WSJ: Beware real estate cartel

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DoJ is coming after you next:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/warning-to-the-real-estate-cartel-11625783854

Finally, hopefully consumers can get away from this ridiculous system that compensates brokers exorbitant sums of money for only a few hours of work. TBH, a vast majority of the process could probably be largely automated for a $20 fee anyway. Ridiculous US consumers have so much wealth destroyed from insane fees, or are forced to buy less because of fees.

Funny, I did a 5 hour home inspection today with a lawyer who is involved in this case. Guess, I don't have to day anything else, and we will forgot about the twenty plus hours I spent with him at other houses, working out finances, and two previous pre inspections.

Funny how you cherry picked and only highlighted this one transaction. Are you suggesting there are no transactions that take less than 20 hours beginning to end? I’ve purchased/sold several homes both with realtors and on my own with a flat fee attorney. Realtor fees should be by the hour. $750 an hour will motivate buyers to be more precise with their search.

For comparison, commercial real estate lawyers with ten years of experience and degrees from Harvard, etc. working on $10-50 million deals usually charge less than $750.

For a real estate agent, $200 is probably more reasonable.

No lawyer who ordinarily works on $10-50 million RE deals is charging less than $750 for their services (unless you're talking by the hour).

You mind sharing whatever it is you're smoking? It's the weekend, after all...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DoJ is coming after you next:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/warning-to-the-real-estate-cartel-11625783854

Finally, hopefully consumers can get away from this ridiculous system that compensates brokers exorbitant sums of money for only a few hours of work. TBH, a vast majority of the process could probably be largely automated for a $20 fee anyway. Ridiculous US consumers have so much wealth destroyed from insane fees, or are forced to buy less because of fees.

Funny, I did a 5 hour home inspection today with a lawyer who is involved in this case. Guess, I don't have to day anything else, and we will forgot about the twenty plus hours I spent with him at other houses, working out finances, and two previous pre inspections.

Funny how you cherry picked and only highlighted this one transaction. Are you suggesting there are no transactions that take less than 20 hours beginning to end? I’ve purchased/sold several homes both with realtors and on my own with a flat fee attorney. Realtor fees should be by the hour. $750 an hour will motivate buyers to be more precise with their search.

For comparison, commercial real estate lawyers with ten years of experience and degrees from Harvard, etc. working on $10-50 million deals usually charge less than $750.

For a real estate agent, $200 is probably more reasonable.

No lawyer who ordinarily works on $10-50 million RE deals is charging less than $750 for their services (unless you're talking by the hour).

You mind sharing whatever it is you're smoking? It's the weekend, after all...

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/how-much-does-a-financial-advisor-cost

Certified financial planners charge $200-$400 per hour and actually add value. Sounds about right for what brokers should get paid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The real problem is the conflict of interest. It’s in the best interest of both the seller and buyer agents (the later is your representation) to make sure you spend as much as possible.

More commission, better for the market. When we bought our current house, we received a buyers credit, rather than a lower sales price. Again more commission for them, better for the market, higher taxes for us, and revenue for the city.

The only people guaranteed to make money in real estate are the realtors and the government.

This. There's so much price jacking and no accountability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DoJ is coming after you next:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/warning-to-the-real-estate-cartel-11625783854

Finally, hopefully consumers can get away from this ridiculous system that compensates brokers exorbitant sums of money for only a few hours of work. TBH, a vast majority of the process could probably be largely automated for a $20 fee anyway. Ridiculous US consumers have so much wealth destroyed from insane fees, or are forced to buy less because of fees.

Funny, I did a 5 hour home inspection today with a lawyer who is involved in this case. Guess, I don't have to day anything else, and we will forgot about the twenty plus hours I spent with him at other houses, working out finances, and two previous pre inspections.

Funny how you cherry picked and only highlighted this one transaction. Are you suggesting there are no transactions that take less than 20 hours beginning to end? I’ve purchased/sold several homes both with realtors and on my own with a flat fee attorney. Realtor fees should be by the hour. $750 an hour will motivate buyers to be more precise with their search.

