7 ms·

>Exactly, there is an ideology of pushing this kind of issue completely into "personal responsibility" territory which, for me, is frankly a total lack of empat

by jdasdf 5y ago

>Exactly, there is an ideology of pushing this kind of issue completely into "personal responsibility" territory which, for me, is frankly a total lack of empathy. It's not a lack of empathy, it's an understanding of the pernicious incentives you are creating with such a system. I'm being forced to pay over half of my income into a ponzi scheme that i am and will never get anything worthwhile out of. This isn't good for anyone, and it certainly isn't good for the people who are working and providing value and having that value thrown into a raging fire. This is nothing more than theft from the responsible to the irresponsible, with the associated long term issues. When you have support these policies you need to understand that they will not and cannot help the people you seek to help. All that happens is remove the need for people to be responsible and make good financial decisions, for the fact that "the state will save me". But of course, the state can't, because social security in most countries is no more than very large ponzi schemes, supported by ever growing tax revenues and increasingly high retirement ages. But even that is not enough, in Portugal retirement benefits are expected to fall by half in the next 20 years. And don't think these pernicious incentives don't exist and that peoples reliance on social security doesn't happen. That quote of "The state will save me" is almost word for word out of the mouth of friends and colleagues, with children and families, who despite being very well paid refuse to save and invest for their retirement, choosing instead to spend what they have today and only rely on social security for their retirement. These are terrible incentives, and they will and have had predictable results.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
> And don't think these pernicious incentives don't exist and that peoples reliance on social security doesn't happen. That quote of "The state will save me" is almost word for word out of the mouth of friends and colleagues, with children and families, who despite being very well paid refuse to save and invest for their retirement, choosing instead to spend what they have today and only rely on social security for their retirement. Tbh, in the current system (which is bad!), they are the "smart ones". You have Alice, Bob and Charlie. They all earn the same amount of money. Alice decides to take a loan and buy a 200k house. Bob stays at home and invests in stocks. Charlie stays at home, and puts the money in a savings account. 10 years go by, alice paid off 100k of the 200k loan, house is still worth 200k, bob has 100k of stocks and Charlie has 100k in the savings account (let's forget about the interest for this example). They are technically all worth the same, just that their money is in a different form. And then one day, they all lose their jobs. Alice gets social benefits, one time extra monetary help, loan refinancing and/or even a loan freeze in some cases, Bob gets nothing and is told to sell the stock (even if it's a bad moment to sell), and Charlie gets laughed at the social benefits office, because he has 100k in his account. This might be our (slovenian) speciality, but the system is made to fuck with people who live responsibly and to always 'save' the people who spend all their money. Also houses are almost literally untouchable, even if you're a single person in a ~1mio city center apartment, and could move to a smaller one a bit further from the center for 150k.
- kingsuper20 5y ago
  > Also houses are almost literally untouchable, Often, (in the US) retirement accounts are also sacrosanct, depending on the claim. The issue of houses reminds me of how much of the US tax system is regressive. Electric car subsidies, special treatment for capital gains, mortgage deductions.
  - saithound 5y ago
    Private retirement accounts are far from untouchable in the EU, though: e.g. Hungary straight-up nationalized private pension funds in 2010 [1]. [1] https://www.ipe.com/nightmare-in-hungary-as-government-nationalises-pension-funds/38105.article https://www.ipe.com/nightmare-in-hungary-as-government-natio...
  - dantheman 5y ago
    The US tax system isn't regressive; I'm against legislating behavior through tax breaks, but calling them subsidies isn't really fair either.
    - dan-robertson 5y ago
      The comment was only about parts of the us tax system. Regressive is a technical term and means that the effective rate decreases as one’s means increase. A simple example is a flat poll tax: richer people feel a much lower burden than poorer people. Mortgage contribution deductions are regressive because poorer people don’t have mortgages on average.
      - missedthecue 5y ago
        It's also worth noting that the mortgage contribution benefit is capped at a few thousand bucks. It primarily benefits the middle class but is an after thought to millionaires and above. It really doesn't move the needle for them.
  - ixacto 5y ago
    The US tax system is designed by people who in theory represent the will of the people, but in reality that are advocating for special interests. You have things like SALT tax deduction and mortgage interest tax deduction which are directly designed to benefit rich liberals in blue states by subsidizing their oversized government. Take these away and people get mad or move to TX/FL/NV because they actually have to pay their full taxes. Also having a high state sales tax is much more logical if you don’t want to pay tax just don’t spend money. It would make much more sense to just do a federal sales tax, totally eliminate the corporate tax as people are paying taxes anyway and it is just a disadvantage to us-domiciled corporations competitiveness, and also totally eliminate fed and state income taxes. Like purge them with fire, there’s way too much complexity and corruption built up over the last hundred years. Then if you still care about people at the end just institute UBI and Medicare for all to eliminate the billing complexity and potential for discrimination. This policy would also be compatible with open borders and free movement of labor if we as a society decided we want that.
