3 ms·

I'm more worried about the early inclusion into the Nasdaq 100 index and if other indexes will follow. I don't want my retirement to be passively buying Elon's

by jmuguy 5mo ago

I'm more worried about the early inclusion into the Nasdaq 100 index and if other indexes will follow. I don't want my retirement to be passively buying Elon's latest shell game.

altcognito 5mo ago
This is why he (and other billionaires) are pining to get Social Security replaced with an indexed based retirement fund?
- jmuguy 5mo ago
  Who knows, I mean it would certainly make it easier for them to turn the entire population into their bag holders. Don't even have to hype the company any more or spin up a bunch of bullshit about space.
- funimpoded 5mo ago
  Absolutely, that's the main reason there's been a push for that for decades. It's a giant pile of poor people's money that rich people can't easily skim from, and they'd really, really like to. Once it's "in the market" they gain all kinds of options for turning some of that money into their money, some immediately, some with tweaks to laws or policy.
  - trunkiedozer 5mo ago
    That’s literally not how it works. You buy a share of stock and participate in their gains. For example, I owned a bunch of Tesla stock since around 2017. Now I have a ton in the stock as well as a new house and a model s plaid thanks to their greatness. Did the same with Apple, that is my retirement and travel fund. it ain’t hard.
    - funimpoded 5mo ago
      > You buy a share of stock and participate in their gains That is "literally not how it works", as you missed "... and losses". Since dividends aren't really a thing any more and gains are ~100% from stock prices increasing, existing holders of securities would really like a bunch more money to come shopping and drive that price up. Very helpful if you want to make sure a period where "... and losses" seems like a silly thing to be worried about keeps going for a while longer. Bunch of folks out there would love to be taking management fees on funds that're required by law to receive 10ish% of every middle-class-and-under working American's paycheck (some at the higher end of the pay scale pay less than that, because of the cutoff, and of course anyone rich enough not to have wage income pays no FICA at all). Others would like to game the system to make Social Security a huge, deep-pocketed buyer for their scams. This is for when "... and losses" starts really biting people.
      - trunkiedozer 5mo ago
        Your theory vs my reality bro
    - doubleg72 5mo ago
      Yeah sure, cool story bro.
      - trunkiedozer 5mo ago
        Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll keep getting what you got. I’m living large bro. Good luck to you.
- lotsofpulp 5mo ago
  I am a non billionaire and I would prefer Social Security to go away. Mathematically, there is no alternative to the purchasing power of my Social Security benefits being reduced, simply due to the changes in the population age histogram. It has to become more and more of a wealth transfer from the working to non working, which means my kids will benefit less and less from their work.
- WarmWash 5mo ago
  Pretty much everyone already has an index based retirement fund.
  - outside1234 5mo ago
    The reason we have social security like it is is twofold: 1) current retirees are paid directly from our contributions. There is no pot of money to be invested and 2) we want to be able to guarantee a defined benefit that is not below a certain number. You can't do that with the market.
    - WarmWash 5mo ago
      Between the pyramid scheme nature of social security, the high inflation potential of the USD, and the ability for politicians to leverage social security for short term approval boosts You definitely can't do it with the government either...
- elevation 5mo ago
  > Social Security replaced with an index Yes please! I learned just how bad of a deal Social Security is when an employer (a bootstrapped startup) offered a predatory 401k plan. It was free for my employer to setup but the employees were stuck with extremely high fees. It was so bad that John Oliver made an episode[0] about it! Yet, even for the worst 401K plan in America, the projected retirement returns were 1600% of the Social Security returns. Even America's worst 401K would be better for the average consumer than the federal debacle Uncle Sam should sunset SSI and allow citizens to select from and move freely between a number of accredited funds. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvZSpET11ZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvZSpET11ZY
  - altcognito 5mo ago
    Are you aware that SSI is an insurance (or lifetime annuity) not an investment? SSI covers disability, and supplements income no matter what happens. Disability? You're covered. Live to 105? You're covered. Market dips 50% in a period you have a lot of expenses? Your benefits are unaffected. Tax advantaged 401k is already the vehicle of choice for retirement funds.
    - Ajedi32 5mo ago
      1600% higher returns can cover a lot of eventualities.
      - compsciphd 5mo ago