For comparison, commercial real estate lawyers with ten years of experience and degrees from Harvard, etc. working on $10-50 million deals usually charge less than $750.

For a real estate agent, $200 is probably more reasonable.

No lawyer who ordinarily works on $10-50 million RE deals is charging less than $750 for their services (unless you're talking by the hour).

You mind sharing whatever it is you're smoking? It's the weekend, after all...

I’m a 7th year associate at a biglaw refugee boutique and my rate is $750/hr. Suspect PP’s rate is out of date.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DoJ is coming after you next:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/warning-to-the-real-estate-cartel-11625783854

Finally, hopefully consumers can get away from this ridiculous system that compensates brokers exorbitant sums of money for only a few hours of work. TBH, a vast majority of the process could probably be largely automated for a $20 fee anyway. Ridiculous US consumers have so much wealth destroyed from insane fees, or are forced to buy less because of fees.

Funny, I did a 5 hour home inspection today with a lawyer who is involved in this case. Guess, I don't have to day anything else, and we will forgot about the twenty plus hours I spent with him at other houses, working out finances, and two previous pre inspections.

Funny how you cherry picked and only highlighted this one transaction. Are you suggesting there are no transactions that take less than 20 hours beginning to end? I’ve purchased/sold several homes both with realtors and on my own with a flat fee attorney. Realtor fees should be by the hour. $750 an hour will motivate buyers to be more precise with their search.

For comparison, commercial real estate lawyers with ten years of experience and degrees from Harvard, etc. working on $10-50 million deals usually charge less than $750.

For a real estate agent, $200 is probably more reasonable.

No lawyer who ordinarily works on $10-50 million RE deals is charging less than $750 for their services (unless you're talking by the hour).

You mind sharing whatever it is you're smoking? It's the weekend, after all...

I think most of us understood that this was $750/hour. Let’s be generous and say a realtor puts in 40 hours in selling a $1M house, earning a $50k commission. That amounts to $1250/hour. Realtors don’t have nearly the education, experience or knowledge that a lawyer does, but they get away with charging these fees due to their lobby. This has to end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The real problem is the conflict of interest. It’s in the best interest of both the seller and buyer agents (the later is your representation) to make sure you spend as much as possible.

More commission, better for the market. When we bought our current house, we received a buyers credit, rather than a lower sales price. Again more commission for them, better for the market, higher taxes for us, and revenue for the city.

The only people guaranteed to make money in real estate are the realtors and the government.

This. There's so much price jacking and no accountability.

Agree! So glad there is finally some attention on this issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DoJ is coming after you next:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/warning-to-the-real-estate-cartel-11625783854

Finally, hopefully consumers can get away from this ridiculous system that compensates brokers exorbitant sums of money for only a few hours of work. TBH, a vast majority of the process could probably be largely automated for a $20 fee anyway. Ridiculous US consumers have so much wealth destroyed from insane fees, or are forced to buy less because of fees.

Funny, I did a 5 hour home inspection today with a lawyer who is involved in this case. Guess, I don't have to day anything else, and we will forgot about the twenty plus hours I spent with him at other houses, working out finances, and two previous pre inspections.

Funny how you cherry picked and only highlighted this one transaction. Are you suggesting there are no transactions that take less than 20 hours beginning to end? I’ve purchased/sold several homes both with realtors and on my own with a flat fee attorney. Realtor fees should be by the hour. $750 an hour will motivate buyers to be more precise with their search.

More like 75 cents an hour. We handed our agent the key to our house and she had it painted, floors refinished, deck and some other repairs done, had a new garage door installed, carpet cleaned in the basement, and had windows and house cleaned. She had the house staged and had photos, floorplans, and a tour done. She spent three hours sitting on her ass at an an open house and then made us respond to offers a few days later. She didn’t do anything after that except meet the appraiser, termite inspector, and our movers. She spent maybe a couple hours making sure the movers got everything out of the house and then took all our old paint to the County. She spent a lot of time with the settlement because we were in two places. For that she made over $9,000. She should have gotten $750 for the little she did. My neighbors were all impressed but she didn’t do any of the work

You're saying this isn't a lot of work to do and arrange? Why didn't you arrange any of these things?

