8 ms·

The government choose to use data that it had to further the interests of those in power in the government? Color me shocked, absolutley shocked, at least this

The government choose to use data that it had to further the interests of those in power in the government? Color me shocked, absolutley shocked, at least this doesn't happen in America where politicians keep their pinky promises and only use untapped sources of wealth and power for things they promised they would. I mean I rest easy knowing my government is keeping my social security money safe for me so it will be there when I retire.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
Ha - right. I hear people say, “Save for retirement!” I’m sorry… but at this rate of inflation, and this rate of political instability, and this rate of national debt, I’m pressing X to doubt the US (or at least the economy of it) will still exist by the time I retire. At least not in its current form… In which case… I’ll probably have as many kids as I can afford and hope for the best at this rate. Worth remembering the US is the longest-running country with the same constitution (Britain doesn’t have one and has changed politically in significant ways compared to the US in the last 240 years). All good things come to an end. The US is statistically overdue.
- kneebonian 4y ago
  Well do save for retirement just in sheep, bourbon, ammo and land.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    More important than all of that is probably investing in a network of people willing to defend you, who also have ammo. One person or one family can have all the ammo, but they are not going to be able to do much against a larger tribe.
    - RajT88 4y ago
      Do make sure you are the only guy with sheep though.
      - thatguy0900 4y ago
        You certainly don't want to be the only guy with sheep. That's a good way to have your sheep taken. Ideally you are best friends with the other sheep owners and can all agree on a "fair" price for your collective sheep.
- lo_zamoyski 4y ago
  Your private retirement savings may be nationalized and redistributed under public pressure. Students loan debt forgiveness was the canary in the coal mine. Instead of addressing the ballooning costs of higher education (which incidentally is a failure), we chose to indulge the rapacious monster that is academic administration and petty careerism. Also, the US constitution has been amended.
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    So can anything really, which is scary. In the 1930s, the government banned private ownership of all gold that wasn’t a small amount of jewelry and mandated anyone possessing it exchange it for dollars… with only an executive order. (Executive Order 6102) That was also a canary in the coal mine moment. Amazingly the ban lasted until 1974.
    - HyperSane 4y ago
      Seems like it didn't actually affect much since the US economy grew by a huge degree during that time.
    - jollyllama 4y ago
      Before factoring in inflation, people who defied the order would have roughly doubled their money during that time period.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    >Students loan debt forgiveness was the canary in the coal mine. Not really a canary when taxpayer funded bailouts have occurred numerous times over the existence of the US. It is just the way societies work, you just need to make sure your assets keep appreciating at at least the rate that the currency’s purchasing power is reduced.
  - HyperSane 4y ago
    Student debt is a bubble created by making it non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  Sounds like you just need to retire earlier (: What's the alternative to investing in the US economy? Are you investing in foreign stocks? Gold? Cattle? I'm not an economist, but I would expect that if things go badly in the US, it will mean devastating recession everywhere, including China or whoever is going to be the next dominant economy, at least for a time until the global economy reorganizes itself, so I would think you're screwed either way. Maybe the transfer of economic dominance will happen gradually, in which case you may as well put your money in the US economy until there's evidence that the US has peaked, right? Lastly, the UK doesn't have a constitution? I thought it was a "Constitutional Monarchy" which presumably implies a constitution?
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    He meant "a written constitution." Judges do look at precedents, only there isn't one that's officially above all others. (As I understand it, not being British.)
  - sobkas 4y ago
    > Sounds like you just need to retire earlier (: > What's the alternative to investing in the US economy? Are you investing in foreign stocks? Gold? Cattle? A paramilitary organisation, so when governments finally collapse, you will be there ready, able to take everything you want like a candy from a child.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      I was actually thinking something like this. Not "paramilitary" so much as "make sure you have good land, food preserves, a respectable arsenal, and good leadership rapport with your local community" or some such.