        it doesn't cover you getting disabled so you can't work anymore at the age of 30 after working 8 years. 1600% higher return is great when you work from yours 20s to your 50s/60s and can essentially self insure yourself at that point with it, but as the person you are responding to you is (I believe) trying to say, that's not everyone.
        Ajedi32 5mo ago
        Fair, but given that we're talking about a hypothetical government program, "index-based retirement fund" doesn't imply you're the only one contributing to said fund.
- outside1234 5mo ago
  Not sure why you are getting downvoted. This is exactly right. They want a constant source of buying that they can steer investments into.
- kristofferR 5mo ago
  Not to mention that they always harp on it being supposedly unsustainable and insolvent, while deliberately not mentioning that it is solely because the social security is the most regressive tax, where the more you earn the lower your rate. If it was a flat tax where everyone paid the same percentage of instead of a regressive tax where only working people pay the rate, then social security would be well funded. Obviously they don’t want to pay the same tax rate as working people, so theyd rather get rid of social security instead.
  - lotsofpulp 5mo ago
    This is not correct. For people who earn less than the SS wage cap ($184.5k in 2026), Social Security is a progressive tax due to the bend points in the benefit formula. You explicitly get less benefit for each additional dollar you pay in tax. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/bendpoints.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/bendpoints.html But every dollar of income earned over the SS wage cap reduces effective tax rate. The more you earn, the less the effective Social Security tax rate is for you. At Elon Musk levels, it rounds down to zero. Therefore, there would be no motivation for super rich people to get rid of social security. The only material reduction in tax rate would be for those relying on annual earned income of a few hundred thousand dollars or less (i.e. the bottom 95% of income earners).
    - kristofferR 5mo ago
      That's what I'm saying, they pretend that the only way to fix SS is to cut services/replace it, because actually fixing it without cuts would involve removing the lobbyhole/cap that makes their rate close to zero.
- trunkiedozer 5mo ago
  Way better returns when you take charge of your investments rather than bitching about the government, anyone can be a millionaire with minimal effort, just being smart.
snek_case 5mo ago
Yeah this is pretty shady. The S&P 500 in particular has fairly strict criteria (e.g. 4 consecutive quarters of profitability) and those criteria exist for a reason. They made me more comfortable buying the S&P 500 knowing I'm not buying pre-revenue companies. This is a bad precedent to set just to please Elon.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- Ajedi32 5mo ago
  I'm a bit out of the loop, but has SpaceX not been profitable for the last 4 quarters? I understand they're investing a lot into R&D for Starship but I was under the impression they've been making a killing on Starlink.
  - jmuguy 5mo ago
    Starlink itself is profitable but the insane valuation they're trying to get for the IPO is based on an assumed continued massive growth of users - and even then I don't think Starlink by itself makes SpaceX a trillion dollar company.
    - ben_w 5mo ago
      If Musk personally wasn't completely toxic worldwide, and if there wasn't all the other new space companies noticing the Egg of Columbus* that is cheap rockets and the potential for comm sat constellations that launch prices enable, I could believe 100e6 people would buy a $50/month service. A common rating for valuation is profit over 20 years, that revenue (not profit, IDK the margin) would be $1.2T. * Egg of Columbus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus Many seem to also be doing this with androids around the time he started talking about them, hence how we can buy them and put them to work even though Optimus still hasn't launched yet.
  - jauntywundrkind 5mo ago
    Past performance as a company is like 20% of the concern here. The concern is ~80% that a brand new stock enters the market & immediately has to be bought by everyone. The market has no time to adjust & settle. This is fleecing everyone & it's entirely unclear under what madness this would ever have been considered. There's so many irregularities and abnormalities being considered here, and all of them seem like pretty straightforward safeguards. It feels like nothing short of a conspiracy that so many norms would be pushed aside to consider listing spacex so quickly in so many indexes. "The proposal could also remove the minimum Investable Weight Factor requirement for megacap companies." For fuck sake! https://x.com/Benzinga/status/2050244492335206911 https://x.com/Benzinga/status/2050244492335206911
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
throwaway786346 5mo ago
[flagged]
- outside1234 5mo ago
  I think it really speaks volumes that they only thing you have on Obama is that he spent $70M with Russia to get astronauts to the ISS in an effort to show them that we could be partners (versus them lose a million people in a war with Ukraine).
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
trunkiedozer 5mo ago
I made a ton off of Tesla, expecting to do the same with spacex.