Exactly. You are also missing the hours she spent on thr brochure, hiring the photographer, doing the paperwork, etc. I spent a summer working for a top agent and there was tons of behind the scenes work. She would often be responding to emails non-stop until 11 at night and start at 6 again the next am. She made it look seamless so her clients didn’t see the million fires going on behind the scenes.

That thread on sketchy sellers on the bay had hundreds of shocked responses. We saw stuff like that a lot and the agent worked to protect the clients and keep it from getting as far down the line as that one did. Not saying there are not some awful agents - there are. I do believe without the good agents you’d have a ton of stuff like that bay house issue. Also, every time I see a settlement w/ a Redfin agent, there are issues and for the most part their clients got a worse deal than if they had paid the full commission and used an agent that actually was tops in their area

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DoJ is coming after you next:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/warning-to-the-real-estate-cartel-11625783854

Finally, hopefully consumers can get away from this ridiculous system that compensates brokers exorbitant sums of money for only a few hours of work. TBH, a vast majority of the process could probably be largely automated for a $20 fee anyway. Ridiculous US consumers have so much wealth destroyed from insane fees, or are forced to buy less because of fees.

Funny, I did a 5 hour home inspection today with a lawyer who is involved in this case. Guess, I don't have to day anything else, and we will forgot about the twenty plus hours I spent with him at other houses, working out finances, and two previous pre inspections.

Funny how you cherry picked and only highlighted this one transaction. Are you suggesting there are no transactions that take less than 20 hours beginning to end? I’ve purchased/sold several homes both with realtors and on my own with a flat fee attorney. Realtor fees should be by the hour. $750 an hour will motivate buyers to be more precise with their search.

More like 75 cents an hour. We handed our agent the key to our house and she had it painted, floors refinished, deck and some other repairs done, had a new garage door installed, carpet cleaned in the basement, and had windows and house cleaned. She had the house staged and had photos, floorplans, and a tour done. She spent three hours sitting on her ass at an an open house and then made us respond to offers a few days later. She didn’t do anything after that except meet the appraiser, termite inspector, and our movers. She spent maybe a couple hours making sure the movers got everything out of the house and then took all our old paint to the County. She spent a lot of time with the settlement because we were in two places. For that she made over $9,000. She should have gotten $750 for the little she did. My neighbors were all impressed but she didn’t do any of the work

You're saying this isn't a lot of work to do and arrange? Why didn't you arrange any of these things?

Exactly. You are also missing the hours she spent on thr brochure, hiring the photographer, doing the paperwork, etc. I spent a summer working for a top agent and there was tons of behind the scenes work. She would often be responding to emails non-stop until 11 at night and start at 6 again the next am. She made it look seamless so her clients didn’t see the million fires going on behind the scenes.

That thread on sketchy sellers on the bay had hundreds of shocked responses. We saw stuff like that a lot and the agent worked to protect the clients and keep it from getting as far down the line as that one did. Not saying there are not some awful agents - there are. I do believe without the good agents you’d have a ton of stuff like that bay house issue. Also, every time I see a settlement w/ a Redfin agent, there are issues and for the most part their clients got a worse deal than if they had paid the full commission and used an agent that actually was tops in their area

My dear. You are one of the rare, rare professionals in your field. I have NEVER come across someone like you, and I've dealt with plenty of realtors. There is a reason realtors have this reputation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DoJ is coming after you next:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/warning-to-the-real-estate-cartel-11625783854

Finally, hopefully consumers can get away from this ridiculous system that compensates brokers exorbitant sums of money for only a few hours of work. TBH, a vast majority of the process could probably be largely automated for a $20 fee anyway. Ridiculous US consumers have so much wealth destroyed from insane fees, or are forced to buy less because of fees.

