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I’m middle class and I live in Europe. Counting all the contributions I’m forced to give the state, they now take about 60% of all I earn. And here we are talk

I’m middle class and I live in Europe. Counting all the contributions I’m forced to give the state, they now take about 60% of all I earn. And here we are talking of giving even more free money to people that don’t work. Who is going to pay for that? Am I going to have to work even more or are you going to let me keep even less of my money?

mettamage 1y ago
I really hope it will be AI/robots. It probably won’t but one can hope.
- normalaccess 1y ago
  [flagged]
M95D 1y ago
Don't you know the answer already? You will have to work more and more, your coworkers will be fired one by one, supposedly replaced by AI, you will take over their work too, then at some point will will be fired too, won't be able to find a job, and when the unemployment benefits end, you will wish to have UBI. About giving money to people that don't work: get the official statistics and calculate as % of your country's budget. You'll probably want to look elsewhere for the money required for UBI. Maybe at the (corrupt) government's contracts and subsidies. No, there are no statistics on those, i'm sure.
- wtcactus 1y ago
  Oh, so just like it happened during the Industrial Revolution, right? Where everyone was supposed to eventually go out of a job because machines would replace us… I live in a country where we need unchecked immigration because “nationals don’t want to do the jobs they do” (never mind less than a 3rd of those immigrants are actually working). So, kind of hard to fit reality with your predictions when there’s clearly work to do (hard work for sure), but lot of people already prefer to live off the welfare state than to bother doing it.
  - M95D 1y ago
    > lot of people already prefer to live off the welfare state How many?
    - wtcactus 1y ago
      According to the official Portuguese data, 700000 persons between the age of 25 to 65 are not working. So, more than 11.5% of the population between those ages already - population between 20-65 is 6 millions. So, get this correctly. More than 11.5% of the population between 25 and 65 are already not working and living off the welfare state. That's how many. Great, isn't it. May be because all the robots are already doing our work, I guess...
      - owebmaster 1y ago
        1 out of 10 not working? Wow. I wasn't expecting to be this low already.
        wtcactus 1y ago
        No, it's 5 out of 10 not working if you count everyone. What I'm saying is that even among those that are the population that can work, more than 1 out of 10 are also not working. So yeah, every worker, is not supporting himself and somebody else. And even when you discount children and older people, more than 11.5% of them don't want to work already. This is completely unsustainable and has nothing to do with AI replacing us. P.S. Never mind that Portugal (and from what I understand, most Europeans countries) don't have a proper Retirement fund, and present workers are basically paying the retirement of retirees. This is because they contributed too little compared to what they receive now, and the state never invested their money - but used it to pay people that came before them and never made discounts for retirement.
        M95D 1y ago
        11.5% is the total. My question was how many of them actually receive any benefits? Or, even better, how much of the budget is spent on benefits for those that don't work?

mettamage 1y ago

I really hope it will be AI/robots. It probably won’t but one can hope.

normalaccess 1y ago
[flagged]

M95D 1y ago

Don't you know the answer already? You will have to work more and more, your coworkers will be fired one by one, supposedly replaced by AI, you will take over their work too, then at some point will will be fired too, won't be able to find a job, and when the unemployment benefits end, you will wish to have UBI. About giving money to people that don't work: get the official statistics and calculate as % of your country's budget. You'll probably want to look elsewhere for the money required for UBI. Maybe at the (corrupt) government's contracts and subsidies. No, there are no statistics on those, i'm sure.

wtcactus 1y ago
Oh, so just like it happened during the Industrial Revolution, right? Where everyone was supposed to eventually go out of a job because machines would replace us… I live in a country where we need unchecked immigration because “nationals don’t want to do the jobs they do” (never mind less than a 3rd of those immigrants are actually working). So, kind of hard to fit reality with your predictions when there’s clearly work to do (hard work for sure), but lot of people already prefer to live off the welfare state than to bother doing it.
- M95D 1y ago
  > lot of people already prefer to live off the welfare state How many?
  - wtcactus 1y ago
    According to the official Portuguese data, 700000 persons between the age of 25 to 65 are not working. So, more than 11.5% of the population between those ages already - population between 20-65 is 6 millions. So, get this correctly. More than 11.5% of the population between 25 and 65 are already not working and living off the welfare state. That's how many. Great, isn't it. May be because all the robots are already doing our work, I guess...
    - owebmaster 1y ago
      1 out of 10 not working? Wow. I wasn't expecting to be this low already.
      - wtcactus 1y ago
        No, it's 5 out of 10 not working if you count everyone. What I'm saying is that even among those that are the population that can work, more than 1 out of 10 are also not working. So yeah, every worker, is not supporting himself and somebody else. And even when you discount children and older people, more than 11.5% of them don't want to work already. This is completely unsustainable and has nothing to do with AI replacing us. P.S. Never mind that Portugal (and from what I understand, most Europeans countries) don't have a proper Retirement fund, and present workers are basically paying the retirement of retirees. This is because they contributed too little compared to what they receive now, and the state never invested their money - but used it to pay people that came before them and never made discounts for retirement.
        M95D 1y ago
        11.5% is the total. My question was how many of them actually receive any benefits? Or, even better, how much of the budget is spent on benefits for those that don't work?