by jmuguy 5mo ago

I'm more worried about the early inclusion into the Nasdaq 100 index and if other indexes will follow. I don't want my retirement to be passively buying Elon's latest shell game.

altcognito 5mo ago

This is why he (and other billionaires) are pining to get Social Security replaced with an indexed based retirement fund?

jmuguy 5mo ago
Who knows, I mean it would certainly make it easier for them to turn the entire population into their bag holders. Don't even have to hype the company any more or spin up a bunch of bullshit about space.
funimpoded 5mo ago
Absolutely, that's the main reason there's been a push for that for decades. It's a giant pile of poor people's money that rich people can't easily skim from, and they'd really, really like to. Once it's "in the market" they gain all kinds of options for turning some of that money into their money, some immediately, some with tweaks to laws or policy.
- trunkiedozer 5mo ago
  That’s literally not how it works. You buy a share of stock and participate in their gains. For example, I owned a bunch of Tesla stock since around 2017. Now I have a ton in the stock as well as a new house and a model s plaid thanks to their greatness. Did the same with Apple, that is my retirement and travel fund. it ain’t hard.
  - funimpoded 5mo ago
    > You buy a share of stock and participate in their gains That is "literally not how it works", as you missed "... and losses". Since dividends aren't really a thing any more and gains are ~100% from stock prices increasing, existing holders of securities would really like a bunch more money to come shopping and drive that price up. Very helpful if you want to make sure a period where "... and losses" seems like a silly thing to be worried about keeps going for a while longer. Bunch of folks out there would love to be taking management fees on funds that're required by law to receive 10ish% of every middle-class-and-under working American's paycheck (some at the higher end of the pay scale pay less than that, because of the cutoff, and of course anyone rich enough not to have wage income pays no FICA at all). Others would like to game the system to make Social Security a huge, deep-pocketed buyer for their scams. This is for when "... and losses" starts really biting people.
    - trunkiedozer 5mo ago
      Your theory vs my reality bro
  - doubleg72 5mo ago
    Yeah sure, cool story bro.
    - trunkiedozer 5mo ago
      Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll keep getting what you got. I’m living large bro. Good luck to you.
lotsofpulp 5mo ago
I am a non billionaire and I would prefer Social Security to go away. Mathematically, there is no alternative to the purchasing power of my Social Security benefits being reduced, simply due to the changes in the population age histogram. It has to become more and more of a wealth transfer from the working to non working, which means my kids will benefit less and less from their work.
WarmWash 5mo ago
Pretty much everyone already has an index based retirement fund.
- outside1234 5mo ago
  The reason we have social security like it is is twofold: 1) current retirees are paid directly from our contributions. There is no pot of money to be invested and 2) we want to be able to guarantee a defined benefit that is not below a certain number. You can't do that with the market.
  - WarmWash 5mo ago
    Between the pyramid scheme nature of social security, the high inflation potential of the USD, and the ability for politicians to leverage social security for short term approval boosts You definitely can't do it with the government either...
elevation 5mo ago
> Social Security replaced with an index Yes please! I learned just how bad of a deal Social Security is when an employer (a bootstrapped startup) offered a predatory 401k plan. It was free for my employer to setup but the employees were stuck with extremely high fees. It was so bad that John Oliver made an episode[0] about it! Yet, even for the worst 401K plan in America, the projected retirement returns were 1600% of the Social Security returns. Even America's worst 401K would be better for the average consumer than the federal debacle Uncle Sam should sunset SSI and allow citizens to select from and move freely between a number of accredited funds. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvZSpET11ZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvZSpET11ZY
- altcognito 5mo ago
  Are you aware that SSI is an insurance (or lifetime annuity) not an investment? SSI covers disability, and supplements income no matter what happens. Disability? You're covered. Live to 105? You're covered. Market dips 50% in a period you have a lot of expenses? Your benefits are unaffected. Tax advantaged 401k is already the vehicle of choice for retirement funds.
  - Ajedi32 5mo ago
    1600% higher returns can cover a lot of eventualities.
    - compsciphd 5mo ago
      it doesn't cover you getting disabled so you can't work anymore at the age of 30 after working 8 years. 1600% higher return is great when you work from yours 20s to your 50s/60s and can essentially self insure yourself at that point with it, but as the person you are responding to you is (I believe) trying to say, that's not everyone.
      - Ajedi32 5mo ago
        Fair, but given that we're talking about a hypothetical government program, "index-based retirement fund" doesn't imply you're the only one contributing to said fund.
outside1234 5mo ago
Not sure why you are getting downvoted. This is exactly right. They want a constant source of buying that they can steer investments into.
kristofferR 5mo ago
Not to mention that they always harp on it being supposedly unsustainable and insolvent, while deliberately not mentioning that it is solely because the social security is the most regressive tax, where the more you earn the lower your rate. If it was a flat tax where everyone paid the same percentage of instead of a regressive tax where only working people pay the rate, then social security would be well funded. Obviously they don’t want to pay the same tax rate as working people, so theyd rather get rid of social security instead.
- lotsofpulp 5mo ago
  This is not correct. For people who earn less than the SS wage cap ($184.5k in 2026), Social Security is a progressive tax due to the bend points in the benefit formula. You explicitly get less benefit for each additional dollar you pay in tax. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/bendpoints.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/bendpoints.html But every dollar of income earned over the SS wage cap reduces effective tax rate. The more you earn, the less the effective Social Security tax rate is for you. At Elon Musk levels, it rounds down to zero. Therefore, there would be no motivation for super rich people to get rid of social security. The only material reduction in tax rate would be for those relying on annual earned income of a few hundred thousand dollars or less (i.e. the bottom 95% of income earners).
  - kristofferR 5mo ago
    That's what I'm saying, they pretend that the only way to fix SS is to cut services/replace it, because actually fixing it without cuts would involve removing the lobbyhole/cap that makes their rate close to zero.
trunkiedozer 5mo ago
Way better returns when you take charge of your investments rather than bitching about the government, anyone can be a millionaire with minimal effort, just being smart.

