mom and pop

A bullshit term used by wealthy boomers to garner sympathy for their exploitative business practices. Often the business is under threat from possible regulation, and use of the term 'mom and pop' is a cheesy attempt to get young and less affluent people to distinguish between them and a large corporation, but often there is very little difference in principles aside from the scale. Often a large private business in the millions of dollars will describe themselves as mom-and-pop anyway as a marketing gimmick. At this point, the term has been used so frequently and inappropriately that it no longer holds any distinction, aside from making an entitled fair-weather capitalist stand out in the rain.

We are just normal mom and pop landlords, where your rent increase comes with freshly baked cookies.

Won't someone stick up for the mom and pop hedge fund managers of the world.

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highway robbery

Extortion, extracting value from legitimate business transactions/operations while providing little to no value, simply because you can. Doesn't come from modern highways, comes from 'highwaymen' who would threaten travellers and merchants on 'highways' (any kind of road up until the 19th century) and demand payment for use of the road, even though it was not theirs to demand a toll on.

These mafia-type guys came to my store and demanded payment for 'protection', it's highway robbery.
My rent is highway robbery, it's gone up way too much and the landlord is threatening to kick me out otherwise.

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