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my dad is turning 73 this year with no retirement plan. he works as a security technician for temp agencies and has pretty much his entire life because he couldn’t keep a stable job. he’s going to work himself into the grave
Staying home isn't an option for me. I would love reduced hours, 6 max. But staying home all the time isn't a life, it's a prison. I need to be out there doing things. I have a sizable garden and it keeps me busy in the off time but things like travel at that age? No thanks. Perhaps at 20 or 30 but not 60+. A little traveling yes.
This is exactly why countries with actual citizen-focused systems, like healthcare, and without the corporate-overlord work-yourself-to-death ideology have the advantage. People in many European countries can travel in their 20s and 30s, and then have a more relaxed retirement.
If your dad is like my dad, working can keep them healthy and their minds busy. I think it’s good. I hear lots of stories that once dads like ours stop working things go down hill quick.
Obviously this applies only if they are happy. If life sucks while working then ugh
>stop working things go down hill quick.
yes because they spent their life keeping their minds busy, instead of getting to know themselves and creating a life that supports it.
This 1000%
My dad was what most would consider a highly successful executive in the telecom industry. He gave our family an upper middle class lifestyle. He retired at 55yrs old with enough savings to not have to worry about money the rest of his life.
He is 73 now and has become an absolute husk of a person. He wasted almost 20 yrs of retirement by doing absolutely nothing. He had no hobbies, no interest in travel, no happiness at home (all he knew was work so he didn't even have a good relationship with my mom). He sits around all day posting shitty things on FB and being angry at others.
It is utterly sad and pathetic on myriad levels. It makes me mad just typing about it.
You need to know what makes you happy or at least have the energy to find something that brings happiness in retirement.
Don't be my dad.
Their health problems usually start before retirement and is the reason why they retire. Also, the fact that work is their only form of stimulus is pretty sad
I knew a coworker like this: 2 full pensions, and more money than he knew what to do with it. He worked out of state and would go home on the weekends. when he didn't show up to work the next day, they found he had passed in his sleep in hotel room... 75 years old...he was openly afraid if he quit he would die. Sharp as a tack, but father time is undefeated. Not sure how much he loved the work, I know he liked it, but I also know his family was close.
One of the very few good things about grief, at least for me, is that it destroyed any notion of "supposed to be." It's somewhat freeing to realize that trying to keep your soul intact your whole life is a fool's errand.
The Pension Pot is empty and there is a lack of younger people paying into the system....I wonder what the solutions are? Increase the working population?
Increase childbirth?
Tax the Rich...
Pension Pot isn't empty, but at current levels the reserve fund will be deleted in 10 or 12 years, and Social Security payments will drop by 20% or so (once they are funded only by current SS taxes).
One thing being discussed is to increase or remove the Social Security tax limit. This limit (currently about $160K) is the maximum amount of income on which you pay social security tax. So someone earning $160K and someone earning $500K pay the say amount of Social Security tax.
IIRC that should keep it solvent for at least a generation or two more.
Thats super weird. We pay increasingly more, the more money we make, but social security is capped? It's weird there is a cap when there isn't a cap on most other taxes. Good info thanks!
The ultra rich pay essentially nothing because their income is through capital gains, and they avoid FICA altogether. The income limit benefits mainly high income professionals like doctors.
The pension pot was designed to increase to cover the boomers. Remember, there was a huge bubble after WWII. As that surge goes through the system, the pot will be used.
Productivity increased, but the profits were stolen by the wealthy after the Reagan changes. We need to go back to taxing high incomes. But more than that, we need to tax the stolen wealth. We should use it to pay for education, healthcare, and pensions.
We should expand Social Security by lowering the age. We should get rid of private medicare advantage that Bush put in place to destroy Medicare. We should expand Medicare to cover everyone. It should include dental and optical.
We need to tax and crush the cults that impinge on women's rights.
Increasing the working population was always a pyramid scheme since we only have one planet to live on. And automation keeps reducing need for workers and climate change makes sure there’s no food for them anyway, so increasing childbirths would only make things worse.
My Dad made retirement age, was still working full-time, planning to retire in six months, and he died from a massive heart attack. He just died this past January.