snek_case 5mo ago

Yeah this is pretty shady. The S&P 500 in particular has fairly strict criteria (e.g. 4 consecutive quarters of profitability) and those criteria exist for a reason. They made me more comfortable buying the S&P 500 knowing I'm not buying pre-revenue companies. This is a bad precedent to set just to please Elon.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
Ajedi32 5mo ago
I'm a bit out of the loop, but has SpaceX not been profitable for the last 4 quarters? I understand they're investing a lot into R&D for Starship but I was under the impression they've been making a killing on Starlink.
- jmuguy 5mo ago
  Starlink itself is profitable but the insane valuation they're trying to get for the IPO is based on an assumed continued massive growth of users - and even then I don't think Starlink by itself makes SpaceX a trillion dollar company.
  - ben_w 5mo ago
    If Musk personally wasn't completely toxic worldwide, and if there wasn't all the other new space companies noticing the Egg of Columbus* that is cheap rockets and the potential for comm sat constellations that launch prices enable, I could believe 100e6 people would buy a $50/month service. A common rating for valuation is profit over 20 years, that revenue (not profit, IDK the margin) would be $1.2T. * Egg of Columbus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus Many seem to also be doing this with androids around the time he started talking about them, hence how we can buy them and put them to work even though Optimus still hasn't launched yet.
- jauntywundrkind 5mo ago
  Past performance as a company is like 20% of the concern here. The concern is ~80% that a brand new stock enters the market & immediately has to be bought by everyone. The market has no time to adjust & settle. This is fleecing everyone & it's entirely unclear under what madness this would ever have been considered. There's so many irregularities and abnormalities being considered here, and all of them seem like pretty straightforward safeguards. It feels like nothing short of a conspiracy that so many norms would be pushed aside to consider listing spacex so quickly in so many indexes. "The proposal could also remove the minimum Investable Weight Factor requirement for megacap companies." For fuck sake! https://x.com/Benzinga/status/2050244492335206911 https://x.com/Benzinga/status/2050244492335206911

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

throwaway786346 5mo ago

[flagged]

outside1234 5mo ago
I think it really speaks volumes that they only thing you have on Obama is that he spent $70M with Russia to get astronauts to the ISS in an effort to show them that we could be partners (versus them lose a million people in a war with Ukraine).
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]

trunkiedozer 5mo ago

I made a ton off of Tesla, expecting to do the same with spacex.