yazantapuz 5y ago
For example, in my country, Argentina, the public pension fund is used to give loans to the Treasury at ridiculous lower interest rates. The government then expends that funds in a lot of short-term public policies.
ddingus 5y ago
Are we not all generating income using the work products of our elders? None of this happens in a vacuum. Their contributions multiply our income. If we work with someone on a project, we don't expect them to work for free do we? Well, look around. The machinery of society was not, and is not free. "Your income" is the product of many people over a sustained amount of time. Doing it all on your own looks very different. That said, the only reason pensions are under discussion is the very wealthy take too much value and are not required to help fund the system. In the US, the cap is something over 100k. Raise that and the funding problem goes away. That cap should be raised because everyone benefits from the labor products and fertile society we live in today. Those of us who end up with huge benefit and who do not contribute in like kind are literally diluting the future for those to come for arguably self serving in the now. I have no problem with self serving choices either. Work hard, play hard, change the world. All good. This is about net good, and talk of ending retirement is talk that completely ignores why we have Social Security and work until we drop is as negative as child labor is. Some of us may choose to do that. I might! But to make excuses for what is basically unbridled greed and largess impacting so many other people unnecessarily? Not all good.
- michael1999 5y ago
  Don't get distracted by money. Money isn't real. Money does't feed you, or wash your back in hospital. Saving "money" doesn't make anything happen in the future. It only lets you bid on future (then current) labour/production. The deep problem is we developed expectations and made promises when there were 6 people of working age for every retiree, and the ratio is going to fall to 2-to-1 or worse. Money can't bridge that unless we invent magic ai robots in a hurry.
  - ddingus 5y ago
    Robots are nowhere close to being any practical replacement for the many basic labors we all depend on. Just caring for one another is one of those labors and it is significant. Enabling our elders to have income lifted a heavy burden off the middle class. Having enough buying power to support the whole family, whether cohabiting or not was and remains a big deal. We did that for our parents and their Social Security made a huge difference in how our kids grew up and our overall quality of life. On a side note, universal health care would have a similar, positive impact on all but very large business. We are going to need to value things differently. We can pay people more, have them work fewer hours, allow flex in work time, place, manner. It simply is not necessary to force everyone to work until they drop. Again, taking the value out of everything has skewed things toward an artificial scarcity of time. Does not have to be that way. I do not believe it should be that way. If we somehow insist, fail to value things in ways that help us live better, the ripple impacts will just cost more. A whole lot boils down to what we value and why. Right now, for example, we do not value taking care of our own, instead focusing on money. We do not value basic labors well either. These two have a serious, negative impact on things like social security, our general ability to compete with other nations and more. Those basic labors save us doing not so basic labor a ton of time, for example, yet we pay a pittance, shame those performing them, and somehow expect the some 40 some Trillion those people did not take home to pass unnoticed? We can run the nation leaner than we do, and we should. And those lower numbers mean those doing the labor should live well, seeing as how there is plenty to do. If we do that, their buying power will grow our economy nicely. Liquid dollars and high demand are good things. If we raise and or had raised our contribution caps, the program would be running just fine. If we need to run a deficit on that for a time, so what? Maybe we can cut back on endless war. There are enough people, is enough technology to do just fine. All of this is a priority problem and our priority at present is not well aligned with our people's needs and that can amd should change. Say we do need more labor. Fine, make being an American easy again. Plenty of people will step right up and do it. Bring us your tired, your poor...
robocat 5y ago
Where do you think you got your income from? By standing on the shoulders of everyone before you. > I'm being forced to pay over half of my income into a ponzi scheme You are making shit up - where in the world does 50% go towards retirement funds? Unless you are talking about real estate, which is a Ponzi scheme where children pay some of their ancestors for the privilege to own their own land and a home.
- robocat 5y ago
  > where children pay some of their ancestors I mean other people’s ancestors (not their own where the wealth is often passed from ancestor to child).

