4 ms·

Currently things are set up so that the working class have no viable options for storing the purchasing power of their labor for future expenditures. This makes

by lowkey 4y ago

Currently things are set up so that the working class have no viable options for storing the purchasing power of their labor for future expenditures. This makes it virtually impossible for average folks to save for retirement without speculating on the stock market and hoping that they made the right bets 30-40 years into the future. A reliable store of value is essential to enabling a path towards less inequality.

carlosjobim 4y ago
To guarantee the value for the odd people retiring you have to enslave the younger people working to guarantee that promise. Then you take a (large) cut of that generational transfer as a reward for guaranteeing a reliable store of value. Wait! I think I just invented the way the modern world works
- lowkey 4y ago
  I wasn't referring to old people. I was referring to working age people who attempt to save for their own retirement. But to your point, why do you advocate for preventing a retiree, the proverbial widows and grandmas, from having access to a reliable store of value that doesn't require they risk their retirement savings in speculation? Forcing everyone into stock or real estate speculation necessarily results the vast majority of the wealth gains going to the most financially sophisticated (Wall Street), the rich with the best financial advisors, or the lucky few who happened to allocate their savings in optimal bets 30-40 years in the future. A reasonable long term store of value would help address inequality. By not having one we force the working class to trust their financial future to a predatory casino run by a den of wolves.
  - carlosjobim 4y ago
    > I was referring to working age people who attempt to save for their own retirement. Which they will use when they've grown old. What I'm getting at is that there is no such thing as a secure long term store of value and such a thing has never existed. Not even gold can be that. We can all wish for it, but it cannot exist. So how they do it today is by using violence to forcefully exploit the surplus production from younger generations to support the elder generation. All political "systems" and ideologies today serve that goal. Any young person in the Western world who is working gets exploited in at least the following: - Receiving less in salary than she produces, so that the company can turn a profit. This profit in general goes to stock owners who are pension funds or elderly individuals. This is how capitalism exploits the worker and it could be fine if it was only this. - Paying taxes on their salary and hidden taxes before receiving a salary. A young worker has almost no benefit of government spending, while a huge amount of the government expenses goes to supporting the elderly. This is how socialism exploits the worker and it could be fine if it was only this. - Paying pension fees / forced retirement investing. All this money goes to the elderly, with the promise that the young worker will receive when she is old - even though it is a fact that all pension funds are rapidly going broke and retirement ages are constantly being increased. This is how liberal democracy exploits the worker and it could be fine if it was only this. - Paying rent/mortgage. This varies a bit, but lately it has become the rule that workers in Western countries are massively siphoned of their income in paying huge rents or having to go into debt for life to buy a home. This money goes to the elderly, who had the good sense of being born early. This is how feudalism exploits the worker and it could be fine if it was only this. Since workers are exploited by at least four different political systems being imposed on them, there are also several classes of exploiters and an opportunity for the rulers to divert all fighting for freedom and change. But in the end, all of them work to benefit the elderly while taking their own cut - and that cut is huge since the amount of wealth being transfered is gigantic. So they can tell the exploited workers to blame "the 1%", the corrupt government, the greedy landlords etc - but they are simply working on behalf of the elderly generation, who refuses to acknowledge any responsibility for what they have done and what they continue doing, while reaping the benefits. Comfortable. Younger generations sacrificed greatly in order to please the elderly - mainly by not having children of their own since they were trying to fight to establish themselves in a society where all odds are against them. Now they are rapidly diminishing their quality of life in order to continue to serve and if we continue on this trajectory, young people in the Western world will be reduced even further. The only long term store of value that works in the long run is "values" instilled from parents to their children, so that when the parents are old their children will actually want and take pleasure in caring for their elderly relatives and the elderly in their communities. The current generation of elderly have chosen to band together to deceive and exploit the younger generations - their children and grand children - for their own benefit. That circle has to be broken for traditional and sensible values to return. We break that circle by treating our children and young in a completely different way than what has been.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  A reliable store of value means paying fee via inflation or lower interest rate, quite different from "maybe the bank will lose all your savings"
  - lowkey 4y ago
    I would argue that a reliable store of value is one that preserves its purchasing power over time.
    - chii 4y ago
      > a reliable store of value is one that preserves its purchasing power over time. let's break this down. Over a long time, technological improvements happen, which makes "things" cheaper, all else equal. So presumably, maintaining purchasing power over time means you get to partake in these technological improvements for zero risk - ala, your $1000 dollar can be used to buy an iphone in 10yrs time that is hundreds of times better. But the implicaation that you didn't take any risk - the losses on development & research, investment and the dead ends - are all paid for by somebody else. If the investors demand a high return based on this risk, they will absorb all of the profit from taking the risk. This absorption includes a return on the price of said goods being sold, so it _cannot_ cost the same in 10 yrs time as today and only account for inflation (if this were the case, it means they made no profit). So both scenarios cannot coexist - you either lose purchasing power by not investing, ala you lose to inflation (same thing). Or the technological improvements don't come.
      - lowkey 4y ago
        Agree with your assessment of technological innovation lowering cost over time. Disagree that all goods and services behave the same way. As counter-examples look at the HHH of higher than inflation industries: healthcare, higher education and housing all of which experienced growth in cost at double digit rates in recent times. Also, I am not arguing that a widower who buys a certificate of deposit deserves the same rate of return as someone investing in a risky tech stock - they don’t. I do think there should be a safe option for savers to store their savings for a modest return net of inflation - say 2-3% for the time value of the money. Savings != Investment They are separate use cases and there should be room for both.