  - nradov 4y ago
    VTWAX
- goosedragons 4y ago
  Britain has a constitution. It's just not written down in one single document.
- lazyant 4y ago
  > The US is statistically overdue. Rather the opposite? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
- moneytide1 4y ago
  > Ha - right. I hear people say, “Save for retirement!” My great-great grandfather didn't have "health insurance" or "social security deductions", and neither did yours. Yet we exist as their descendants. Evangelical advice about "death preparation" is the original "buy the cryptocurrency I already own". I am the youthful energy of an aging empire, and so are you. I do not look forward to doing nothing. When I begin to feel the pangs of mortality - what will my character be like? "All men die, not all men die whining." To be born at the beginning of the longest cumulative period of R&R [0] since the beginning of recorded history is to instinctually rear children (policy influence) with a value system that revolves around "comfort" (a Permobil factory is coincidentally located next to my Amazon alma mater BNA2 [1]). The Greatest Generation [2] survived the turmoil of their youth (fighting an "enemy" as it was reacting to stagnant, lifeless neighbors) and after becoming investor class (age 60-90), they completed their magnum opus by bringing back [3] the first extralunar beings [4] (equipment built by employing the hands/ingenuity/ambition of the youthful, inspired Boomer Generation). To have many children and make them build spaceships is why global encyclopedias [still] call you "the Greatest". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission [1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/36%C2%B007'23.7%22N+86%C2%B024'32.3%22W/@36.1232455,-86.4111769,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x8dce5ea505df848f!8m2!3d36.1232412!4d-86.4089829 https://www.google.com/maps/place/36%C2%B007'23.7%22N+86%C2%... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_Generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_Generation [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip [4] https://airandspace.si.edu/explore/stories/apollo-11-moon-landing https://airandspace.si.edu/explore/stories/apollo-11-moon-la...
  - moneytide1 4y ago
    TLDR Legacy Potency
nerdponx 4y ago
What's better, let private companies have it?
mikestew 4y ago
I mean I rest easy knowing my government is keeping my social security money safe for me so it will be there when I retire. I've been hearing this my whole life, and through circumstances worse than they are now. You want high interest rates? Rampant inflation? Try the 70s and 80s. Unstable world governments? phhhhhhffft I'll grant you, a certain political party has gone off the rails, but it's otherwise same shit, different decade. And as I now near the point when it's time for the SSA to start cutting me checks (I've still got a few years), it looks like they will still do exactly that. That said, I've always planned finances as if Social Security won't be there when I retire.
kasey_junk 4y ago
I know this is sort of nitpicking but social security is not some sort of government sponsored savings account. It’s a social welfare program like any other. So if politicians are “stealing” social security money, it’s not yours, it’s the beneficiaries. Similar to if they were stealing food stamps. Like all social welfare programs it can be amended, changed, done away with, etc and it’s not “taking your money”. That money was gone when the taxes were paid. If you want social security to be an existent and viable social welfare program when it’s time for you to receive it, vote for parties and politicians working to make that happen and punish those that don’t. Or conversely if you don’t want that welfare program to exist vote that way. But don’t treat social security as some bank account you’ve paid into, it’s not that.
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  > Or conversely if you don’t want that welfare program to exist vote that way. This doesn’t work with open boarders where those who get in will eventually be allowed to vote, the US has had amnesties before. A case of the government choosing their constituents rather than the other way around. Most people that I know my age (millennials) pretty much assume SS will have run out by the time they need it. I can only imagine gen Z would be expecting social overhaul sometime during their working careers.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    This is a pretty strange claim to make from a country that's made up of immigrants (well, colonists) and that hasn't had open borders for a century.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      The US is mostly made of up people who were born in the US. Of course, everyone in the US (including Native Americans) have ancestors who moved here from elsewhere, but that's true everywhere (even within Africa where humans originated, there's tons of movement). Moreover, none of this is relevant as the US government is responsible to its citizens, full stop.
belfalas 4y ago
Exactly - information is power. And what is 'political' is always in the eye of the beholder (read: folks currently in power).