Funny, I did a 5 hour home inspection today with a lawyer who is involved in this case. Guess, I don't have to day anything else, and we will forgot about the twenty plus hours I spent with him at other houses, working out finances, and two previous pre inspections.

Funny how you cherry picked and only highlighted this one transaction. Are you suggesting there are no transactions that take less than 20 hours beginning to end? I’ve purchased/sold several homes both with realtors and on my own with a flat fee attorney. Realtor fees should be by the hour. $750 an hour will motivate buyers to be more precise with their search.

More like 75 cents an hour. We handed our agent the key to our house and she had it painted, floors refinished, deck and some other repairs done, had a new garage door installed, carpet cleaned in the basement, and had windows and house cleaned. She had the house staged and had photos, floorplans, and a tour done. She spent three hours sitting on her ass at an an open house and then made us respond to offers a few days later. She didn’t do anything after that except meet the appraiser, termite inspector, and our movers. She spent maybe a couple hours making sure the movers got everything out of the house and then took all our old paint to the County. She spent a lot of time with the settlement because we were in two places. For that she made over $9,000. She should have gotten $750 for the little she did. My neighbors were all impressed but she didn’t do any of the work

Aren't you funny. I've bought and sold many houses and have employed different agents for everyone. I have never had an agent do any of these things you've documented. I had to deal with our appraiser who made a serious mistake in our documentation in which he left information on a page related to a different house. My agent did nothing. No one I know has ever had an agent do more than the minimum. Anyone can become a agent.

[Anonymous]

If it were so simple to “disrupt” real estate it would have been done by now. There are reasons Redfin hasn’t become the Amazon of real estate, shuttering all its mom & pop competitors. DH and I are both lawyers and we still use realtors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it were so simple to “disrupt” real estate it would have been done by now. There are reasons Redfin hasn’t become the Amazon of real estate, shuttering all its mom & pop competitors. DH and I are both lawyers and we still use realtors.

Nonsense. Cartels are powerful and corrupt our politicians.

Pharmacists could be replaced by low cost robots now at this point, yet the only reason we continue to need pharmacists is because the law in many places says there must be a human on staff? Why do we need them? Only because lobbyists make politicians write the law stating that a human pharmacist must be present. Pharmacists themselves don't have any special skills that is better than automated dispensing robots. In fact, robots make far less mistakes and have already been shown for going on almost 2 decades now that they're capable of dispensing out billions of doses effectively. Many hospitals and urban areas already use pill dispensing robots, yet pharmacists hang around because of the law.

Same for car salesmen. Why do we have to pay them at all? Why can't we just buy from the company like Tesla? Because of corruption. The car sales lobby tries to prohibit consumers from buying cars from Tesla, because they want to keep their inefficient and dumb model in place so that consumers have to get gouged unnecessarily with a needless third party between purchasing their car and the manufacturer. The only reason we have to buy cars from dealers is because it is the law for many places.

Same for RE. 95% of it can be automated. Virtually 99.99999% of all other countries in the world charge vastly lower fee for RE transactions than the US. The Department of Justice wouldn't be wasting their time if they didn't think it stunk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DoJ is coming after you next:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/warning-to-the-real-estate-cartel-11625783854

Finally, hopefully consumers can get away from this ridiculous system that compensates brokers exorbitant sums of money for only a few hours of work. TBH, a vast majority of the process could probably be largely automated for a $20 fee anyway. Ridiculous US consumers have so much wealth destroyed from insane fees, or are forced to buy less because of fees.

Funny, I did a 5 hour home inspection today with a lawyer who is involved in this case. Guess, I don't have to day anything else, and we will forgot about the twenty plus hours I spent with him at other houses, working out finances, and two previous pre inspections.

Funny how you cherry picked and only highlighted this one transaction. Are you suggesting there are no transactions that take less than 20 hours beginning to end? I’ve purchased/sold several homes both with realtors and on my own with a flat fee attorney. Realtor fees should be by the hour. $750 an hour will motivate buyers to be more precise with their search.

