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I’m not a vet, but I wonder if it comes from working in an environment that is so massive, at times wasteful, and your contributions feel insignificant. I think

I’m not a vet, but I wonder if it comes from working in an environment that is so massive, at times wasteful, and your contributions feel insignificant. I think a lot of people could convince themselves that if they don’t take advantage of something, someone else will.

Geisterde 3y ago
The moment you realize debt is devalued over time and begin taking on debt to acquire hard assets, like anybody who is smart with their money, you are gaming the system. Its not to say people aren't legitimately creating value or building good businesses, but those businesses necessarily must pay the minimum required taxes to be competitive in the market against someone else who will. Politicians invest in stocks that their forthcoming policies will predictably pump. The whole of it all is gaming the system in one way or another. I'm a vet and I need to get back to spamming the VA to increase my disability benefits even though I feel the best I ever have now.
- dh2022 3y ago
  Debt is devalued in time when interest rates raise. The last couple of years aside, debt value has been increasing since interest rates peaked in late 1970s.
  - Geisterde 3y ago
    Debt is devalued because the money is getting cheaper, I know in 20 years my debt will be easier to manage even though the payments in the nominal denomination of currency has not changed. Inflation is programmatic in a monetary system where currency can only be created through debt, if there werent inflation then every existing dollar would eventually disappear to pay interest to the fed, and there would still be outstanding debt. The practical implications of this are that even if there is a touch of inflation then it can cause a contagion even that shuts down the banks.
goodbyesf 3y ago
> I’m not a vet, but I wonder if it comes from working in an environment that is so massive, at times wasteful, and your contributions feel insignificant Simple formula ( greed + opportunity ). Everyone from politicians to doctors to lowly grunts game the system if they can. Just because you are elected, are educated or wear a uniform doesn't change your innate human nature. You just hide it better. If you can get disability and work too, why wouldn't you. It's like eating your cake and having it too. > I think a lot of people could convince themselves that if they don’t take advantage of something, someone else will. Not themselves. Others. They will try to convince you with that rationalization.
justrealist 3y ago
The negative PR from wrongfully denying a vet benefits is so bad, and the system is completely un-incentivized to be cost-effective, that there are basically 0 real eligibility tests. Any politician (or bureaucrat) who says "you know, maybe we should be denying disability to 20% of these veterans" is going to be strung up and quartered. So, nobody tries.
- 23B1 3y ago
  I'd wager that a big part of the PR hazard is that American taxpayers supported the war(s) – and therefore there is a sense of obligation amongst them that vets should get whatever support they think they need. Not saying grift is excusable, but there's a lot of checks and balances on this system – not the least of which if a veteran is caught lying, he loses his benefits and may even have to pay them back.
  - justrealist 3y ago
    > not the least of which if a veteran is caught lying, he loses his benefits and may even have to pay them back If you claim PTSD, trauma, or back/knee/joint pain without fabricating the material circumstances of your injury (lying about where you were stationed or what you were doing), there is a 0% chance you will be accused, much less convicted, of lying. Look for a single vet disability fraud case (and there aren't many, period) where the conviction was for anything other than outright fabrication of service record.
- bitwalker 3y ago
  This is said so confidently, but clearly with little to no experience with the military or the VA to back it up. No vet is receiving benefits without something to back up their disability rating, even if that rating is higher than it seemingly "should" be. Some disabilities are easier to establish than others, because the issue causing the disability is so prevalent in the service that the military has little basis to deny them. Hearing loss is a common one. That said, I'm a vet, with significant hearing loss due to my time in (I was an F-16 maintainer on the flightline, an extremely intense noise environment). I'm not eligible for _any_ disability rating at all, because I did not report issues while I was still in the service; but hearing loss issues often take time to become apparent, and it's not like we were being tested for it. It was not uncommon for someone to forget their earplugs (the second layer of hearing protection we had, under our headset), and be essentially forced to go out on the flightline anyway to handle some task around running engines. These events would be downplayed, but just one instance of that can cause irreversible hearing loss. But that's just a specific issue relevant to my time in the service. The bottom line is that unless you report every little thing that _might_ cause an issue later, you're going to be up shit creek when you get out and find out that something you were exposed to during your service is causing an expensive medical issue that you have to deal with. There are all kinds of fucked up things people had to do while they were in, that they struggle to get compensation for now that the consequences are catching up, because the issues aren't straightforwardly attributable to some event during your service, like with combat injuries. Burn pits are the most notorious one - you have advocates like Jon Stewart fighting in Congress to pass laws to support vets who were forced to work those pits and are now battling all kinds of complications. If anyone should be an obvious beneficiary of the disability system, beyond those with combat injuries, it should be those folks - but they are largely left hanging in the wind. In the case of burn pits especially, the military _knew_ there were consequences to having soldiers work them, but chalked it up as the cost of war. Frankly, from what I've observed, once vets are out of the service, our country largely gives them the middle finger when they struggle with mental or physical health issues. I say "them" here, because I'm not a combat veteran, and I'm lucky that I had it pretty easy during my tenure (2009-2015), but for many, that is very much not the case. Yeah, nobody in Congress is going to stand up in front of everyone and say "let's make disability benefits harder to obtain" - but I have no doubt they'd have few, if any, qualms about doing it behind closed doors.