gjsman-1000 4y ago

Ha - right. I hear people say, “Save for retirement!” I’m sorry… but at this rate of inflation, and this rate of political instability, and this rate of national debt, I’m pressing X to doubt the US (or at least the economy of it) will still exist by the time I retire. At least not in its current form… In which case… I’ll probably have as many kids as I can afford and hope for the best at this rate. Worth remembering the US is the longest-running country with the same constitution (Britain doesn’t have one and has changed politically in significant ways compared to the US in the last 240 years). All good things come to an end. The US is statistically overdue.

kneebonian 4y ago
Well do save for retirement just in sheep, bourbon, ammo and land.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  More important than all of that is probably investing in a network of people willing to defend you, who also have ammo. One person or one family can have all the ammo, but they are not going to be able to do much against a larger tribe.
  - RajT88 4y ago
    Do make sure you are the only guy with sheep though.
    - thatguy0900 4y ago
      You certainly don't want to be the only guy with sheep. That's a good way to have your sheep taken. Ideally you are best friends with the other sheep owners and can all agree on a "fair" price for your collective sheep.
lo_zamoyski 4y ago
Your private retirement savings may be nationalized and redistributed under public pressure. Students loan debt forgiveness was the canary in the coal mine. Instead of addressing the ballooning costs of higher education (which incidentally is a failure), we chose to indulge the rapacious monster that is academic administration and petty careerism. Also, the US constitution has been amended.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  So can anything really, which is scary. In the 1930s, the government banned private ownership of all gold that wasn’t a small amount of jewelry and mandated anyone possessing it exchange it for dollars… with only an executive order. (Executive Order 6102) That was also a canary in the coal mine moment. Amazingly the ban lasted until 1974.
  - HyperSane 4y ago
    Seems like it didn't actually affect much since the US economy grew by a huge degree during that time.
  - jollyllama 4y ago
    Before factoring in inflation, people who defied the order would have roughly doubled their money during that time period.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  >Students loan debt forgiveness was the canary in the coal mine. Not really a canary when taxpayer funded bailouts have occurred numerous times over the existence of the US. It is just the way societies work, you just need to make sure your assets keep appreciating at at least the rate that the currency’s purchasing power is reduced.
- HyperSane 4y ago
  Student debt is a bubble created by making it non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.
throwaway894345 4y ago
Sounds like you just need to retire earlier (: What's the alternative to investing in the US economy? Are you investing in foreign stocks? Gold? Cattle? I'm not an economist, but I would expect that if things go badly in the US, it will mean devastating recession everywhere, including China or whoever is going to be the next dominant economy, at least for a time until the global economy reorganizes itself, so I would think you're screwed either way. Maybe the transfer of economic dominance will happen gradually, in which case you may as well put your money in the US economy until there's evidence that the US has peaked, right? Lastly, the UK doesn't have a constitution? I thought it was a "Constitutional Monarchy" which presumably implies a constitution?
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  He meant "a written constitution." Judges do look at precedents, only there isn't one that's officially above all others. (As I understand it, not being British.)
- sobkas 4y ago
  > Sounds like you just need to retire earlier (: > What's the alternative to investing in the US economy? Are you investing in foreign stocks? Gold? Cattle? A paramilitary organisation, so when governments finally collapse, you will be there ready, able to take everything you want like a candy from a child.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    I was actually thinking something like this. Not "paramilitary" so much as "make sure you have good land, food preserves, a respectable arsenal, and good leadership rapport with your local community" or some such.
- nradov 4y ago
  VTWAX
goosedragons 4y ago
Britain has a constitution. It's just not written down in one single document.
lazyant 4y ago
> The US is statistically overdue. Rather the opposite? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
moneytide1 4y ago
> Ha - right. I hear people say, “Save for retirement!” My great-great grandfather didn't have "health insurance" or "social security deductions", and neither did yours. Yet we exist as their descendants. Evangelical advice about "death preparation" is the original "buy the cryptocurrency I already own". I am the youthful energy of an aging empire, and so are you. I do not look forward to doing nothing. When I begin to feel the pangs of mortality - what will my character be like? "All men die, not all men die whining." To be born at the beginning of the longest cumulative period of R&R [0] since the beginning of recorded history is to instinctually rear children (policy influence) with a value system that revolves around "comfort" (a Permobil factory is coincidentally located next to my Amazon alma mater BNA2 [1]). The Greatest Generation [2] survived the turmoil of their youth (fighting an "enemy" as it was reacting to stagnant, lifeless neighbors) and after becoming investor class (age 60-90), they completed their magnum opus by bringing back [3] the first extralunar beings [4] (equipment built by employing the hands/ingenuity/ambition of the youthful, inspired Boomer Generation). To have many children and make them build spaceships is why global encyclopedias [still] call you "the Greatest". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission [1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/36%C2%B007'23.7%22N+86%C2%B024'32.3%22W/@36.1232455,-86.4111769,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x8dce5ea505df848f!8m2!3d36.1232412!4d-86.4089829 https://www.google.com/maps/place/36%C2%B007'23.7%22N+86%C2%... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_Generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_Generation [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip [4] https://airandspace.si.edu/explore/stories/apollo-11-moon-landing https://airandspace.si.edu/explore/stories/apollo-11-moon-la...
- moneytide1 4y ago
  TLDR Legacy Potency

nerdponx 4y ago

What's better, let private companies have it?

mikestew 4y ago

I mean I rest easy knowing my government is keeping my social security money safe for me so it will be there when I retire. I've been hearing this my whole life, and through circumstances worse than they are now. You want high interest rates? Rampant inflation? Try the 70s and 80s. Unstable world governments? phhhhhhffft I'll grant you, a certain political party has gone off the rails, but it's otherwise same shit, different decade. And as I now near the point when it's time for the SSA to start cutting me checks (I've still got a few years), it looks like they will still do exactly that. That said, I've always planned finances as if Social Security won't be there when I retire.

kasey_junk 4y ago

I know this is sort of nitpicking but social security is not some sort of government sponsored savings account. It’s a social welfare program like any other. So if politicians are “stealing” social security money, it’s not yours, it’s the beneficiaries. Similar to if they were stealing food stamps. Like all social welfare programs it can be amended, changed, done away with, etc and it’s not “taking your money”. That money was gone when the taxes were paid. If you want social security to be an existent and viable social welfare program when it’s time for you to receive it, vote for parties and politicians working to make that happen and punish those that don’t. Or conversely if you don’t want that welfare program to exist vote that way. But don’t treat social security as some bank account you’ve paid into, it’s not that.

cjbgkagh 4y ago
> Or conversely if you don’t want that welfare program to exist vote that way. This doesn’t work with open boarders where those who get in will eventually be allowed to vote, the US has had amnesties before. A case of the government choosing their constituents rather than the other way around. Most people that I know my age (millennials) pretty much assume SS will have run out by the time they need it. I can only imagine gen Z would be expecting social overhaul sometime during their working careers.
- pjc50 4y ago
  This is a pretty strange claim to make from a country that's made up of immigrants (well, colonists) and that hasn't had open borders for a century.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    The US is mostly made of up people who were born in the US. Of course, everyone in the US (including Native Americans) have ancestors who moved here from elsewhere, but that's true everywhere (even within Africa where humans originated, there's tons of movement). Moreover, none of this is relevant as the US government is responsible to its citizens, full stop.

belfalas 4y ago

Exactly - information is power. And what is 'political' is always in the eye of the beholder (read: folks currently in power).