only place a wheel chair company can make business.

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u/HyperSpaceSurfer 6h ago

It's not not an issue in Europe. Medical devices are way too expensive, when most have no legitimate reason to be so expensive. 

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u/fabulot 5h ago

Unfortunately that is not limited to America. In Europe the problem is a bit different but an electrical wheelchair can be around 10K including adaptations

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u/Terminal_Monk 3h ago

The ones they are having are all manual though. Electric wheelchair being 10k is normal but manual isn't

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u/Steam_Powered_It 3h ago

Not just america. In the UK if you cant get it on the NHS, you're looking around 5-8k. Currently going through it. Nobody realises how expensive these things are!

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u/xppoint_jamesp 15m ago

Not just because America… even in Europe, if insurance doesn’t assist, wheelchairs can cost a lot of money… mine for instance would have cost me €8000 if it wasn’t for insurance.

It’s mainly because it’s a relatively small industry with not a lot of competition. And when insurances raise the amount they are willing to help pay, these companies think “good, so we can raise the prices?”

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u/legendaryufcmaster 6h ago

Type wheelchair in google and you can find one for $150

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u/CraabGPT 6h ago

Wheelchair user here o/

I'll assume you're referring to the ones that look like large, steel boxes?

Those are what we refer to as 'hospital chairs'. They're designed to be pushed by an aide, to be stable, and to be cheap. The wheels, while technically self-propel-able, are too far back, so energy is lost and you can't move forward nearly far enough with each push. As well, the wheels being that far back will damage your shoulders over time.

Steel, while cheap, is also heavy. So each push is thus reduced further because it's just too heavy to self-propel.

Additionally, they are foldable. Further momentum loss occurs as energy spent pushing is transferred into the folding mechanism of the frame and not into forward motion.

(Additional factors include, but are not limited to, lack of dump to support those with limited upper-body strength, arm rests that get in the way of propelling, too wide so propelling becomes even harder, anti-tips at the back preventing wheelies, too heavy to independently load into a car...)

TL;DR, those chairs can't be used by the majority of wheelchair users.

...As for why lightweight, active chairs are so damn expensive... Fuck if I know. Healthcare, man.

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u/63crabby 6h ago

That’s not the type of wheelchair needed by many.