My grandmother won the lottery, twice. Not huge, but decent, in the tens of thousands both times. Both times (and 10% of her income) she tithed the whole amount to the Catholic church. The Vatican is literally made of gold and ivory, but they need my Grandma's paycheck? Her lottery winnings? That's a scam if ever I saw one.

40 hour work week. We should be on 32 hours and 3 day weekends. No loss in productivity.

Tipping: makes no sense to me as an European.

Engagement rings that costs multiple months of salary and *must* be diamonds or else they are worthless. That's a tradition that's not even 100 years old. It's just the result of an *insanely* effective ad campaign by the diamond industry.

Donating money... ...to preachers with private jets

Homeopathy. It's 100% a scam, you're just getting filler tablets, I will fight you.

Private health insurance, you pay premiums every month only to find out it doesn't cover what needs to be done.

The concept that you work from 16 to 18 years of age, until 65-70 and somehow anything in between that is wrong. There is too much s**t interconnected to keep people slaving away only to blink and one day you’re 60. Before someone tries to justify “well you should live within your means” or “save better”, realize that’s part of the problem. The only reason the retirement age keeps getting pushed back is to keep people working as long as possible since the life expectancy keeps going up. Imo.

Tell you what. Property taxes - paying for what you already own? Now THAT'S a scam.

Having children

Multi-level-marketing schemes.

The American voting system (gerrymandering in particular)

People forced to get married. Or else your relationship is not valid. Lets be honest. The prices of a classic wedding are insane. And all for one day and mostly to impress others.

The fact that it’s very hard to find a job making any kind of decent money without going to college, yet you have to have a c**p ton of money to go to college

herbalife

Rent increases due to "market value" with no upgrades to the property.

The so called American Dream.

The lottery. Just state sponsored gambling for poor people

Chopping a chicken wing in half and selling it as two wings.

The government being accountable for how our money is spent.

Prom. School sports. School rings. All the things above require money spent by young people (by proxy, their parents). It's all what's known as "induced demand". When you get can't get money out of adults, you move further down to their kids. Saturday morning cartoons had commercials and employed the "nag effect" where the kids nagged their parents to death to buy them the toys that were advertised. With "important" things like prom, sports, rings, for older kids, these are all a more nuanced or subtle form of the nag effect. By promoting this concept of "school spirit", kids feel compelled to be part of the in-group and do what everyone else is doing. The schools condone it, they sponsor it, and the businesses that spring up in the periphery around it reap all the rewards. *And they heavily gouge these kids (and their parents).* Dress and suit rentals and stores. Limo rentals. Sports supply and equipment stores. Jewelers who sell the rings. All of it heavily marked up, of course, because the kids **must** have these things. So now everyone is told that if they don't go to prom, that's so sad. If they don't get involved in sports or do other things, that's so sad. If you don't get a school ring, that's so sad. Although I think the school ring is started to go away, right? I say all of this as a former photographer who knows very well the demands of school seniors and their photos (I don't do them, it took one or two to make me hate it). They couldn't care less if it wasn't for Instagram and the entire industry feeding off this need for validation. I mean, we didn't when I was a senior. Oh and don't even get me started on weddings...

I think most day to day things are now scams to a certain extent. I mean if you look at a scam as something that’s in place to take unfair advantage of a person, then most facets of life are scams. Even the most innocent concepts and programs can be viewed as scams, look at things like food donations to help the needy, maybe on the surface it’s not a scam… but it’s in place bc the way the current system is setup, it’s taking advantage of people and forcing others to step up and support them.

Student teaching. You pay the college tuition, have to secure and pay for a place to live, often have to get a vehicle, and then agree to not have any outside employment during the semester long assignment. They want you to focus on learning how to become a teacher is the argument but unless you have alternate means of support it's not feasible for many. And folks wonder why young people are not pursuing this option. It's the first of many issues with how teachers are educated and trained

McDonald's happy meals. Does it really bring happiness and fulfillment? Or just diabetes...

A lot of college degrees/courses

‘Temporary’ tax

Weight watchers or slimming world

Pensions systems in many European countries. It's basically a Ponzi scheme.

Taxes on your incomes + taxes on what you buy. Taxes to drive a car + taxes to park the car. In France we have a tax on a tax : we have a tax that is calculate on your income before another tax is levied !

Engagement rings for sure. Also, most small fines, parking tix, etc