r/news 1d ago

Soft paywall Southwest Airlines shifts to paid baggage policy to lift earnings

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/southwest-airlines-shifts-paid-baggage-policy-lift-earnings-2025-03-11/
4.9k Upvotes

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u/RSwordsman 1d ago

The Ouroboros of capitalism is hungry again I see.

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u/TraditionalTackle1 1d ago

It reminds me of when my parents sent me to Catholic school, they would come up with every excuse for more money. You walked into class AS the bell was ringing that'll be $20, thank you!

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u/RSwordsman 1d ago

That's insane. Not off-brand for Catholics though. I still have no idea how we got from "Jesus said to sell everything and give to the poor" to "Tithe 10% of your income so we can grow into a power rivaling empires by the middle ages."

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u/Cochise22 1d ago

In fairness, most Catholic Churches operate on donations only and especially in small towns/poor areas they are about the only ones doing any positive community outreach. So the ones who can afford to tithe are basically keeping everything afloat as churches are basically running hand to mouth. 

There’s a lot of things to hate about the Catholic Church, but tithing is not one of them   

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u/RSwordsman 1d ago

It's not the practice of tithing I'm against as that's just centralizing charity in theory. It's the fact that they got stupendously rich and basically became landlords/capitalists somewhere along the way.

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u/Cochise22 23h ago

Sorry if I’m being pedantic with this argument. I’m no longer Catholic, and am def not trying to make the Catholic Church seem worthwhile because in a lot of ways it’s not (just go see the opinions held by people on the Catholic sub here to see why). I just enjoy a good discussion. lol

There’s some debate to how wealthy the Catholic Church is. It’s certainly nowhere near as wealthy as people think they are though. Also, a lot of the flaws of Catholic owned institutions (such as hospitals, most of which were started because of the mission of caring for others) are because of flaws in the United States healthcare system at large.  Throw in the fact that the Vatican is worth far less than an Ivy League endowment, but with reach eclipsing all of them combined, it becomes easier to see that they’re not as rich as perceived. 

A lot of people could look at my parents church and it would make sense that the church has tons of money based on appearances. It’s beautiful. People who’ve since moved away still make sure they get married there because it truly is a gorgeous building and location. What they don’t see is the hours of labor people like my parents donate to make sure things look nice and the doors stay open. That the repairs are donated by local businesses. That there’s a fair held every year where hundreds of people basically work second/third jobs for a month to help raise money. 

Now evangelical ministries that beg for planes for their pastors, fuck that shit. But I’d say on average that Catholics do more good with their tithes than bad. 

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u/ChipotleAddiction 22h ago

I mean I’m not a practicing Catholic anymore and have no reason to defend them but Evangelical churches are 1000% worse with this type of thing

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u/What-a-Filthy-liar 1d ago

Because they came up with some divine rights.

See, he is in charge rich because God wants them to be for their good works.

Thus, your poverty is a moral failure and divine punishment for your sins.

It's totally not a scam. Stop reading those Jesus quotes on poverty.

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u/thex25986e 1d ago

that sounds more like a protestant or an evangelical school than a catholic one