by lowkey 4y ago

carlosjobim 4y ago

To guarantee the value for the odd people retiring you have to enslave the younger people working to guarantee that promise. Then you take a (large) cut of that generational transfer as a reward for guaranteeing a reliable store of value. Wait! I think I just invented the way the modern world works

lowkey 4y ago
I wasn't referring to old people. I was referring to working age people who attempt to save for their own retirement. But to your point, why do you advocate for preventing a retiree, the proverbial widows and grandmas, from having access to a reliable store of value that doesn't require they risk their retirement savings in speculation? Forcing everyone into stock or real estate speculation necessarily results the vast majority of the wealth gains going to the most financially sophisticated (Wall Street), the rich with the best financial advisors, or the lucky few who happened to allocate their savings in optimal bets 30-40 years in the future. A reasonable long term store of value would help address inequality. By not having one we force the working class to trust their financial future to a predatory casino run by a den of wolves.
- carlosjobim 4y ago
  > I was referring to working age people who attempt to save for their own retirement. Which they will use when they've grown old. What I'm getting at is that there is no such thing as a secure long term store of value and such a thing has never existed. Not even gold can be that. We can all wish for it, but it cannot exist. So how they do it today is by using violence to forcefully exploit the surplus production from younger generations to support the elder generation. All political "systems" and ideologies today serve that goal. Any young person in the Western world who is working gets exploited in at least the following: - Receiving less in salary than she produces, so that the company can turn a profit. This profit in general goes to stock owners who are pension funds or elderly individuals. This is how capitalism exploits the worker and it could be fine if it was only this. - Paying taxes on their salary and hidden taxes before receiving a salary. A young worker has almost no benefit of government spending, while a huge amount of the government expenses goes to supporting the elderly. This is how socialism exploits the worker and it could be fine if it was only this. - Paying pension fees / forced retirement investing. All this money goes to the elderly, with the promise that the young worker will receive when she is old - even though it is a fact that all pension funds are rapidly going broke and retirement ages are constantly being increased. This is how liberal democracy exploits the worker and it could be fine if it was only this. - Paying rent/mortgage. This varies a bit, but lately it has become the rule that workers in Western countries are massively siphoned of their income in paying huge rents or having to go into debt for life to buy a home. This money goes to the elderly, who had the good sense of being born early. This is how feudalism exploits the worker and it could be fine if it was only this. Since workers are exploited by at least four different political systems being imposed on them, there are also several classes of exploiters and an opportunity for the rulers to divert all fighting for freedom and change. But in the end, all of them work to benefit the elderly while taking their own cut - and that cut is huge since the amount of wealth being transfered is gigantic. So they can tell the exploited workers to blame "the 1%", the corrupt government, the greedy landlords etc - but they are simply working on behalf of the elderly generation, who refuses to acknowledge any responsibility for what they have done and what they continue doing, while reaping the benefits. Comfortable. Younger generations sacrificed greatly in order to please the elderly - mainly by not having children of their own since they were trying to fight to establish themselves in a society where all odds are against them. Now they are rapidly diminishing their quality of life in order to continue to serve and if we continue on this trajectory, young people in the Western world will be reduced even further. The only long term store of value that works in the long run is "values" instilled from parents to their children, so that when the parents are old their children will actually want and take pleasure in caring for their elderly relatives and the elderly in their communities. The current generation of elderly have chosen to band together to deceive and exploit the younger generations - their children and grand children - for their own benefit. That circle has to be broken for traditional and sensible values to return. We break that circle by treating our children and young in a completely different way than what has been.
hgsgm 4y ago
A reliable store of value means paying fee via inflation or lower interest rate, quite different from "maybe the bank will lose all your savings"
- lowkey 4y ago
  I would argue that a reliable store of value is one that preserves its purchasing power over time.
  - chii 4y ago
    > a reliable store of value is one that preserves its purchasing power over time. let's break this down. Over a long time, technological improvements happen, which makes "things" cheaper, all else equal. So presumably, maintaining purchasing power over time means you get to partake in these technological improvements for zero risk - ala, your $1000 dollar can be used to buy an iphone in 10yrs time that is hundreds of times better. But the implicaation that you didn't take any risk - the losses on development & research, investment and the dead ends - are all paid for by somebody else. If the investors demand a high return based on this risk, they will absorb all of the profit from taking the risk. This absorption includes a return on the price of said goods being sold, so it _cannot_ cost the same in 10 yrs time as today and only account for inflation (if this were the case, it means they made no profit). So both scenarios cannot coexist - you either lose purchasing power by not investing, ala you lose to inflation (same thing). Or the technological improvements don't come.
    - lowkey 4y ago
      Agree with your assessment of technological innovation lowering cost over time. Disagree that all goods and services behave the same way. As counter-examples look at the HHH of higher than inflation industries: healthcare, higher education and housing all of which experienced growth in cost at double digit rates in recent times. Also, I am not arguing that a widower who buys a certificate of deposit deserves the same rate of return as someone investing in a risky tech stock - they don’t. I do think there should be a safe option for savers to store their savings for a modest return net of inflation - say 2-3% for the time value of the money. Savings != Investment They are separate use cases and there should be room for both.