Zompist Bboard Again

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 4:32 amBut the real question is, what's the plan? How are old folks supposed to, y'know, eat? Is everybody super enthused at the idea of taking Grandma in?

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 6:27 am IIRC the idea is to have people invest money before they retire, and then live of those investments once they're retired. One of the many problems with that proposal - and that is what many people who are your or my age or younger seem to have trouble understanding - is that the new system would have the same problems as the old one. That's because every system that ensures that retires have money to live works, fundamentally, the same way as the current US Social Security system and it's counterparts in other countries do. The proposed alternatives are just less direct about what they're doing than Social Security is. If you no longer work because you're retired, you're consuming good and services produced by the work of people who aren't retired yet. That holds true no matter which exact administrative, legal, and financial mechanisms make sure that you have the money to pay for those goods and services. And if there really is a situation where there are too many retirees and not enough people working to produce goods and services, then that's still a problem no matter how those administrative, legal, and financial mechanisms work.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 6:38 amYes, exactly! If there is a problem with demographics, no matter how the pensions work, we're still going to run into the same kind of problems.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 4:32 am

Nortaneous wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 2:11 am Social security takes from the young, who mostly don't believe it'll be solvent when they're old, to give to the old, many of whom are members of the AARP, which is a lobbying organization that is good at its job.

We hear that a lot from young or young-ish conservatives here over pensions. The belief that the pension system is going to be insolvent is prevalent but I'm not sure how well founded it is. But the real question is, what's the plan? How are old folks supposed to, y'know, eat? Is everybody super enthused at the idea of taking Grandma in?

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 5:27 pm All there really is is an obligation to pay that's funded out of current revenues.

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2024 3:13 am

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 5:27 pm All there really is is an obligation to pay that's funded out of current revenues.

The thing with the proposed alternatives is that they mainly just go to greater lengths to hide the same kind of thing.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:24 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2024 3:13 am

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 5:27 pmAll there really is is an obligation to pay that's funded out of current revenues.

The thing with the proposed alternatives is that they mainly just go to greater lengths to hide the same kind of thing.

In the US or more generally? Here pensions and our equivalent of Social Security have dedicated funds and revenues.

Nortaneous wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 2:11 am

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2024 9:53 pm In any case, social security does not take from the old to give to the young, notably retirement. I argue that a good role of a state: improves the conditions of the citizens and inhabitants, notably the most vulnerable, while encouraging virtue i.e. positive behaviour and discouraging vice i.e. negative behaviour and maintaining a balance between freedom and order.

Social security takes from the young, who mostly don't believe it'll be solvent when they're old, to give to the old, many of whom are members of the AARP, which is a lobbying organization that is good at its job. (See also: the NRA.) Also, the young get to pay upwards of $2000/mo for a one-bedroom apartment because building more housing might lower the property values of the people who bought houses when they were cheap - but it's fine because, anyway, cities encourage vice. Urban youths, you know? We need to do something about the urban youths. We need to get their noses to the grindstone so our lines go up faster and we can play more golf in Florida. Not to mention immigration - the only time in my adult life that I've had neighbors who spoke fluent English was when I moved to the country to wait out the plague and lived down the street from a horse farm, but that's what it takes to keep the pyramid schemes solvent for the over-65s without leaving the under-40s enough time, money, or energy to have kids of their own. The youths can't be trusted with freedom, you know. They don't have the wisdom that comes with age. They'd probably all blow it on video games, or gang crime, or something.

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:54 pm These conspiracy theories about the student encampments are really getting bonkers. First, a relatively sane friend shared a headline about how 80% of the protesters arrested at ASU you were not university affiliates with the question "Wondering what percentage of the participants of these protests are part of a Steve Bannon/Jill Stein op." (Weird, it's like you can't actually arrest students and faculty for attending their own university.) Then someone in a politics groups I follow shared a post from a hedge fund manager "just asking questions" about the "suspicious uniformity" of the tents at the different encampments--almost as if they'd all been bought and paid for by the same shadowy individual.! Never mind that a moment's googling will show you a motley assortment of tents at pretty much every encampment.

I get why a spontaneous student movement is as threatening to establishment Democrats as it is to Republicans, but I really wish people would apply a modicum of common sense and a healthy dose of scepticism when evaluating the charges of those trying to discredit the movement. It's the same canards from Occupy and BLM just recycled over again.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2024 4:57 pm ...these people protesting won't vote or will vote third-party...

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2024 4:57 pm

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:54 pmI get why a spontaneous student movement is as threatening to establishment Democrats as it is to Republicans, but I really wish people would apply a modicum of common sense and a healthy dose of scepticism when evaluating the charges of those trying to discredit the movement. It's the same canards from Occupy and BLM just recycled over again.

The big problem is that we need everyone possible to vote for Biden et al or else, but I suspect many of these people protesting won't vote or will vote third-party even though Trump wouldn't stop sending money to Israel anyways, and would probably put no pressure at all on Israel. These are the kind of people who don't believe in the adage "the perfect is the enemy of good" (and yes, sending money to fund what Israel is doing isn't "good", but the fact is that the alternative is even worse).

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2024 3:57 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2024 4:57 pm

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:54 pmI get why a spontaneous student movement is as threatening to establishment Democrats as it is to Republicans, but I really wish people would apply a modicum of common sense and a healthy dose of scepticism when evaluating the charges of those trying to discredit the movement. It's the same canards from Occupy and BLM just recycled over again.

The big problem is that we need everyone possible to vote for Biden et al or else, but I suspect many of these people protesting won't vote or will vote third-party even though Trump wouldn't stop sending money to Israel anyways, and would probably put no pressure at all on Israel. These are the kind of people who don't believe in the adage "the perfect is the enemy of good" (and yes, sending money to fund what Israel is doing isn't "good", but the fact is that the alternative is even worse).

So that's a justification for endorsing conspiracy theories which discredit the protesters? That's going to be what wins them over to the Biden side?

I'm not really sure what the point is you're making here, Travis. Young people are disgusted by the moral choices of the people in power and they're turning to direct action to make that clear since the apparatus of democracy in this country has been almost wholly ineffectual at transforming their demographic significance into political power. I can't think of any better way to deepen that disgust than to ignore their concerns, suggest they're nothing more than dupes, and lecture them on their poor understanding of civics. The inability to come up with a means for harnessing the enthusiasm for change of the most left-wing generation in years at a time of rising fascism really is peak Democrat.

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2024 9:37 amI think Travis's point, which I agree with, is about which way to vote, not about discrediting protests.

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2024 2:26 pm

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2024 9:37 amI think Travis's point, which I agree with, is about which way to vote, not about discrediting protests.

Please show me where in my OP I said a damn word about voting or not voting. He simply ignored the content of my post to ride his old hobby horse about voting.

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 11:46 am PS There are other explanations for preferring a fascist or similar: being misguided, misinformed, short-sighted, opportunistic among others.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2024 3:47 am A thought that occured to me too is that -- from my foreign, limited perspective -- Republicans are pretty easy to read and have better luck implementing their policies.

Right now US politics towards the Middle East is, to put it mildly, hard to follow. It seems Biden wants one thing, Democratic financial backers want yet another thing, and of course Congress wants its own thing. So you get Biden drawing red lines and doing absolutely nothing when they get crossed.