More like 75 cents an hour. We handed our agent the key to our house and she had it painted, floors refinished, deck and some other repairs done, had a new garage door installed, carpet cleaned in the basement, and had windows and house cleaned. She had the house staged and had photos, floorplans, and a tour done. She spent three hours sitting on her ass at an an open house and then made us respond to offers a few days later. She didn’t do anything after that except meet the appraiser, termite inspector, and our movers. She spent maybe a couple hours making sure the movers got everything out of the house and then took all our old paint to the County. She spent a lot of time with the settlement because we were in two places. For that she made over $9,000. She should have gotten $750 for the little she did. My neighbors were all impressed but she didn’t do any of the work

Aren't you funny. I've bought and sold many houses and have employed different agents for everyone. I have never had an agent do any of these things you've documented. I had to deal with our appraiser who made a serious mistake in our documentation in which he left information on a page related to a different house. My agent did nothing. No one I know has ever had an agent do more than the minimum. Anyone can become a agent.

PP’s description sounds a bit over the top, but last time we sold, our agent took care of hiring painters, somebody to put in new countertops, photos, staging, new carpets, cleaning, re-glazing the tub, and probably other stuff I’m forgetting. We paid her 2.5% of the sale price (the buyer’s agent got the other half). I still think it was a lot for the work put in, but honestly, it would have taken me so much longer to find the right people to do the work and be around for all the appointments. We probably got to market earlier and sold faster because of her work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DoJ is coming after you next:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/warning-to-the-real-estate-cartel-11625783854

Finally, hopefully consumers can get away from this ridiculous system that compensates brokers exorbitant sums of money for only a few hours of work. TBH, a vast majority of the process could probably be largely automated for a $20 fee anyway. Ridiculous US consumers have so much wealth destroyed from insane fees, or are forced to buy less because of fees.

Funny, I did a 5 hour home inspection today with a lawyer who is involved in this case. Guess, I don't have to day anything else, and we will forgot about the twenty plus hours I spent with him at other houses, working out finances, and two previous pre inspections.

Funny how you cherry picked and only highlighted this one transaction. Are you suggesting there are no transactions that take less than 20 hours beginning to end? I’ve purchased/sold several homes both with realtors and on my own with a flat fee attorney. Realtor fees should be by the hour. $750 an hour will motivate buyers to be more precise with their search.

More like 75 cents an hour. We handed our agent the key to our house and she had it painted, floors refinished, deck and some other repairs done, had a new garage door installed, carpet cleaned in the basement, and had windows and house cleaned. She had the house staged and had photos, floorplans, and a tour done. She spent three hours sitting on her ass at an an open house and then made us respond to offers a few days later. She didn’t do anything after that except meet the appraiser, termite inspector, and our movers. She spent maybe a couple hours making sure the movers got everything out of the house and then took all our old paint to the County. She spent a lot of time with the settlement because we were in two places. For that she made over $9,000. She should have gotten $750 for the little she did. My neighbors were all impressed but she didn’t do any of the work

Aren't you funny. I've bought and sold many houses and have employed different agents for everyone. I have never had an agent do any of these things you've documented. I had to deal with our appraiser who made a serious mistake in our documentation in which he left information on a page related to a different house. My agent did nothing. No one I know has ever had an agent do more than the minimum. Anyone can become a agent.

PP’s description sounds a bit over the top, but last time we sold, our agent took care of hiring painters, somebody to put in new countertops, photos, staging, new carpets, cleaning, re-glazing the tub, and probably other stuff I’m forgetting. We paid her 2.5% of the sale price (the buyer’s agent got the other half). I still think it was a lot for the work put in, but honestly, it would have taken me so much longer to find the right people to do the work and be around for all the appointments. We probably got to market earlier and sold faster because of her work.