Geisterde 3y ago

The moment you realize debt is devalued over time and begin taking on debt to acquire hard assets, like anybody who is smart with their money, you are gaming the system. Its not to say people aren't legitimately creating value or building good businesses, but those businesses necessarily must pay the minimum required taxes to be competitive in the market against someone else who will. Politicians invest in stocks that their forthcoming policies will predictably pump. The whole of it all is gaming the system in one way or another. I'm a vet and I need to get back to spamming the VA to increase my disability benefits even though I feel the best I ever have now.

dh2022 3y ago
Debt is devalued in time when interest rates raise. The last couple of years aside, debt value has been increasing since interest rates peaked in late 1970s.
- Geisterde 3y ago
  Debt is devalued because the money is getting cheaper, I know in 20 years my debt will be easier to manage even though the payments in the nominal denomination of currency has not changed. Inflation is programmatic in a monetary system where currency can only be created through debt, if there werent inflation then every existing dollar would eventually disappear to pay interest to the fed, and there would still be outstanding debt. The practical implications of this are that even if there is a touch of inflation then it can cause a contagion even that shuts down the banks.

goodbyesf 3y ago

> I’m not a vet, but I wonder if it comes from working in an environment that is so massive, at times wasteful, and your contributions feel insignificant Simple formula ( greed + opportunity ). Everyone from politicians to doctors to lowly grunts game the system if they can. Just because you are elected, are educated or wear a uniform doesn't change your innate human nature. You just hide it better. If you can get disability and work too, why wouldn't you. It's like eating your cake and having it too. > I think a lot of people could convince themselves that if they don’t take advantage of something, someone else will. Not themselves. Others. They will try to convince you with that rationalization.

justrealist 3y ago

The negative PR from wrongfully denying a vet benefits is so bad, and the system is completely un-incentivized to be cost-effective, that there are basically 0 real eligibility tests. Any politician (or bureaucrat) who says "you know, maybe we should be denying disability to 20% of these veterans" is going to be strung up and quartered. So, nobody tries.

23B1 3y ago
I'd wager that a big part of the PR hazard is that American taxpayers supported the war(s) – and therefore there is a sense of obligation amongst them that vets should get whatever support they think they need. Not saying grift is excusable, but there's a lot of checks and balances on this system – not the least of which if a veteran is caught lying, he loses his benefits and may even have to pay them back.
- justrealist 3y ago
  > not the least of which if a veteran is caught lying, he loses his benefits and may even have to pay them back If you claim PTSD, trauma, or back/knee/joint pain without fabricating the material circumstances of your injury (lying about where you were stationed or what you were doing), there is a 0% chance you will be accused, much less convicted, of lying. Look for a single vet disability fraud case (and there aren't many, period) where the conviction was for anything other than outright fabrication of service record.
bitwalker 3y ago
This is said so confidently, but clearly with little to no experience with the military or the VA to back it up. No vet is receiving benefits without something to back up their disability rating, even if that rating is higher than it seemingly "should" be. Some disabilities are easier to establish than others, because the issue causing the disability is so prevalent in the service that the military has little basis to deny them. Hearing loss is a common one. That said, I'm a vet, with significant hearing loss due to my time in (I was an F-16 maintainer on the flightline, an extremely intense noise environment). I'm not eligible for _any_ disability rating at all, because I did not report issues while I was still in the service; but hearing loss issues often take time to become apparent, and it's not like we were being tested for it. It was not uncommon for someone to forget their earplugs (the second layer of hearing protection we had, under our headset), and be essentially forced to go out on the flightline anyway to handle some task around running engines. These events would be downplayed, but just one instance of that can cause irreversible hearing loss. But that's just a specific issue relevant to my time in the service. The bottom line is that unless you report every little thing that _might_ cause an issue later, you're going to be up shit creek when you get out and find out that something you were exposed to during your service is causing an expensive medical issue that you have to deal with. There are all kinds of fucked up things people had to do while they were in, that they struggle to get compensation for now that the consequences are catching up, because the issues aren't straightforwardly attributable to some event during your service, like with combat injuries. Burn pits are the most notorious one - you have advocates like Jon Stewart fighting in Congress to pass laws to support vets who were forced to work those pits and are now battling all kinds of complications. If anyone should be an obvious beneficiary of the disability system, beyond those with combat injuries, it should be those folks - but they are largely left hanging in the wind. In the case of burn pits especially, the military _knew_ there were consequences to having soldiers work them, but chalked it up as the cost of war. Frankly, from what I've observed, once vets are out of the service, our country largely gives them the middle finger when they struggle with mental or physical health issues. I say "them" here, because I'm not a combat veteran, and I'm lucky that I had it pretty easy during my tenure (2009-2015), but for many, that is very much not the case. Yeah, nobody in Congress is going to stand up in front of everyone and say "let's make disability benefits harder to obtain" - but I have no doubt they'd have few, if any, qualms about doing it behind closed doors.