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> Money is a proxy for manpower. It is. But you are talking about a very specific policy: How much money goes into Social Security. The cap is arbitrary – not

> Money is a proxy for manpower. It is. But you are talking about a very specific policy: How much money goes into Social Security. The cap is arbitrary – not a calculated reflection of physical reality. It is an artificial restraint! Whether the cap is $160 000 or $500 000, you can’t just say “this is a reflection of resource-scarcity” when it is very much a policy decision made to allow the wealthy to pay less taxes. > For sure there is lots more room to take wealth from workers and give it to non workers, but expect more and more political headwinds and long term consequences. The goal is, in my eyes, to reduce wealth taken from workers by non-workers – the owners that increasingly make more and more money proportionally to workers. The young always got less than they put in – that’s how companies profit – but now they get even less than they used to. This is because we’ve allowed wages and salaries to stagnate, letting wealth inequality become incomprehensibly massive compared to just two generations ago. The results of this is what makes the young poorer and despondent. Raising a tax marginally on these owners, like raising the Social Security cap such that the ultra-wealthy pay more into it, doesn’t break physical reality nor does it take money from workers. It takes money from non-workers.

lotsofpulp 2y ago
FICA taxes are earned income taxes, they take from workers by design. Land value taxes (and other forms of taxing wealth such as estate tax) take from non workers. Funnily enough, that is never on the table, only more taxes on earned income. Regardless, even that can be exhausted. Seize all the assets from everyone in the top 10%, and you still won’t have enough to pay for all the labor to service too many old people. The country needs to keep exporting to keep the purchasing power of the currency sufficient to incentivize people to work for the money in the first place.
- malicka 2y ago
  > Seize all the assets from everyone in the top 10%, and you still won’t have enough to pay for all the labor to service too many old people. We are nowhere near that point; you could perhaps make this argument for Japan (though I’d be skeptical), but for the US? No, I’m sorry. That is very, very, far off. Our age distribution is healthy enough that every older person can be taken care of just fine — and we don’t need to seize all the assets of the top 10%. I really don’t understand how you can come to the conclusion that we are in such a resource and labor crisis based solely on slight funding shortfall for Social Security (which can be remedied by raising the cap a bit). It’s just narrative, that’s all you have. Let’s talk about letting grandma starve when it’s a real problem, alright? Stop the dehumanization of old folk. We don’t like ageism around here. > I do hope that I have the fortitude to take myself out though once I become too much of a resource sink for my descendants. Seriously. It’s sad to see someone preemptively throw their life away over an imaginary crisis.
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    I wrote that food is not the issue, keeping grandma alive after heart attack or kidney failure or other things that require a lots of resources is the issue. It is already impossible to see a doctor, and people have to settle for an NP/PA. A large proportion of young people are already despondent that they will never earn enough money to have enough purchasing power to increase their living standards. These things are connected. And at every point, the solution has always been to tax young people more. That’s the ageism. Old people get federal government backed asset prices, discounts on property taxes, and young people get increased earned income taxes, for benefits they will never get themselves. > Seriously. It’s sad to see someone preemptively throw their life away over an imaginary crisis. It’s not throwing my life away to not want my descendants to spend their resources on caring for me all the time. Obviously, I am not talking about suicide just because I need help getting groceries, but instead when I need hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep me alive for a couple months or years in a bed, I think that could be better spent elsewhere in society.

lotsofpulp 2y ago

FICA taxes are earned income taxes, they take from workers by design. Land value taxes (and other forms of taxing wealth such as estate tax) take from non workers. Funnily enough, that is never on the table, only more taxes on earned income. Regardless, even that can be exhausted. Seize all the assets from everyone in the top 10%, and you still won’t have enough to pay for all the labor to service too many old people. The country needs to keep exporting to keep the purchasing power of the currency sufficient to incentivize people to work for the money in the first place.

malicka 2y ago
> Seize all the assets from everyone in the top 10%, and you still won’t have enough to pay for all the labor to service too many old people. We are nowhere near that point; you could perhaps make this argument for Japan (though I’d be skeptical), but for the US? No, I’m sorry. That is very, very, far off. Our age distribution is healthy enough that every older person can be taken care of just fine — and we don’t need to seize all the assets of the top 10%. I really don’t understand how you can come to the conclusion that we are in such a resource and labor crisis based solely on slight funding shortfall for Social Security (which can be remedied by raising the cap a bit). It’s just narrative, that’s all you have. Let’s talk about letting grandma starve when it’s a real problem, alright? Stop the dehumanization of old folk. We don’t like ageism around here. > I do hope that I have the fortitude to take myself out though once I become too much of a resource sink for my descendants. Seriously. It’s sad to see someone preemptively throw their life away over an imaginary crisis.
- deleted 2y ago
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- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  I wrote that food is not the issue, keeping grandma alive after heart attack or kidney failure or other things that require a lots of resources is the issue. It is already impossible to see a doctor, and people have to settle for an NP/PA. A large proportion of young people are already despondent that they will never earn enough money to have enough purchasing power to increase their living standards. These things are connected. And at every point, the solution has always been to tax young people more. That’s the ageism. Old people get federal government backed asset prices, discounts on property taxes, and young people get increased earned income taxes, for benefits they will never get themselves. > Seriously. It’s sad to see someone preemptively throw their life away over an imaginary crisis. It’s not throwing my life away to not want my descendants to spend their resources on caring for me all the time. Obviously, I am not talking about suicide just because I need help getting groceries, but instead when I need hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep me alive for a couple months or years in a bed, I think that could be better spent elsewhere in society.