by jdasdf 5y ago

ajsnigrutin 5y ago

> And don't think these pernicious incentives don't exist and that peoples reliance on social security doesn't happen. That quote of "The state will save me" is almost word for word out of the mouth of friends and colleagues, with children and families, who despite being very well paid refuse to save and invest for their retirement, choosing instead to spend what they have today and only rely on social security for their retirement. Tbh, in the current system (which is bad!), they are the "smart ones". You have Alice, Bob and Charlie. They all earn the same amount of money. Alice decides to take a loan and buy a 200k house. Bob stays at home and invests in stocks. Charlie stays at home, and puts the money in a savings account. 10 years go by, alice paid off 100k of the 200k loan, house is still worth 200k, bob has 100k of stocks and Charlie has 100k in the savings account (let's forget about the interest for this example). They are technically all worth the same, just that their money is in a different form. And then one day, they all lose their jobs. Alice gets social benefits, one time extra monetary help, loan refinancing and/or even a loan freeze in some cases, Bob gets nothing and is told to sell the stock (even if it's a bad moment to sell), and Charlie gets laughed at the social benefits office, because he has 100k in his account. This might be our (slovenian) speciality, but the system is made to fuck with people who live responsibly and to always 'save' the people who spend all their money. Also houses are almost literally untouchable, even if you're a single person in a ~1mio city center apartment, and could move to a smaller one a bit further from the center for 150k.

kingsuper20 5y ago
> Also houses are almost literally untouchable, Often, (in the US) retirement accounts are also sacrosanct, depending on the claim. The issue of houses reminds me of how much of the US tax system is regressive. Electric car subsidies, special treatment for capital gains, mortgage deductions.
- saithound 5y ago
  Private retirement accounts are far from untouchable in the EU, though: e.g. Hungary straight-up nationalized private pension funds in 2010 [1]. [1] https://www.ipe.com/nightmare-in-hungary-as-government-nationalises-pension-funds/38105.article https://www.ipe.com/nightmare-in-hungary-as-government-natio...
- dantheman 5y ago
  The US tax system isn't regressive; I'm against legislating behavior through tax breaks, but calling them subsidies isn't really fair either.
  - dan-robertson 5y ago
    The comment was only about parts of the us tax system. Regressive is a technical term and means that the effective rate decreases as one’s means increase. A simple example is a flat poll tax: richer people feel a much lower burden than poorer people. Mortgage contribution deductions are regressive because poorer people don’t have mortgages on average.
    - missedthecue 5y ago
      It's also worth noting that the mortgage contribution benefit is capped at a few thousand bucks. It primarily benefits the middle class but is an after thought to millionaires and above. It really doesn't move the needle for them.
- ixacto 5y ago
  The US tax system is designed by people who in theory represent the will of the people, but in reality that are advocating for special interests. You have things like SALT tax deduction and mortgage interest tax deduction which are directly designed to benefit rich liberals in blue states by subsidizing their oversized government. Take these away and people get mad or move to TX/FL/NV because they actually have to pay their full taxes. Also having a high state sales tax is much more logical if you don’t want to pay tax just don’t spend money. It would make much more sense to just do a federal sales tax, totally eliminate the corporate tax as people are paying taxes anyway and it is just a disadvantage to us-domiciled corporations competitiveness, and also totally eliminate fed and state income taxes. Like purge them with fire, there’s way too much complexity and corruption built up over the last hundred years. Then if you still care about people at the end just institute UBI and Medicare for all to eliminate the billing complexity and potential for discrimination. This policy would also be compatible with open borders and free movement of labor if we as a society decided we want that.