Your case isn't the norm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DoJ is coming after you next:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/warning-to-the-real-estate-cartel-11625783854

Finally, hopefully consumers can get away from this ridiculous system that compensates brokers exorbitant sums of money for only a few hours of work. TBH, a vast majority of the process could probably be largely automated for a $20 fee anyway. Ridiculous US consumers have so much wealth destroyed from insane fees, or are forced to buy less because of fees.

Funny, I did a 5 hour home inspection today with a lawyer who is involved in this case. Guess, I don't have to day anything else, and we will forgot about the twenty plus hours I spent with him at other houses, working out finances, and two previous pre inspections.

Funny how you cherry picked and only highlighted this one transaction. Are you suggesting there are no transactions that take less than 20 hours beginning to end? I’ve purchased/sold several homes both with realtors and on my own with a flat fee attorney. Realtor fees should be by the hour. $750 an hour will motivate buyers to be more precise with their search.

More like 75 cents an hour. We handed our agent the key to our house and she had it painted, floors refinished, deck and some other repairs done, had a new garage door installed, carpet cleaned in the basement, and had windows and house cleaned. She had the house staged and had photos, floorplans, and a tour done. She spent three hours sitting on her ass at an an open house and then made us respond to offers a few days later. She didn’t do anything after that except meet the appraiser, termite inspector, and our movers. She spent maybe a couple hours making sure the movers got everything out of the house and then took all our old paint to the County. She spent a lot of time with the settlement because we were in two places. For that she made over $9,000. She should have gotten $750 for the little she did. My neighbors were all impressed but she didn’t do any of the work

Aren't you funny. I've bought and sold many houses and have employed different agents for everyone. I have never had an agent do any of these things you've documented. I had to deal with our appraiser who made a serious mistake in our documentation in which he left information on a page related to a different house. My agent did nothing. No one I know has ever had an agent do more than the minimum. Anyone can become a agent.

PP’s description sounds a bit over the top, but last time we sold, our agent took care of hiring painters, somebody to put in new countertops, photos, staging, new carpets, cleaning, re-glazing the tub, and probably other stuff I’m forgetting. We paid her 2.5% of the sale price (the buyer’s agent got the other half). I still think it was a lot for the work put in, but honestly, it would have taken me so much longer to find the right people to do the work and be around for all the appointments. We probably got to market earlier and sold faster because of her work.

Your case isn't the norm.

The you did a bad job of shopping around for a good agent and negotiating terms. That seems like your problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it were so simple to “disrupt” real estate it would have been done by now. There are reasons Redfin hasn’t become the Amazon of real estate, shuttering all its mom & pop competitors. DH and I are both lawyers and we still use realtors.

Nonsense. Cartels are powerful and corrupt our politicians.

Pharmacists could be replaced by low cost robots now at this point, yet the only reason we continue to need pharmacists is because the law in many places says there must be a human on staff? Why do we need them? Only because lobbyists make politicians write the law stating that a human pharmacist must be present. Pharmacists themselves don't have any special skills that is better than automated dispensing robots. In fact, robots make far less mistakes and have already been shown for going on almost 2 decades now that they're capable of dispensing out billions of doses effectively. Many hospitals and urban areas already use pill dispensing robots, yet pharmacists hang around because of the law.

Same for car salesmen. Why do we have to pay them at all? Why can't we just buy from the company like Tesla? Because of corruption. The car sales lobby tries to prohibit consumers from buying cars from Tesla, because they want to keep their inefficient and dumb model in place so that consumers have to get gouged unnecessarily with a needless third party between purchasing their car and the manufacturer. The only reason we have to buy cars from dealers is because it is the law for many places.

Same for RE. 95% of it can be automated. Virtually 99.99999% of all other countries in the world charge vastly lower fee for RE transactions than the US. The Department of Justice wouldn't be wasting their time if they didn't think it stunk.

This issue is in so many fields. Why do American physicians make so much more money than their counterparts abroad? Was the 30 minute appointment my child had with a specialist REALLY worth $1400? Why does it cost $20 to get stitches in almost any country in the world and $700 in an American ER (not even done by a physician!)?

This is corruption- our country has a corruption problem.