yazantapuz 5y ago

For example, in my country, Argentina, the public pension fund is used to give loans to the Treasury at ridiculous lower interest rates. The government then expends that funds in a lot of short-term public policies.

ddingus 5y ago

Are we not all generating income using the work products of our elders? None of this happens in a vacuum. Their contributions multiply our income. If we work with someone on a project, we don't expect them to work for free do we? Well, look around. The machinery of society was not, and is not free. "Your income" is the product of many people over a sustained amount of time. Doing it all on your own looks very different. That said, the only reason pensions are under discussion is the very wealthy take too much value and are not required to help fund the system. In the US, the cap is something over 100k. Raise that and the funding problem goes away. That cap should be raised because everyone benefits from the labor products and fertile society we live in today. Those of us who end up with huge benefit and who do not contribute in like kind are literally diluting the future for those to come for arguably self serving in the now. I have no problem with self serving choices either. Work hard, play hard, change the world. All good. This is about net good, and talk of ending retirement is talk that completely ignores why we have Social Security and work until we drop is as negative as child labor is. Some of us may choose to do that. I might! But to make excuses for what is basically unbridled greed and largess impacting so many other people unnecessarily? Not all good.

michael1999 5y ago
Don't get distracted by money. Money isn't real. Money does't feed you, or wash your back in hospital. Saving "money" doesn't make anything happen in the future. It only lets you bid on future (then current) labour/production. The deep problem is we developed expectations and made promises when there were 6 people of working age for every retiree, and the ratio is going to fall to 2-to-1 or worse. Money can't bridge that unless we invent magic ai robots in a hurry.
- ddingus 5y ago
  Robots are nowhere close to being any practical replacement for the many basic labors we all depend on. Just caring for one another is one of those labors and it is significant. Enabling our elders to have income lifted a heavy burden off the middle class. Having enough buying power to support the whole family, whether cohabiting or not was and remains a big deal. We did that for our parents and their Social Security made a huge difference in how our kids grew up and our overall quality of life. On a side note, universal health care would have a similar, positive impact on all but very large business. We are going to need to value things differently. We can pay people more, have them work fewer hours, allow flex in work time, place, manner. It simply is not necessary to force everyone to work until they drop. Again, taking the value out of everything has skewed things toward an artificial scarcity of time. Does not have to be that way. I do not believe it should be that way. If we somehow insist, fail to value things in ways that help us live better, the ripple impacts will just cost more. A whole lot boils down to what we value and why. Right now, for example, we do not value taking care of our own, instead focusing on money. We do not value basic labors well either. These two have a serious, negative impact on things like social security, our general ability to compete with other nations and more. Those basic labors save us doing not so basic labor a ton of time, for example, yet we pay a pittance, shame those performing them, and somehow expect the some 40 some Trillion those people did not take home to pass unnoticed? We can run the nation leaner than we do, and we should. And those lower numbers mean those doing the labor should live well, seeing as how there is plenty to do. If we do that, their buying power will grow our economy nicely. Liquid dollars and high demand are good things. If we raise and or had raised our contribution caps, the program would be running just fine. If we need to run a deficit on that for a time, so what? Maybe we can cut back on endless war. There are enough people, is enough technology to do just fine. All of this is a priority problem and our priority at present is not well aligned with our people's needs and that can amd should change. Say we do need more labor. Fine, make being an American easy again. Plenty of people will step right up and do it. Bring us your tired, your poor...

robocat 5y ago

Where do you think you got your income from? By standing on the shoulders of everyone before you. > I'm being forced to pay over half of my income into a ponzi scheme You are making shit up - where in the world does 50% go towards retirement funds? Unless you are talking about real estate, which is a Ponzi scheme where children pay some of their ancestors for the privilege to own their own land and a home.

robocat 5y ago
> where children pay some of their ancestors I mean other people’s ancestors (not their own where the wealth is often passed from ancestor to child).