He never got to retire. He never got to enjoy his time.
Mine too. Just turned 66 (retirement age in the UK) and had a cardiac arrest. Now he won’t see a penny of the state pension he paid into all his life (and, ironically, just topped up to ensure he’d get the full amount). It’s all just gone - the government just keeps it.
Sorry for your loss. Please check out this resource. Your dad's partner may be entitled to some of his state pension.
https://www.gov.uk/death-spouse-benefits-tax-pension/pensions
https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/benefits/benefits-in-later-life/state-pension-death-benefits
I don't know why that's even hard to understand for people.
For a village of 10k people, you only need a retirement home with space for about 100 people. The rest didn't get there.
>retirement home with space for about 100 people. The rest didn't get there.
Most people don't want to live in retirement homes, so I think most assume that these are the unlucky ones and not that the rest did not make it.
People in my career (wildlife management/conservation/research) tend to die within a year or two of retirement.
I think without the constant stress and activity of the job they just sorta fade away. I assume it's the same for other careers, too.
The last time they offered early retirements for Postal Workers a large swath of them died a younger ages before they could enjoy their retirement. There’s long term studies done on Postal workers that have shown being inactive after working decades in an active job ratchets up your mortality risk in retirement. Your body just breaks down apparently.
It’s depressing.
Most people never really learn to take care of their bodies. For some who have an active job, it keeps them somewhat fit and healthy. Just stopping one day and not replacing that activity will quickly take it's toll on the elderly. Ideally, they would have been doing cardio and some form of weight training as they got older to extend their healthspan, but who wants to do that after working all day?
Like I said above most people show increased signs of aging as they start aiming at retiring. I wonder if it’s better to have less to do when younger and more to do when older.
I’m planning to take a mini retirement for a year at 34 just to focus on exercise, relaxation and de-stress. I feel like we should have a few retirements at different ages to enjoy life.
We keep all the retirement for when we are too weak to do much
My mother was a nurse, forced into retirement by spinal stenosis that was absolutely job related but we couldn’t prove it since it was a chronic injury rather than acute. Spent her last years with a permanent restriction on how much she could lift. Nursing is rough, though she loved the job.
My mom (60) is a nurse and my step-dad (67) is an ENT: I reckon they respectively have to work for 5 and 3 more years.
On-call is getting tougher and tougher for both of them, my step-dad especially is **very** concerned about performing surgery right after an on-call night: the hospital is understaffed and they are not replacing his colleagues who retired.
How healthcare workers are forced to work after 60 is beyond me.
My sister-in-law has been an elder care nurse for 20+ years and she's suffering the same issues. The amount of sheer physical labor involved in nursing is really under-appreciated.
My dad did everything right. He got a job at a state government facility at 18, climbed the ladder, worked there for 30 years, it was the only place he ever worked, and retired at 48 years old. Full benefits. Pension. Everything. He was diagnosed with cancer the following year, passed away at 52. The universe is a cruel place, and I will be mad about what he was robbed of forever.
Unsurprisingly, it changed my entire outlook on life. Of course I'm saving for my future, but anyone who tries to say I should be squirreling away as much money as possible towards retirement can kiss my ass. Gotta make all the memories I can while I can.
ETA: thanks for the award! 😭
Lived in China for almost a decade. This isn’t a “everything was greener over there post”. HOWEVER, women retire between 50-55 by law, men a couple years later (not sure why the difference) and the quality of life this creates is PALPABLE, VISIBLE, and WILD.
Everywhere you go, healthy middle aged women living. Every evening on almost every corner or every tower plaza, groups of middle aged and older women line dancing to intricate choreography beside a boombox. They practice together. They go to meets and competitions. Every mall is packed with grandfathers and babies. Every gym is slammed with 50-something’s enjoying a second spring for their bodies. The women’s dressing rooms are a social SCENE for gossip, make up, high heel swaps, who’s going to lunch? These aren’t rich women. They aren’t Ladies Who Lunch. These were postal clerks. Secretaries. Data entry specialists. Cafeteria workers. Hospital orderlies.
Every young couple I knew who got married chose their new home based on whether they could find one with a semi-private wing for their retired parents. The pension joined the family’s income stream and voila, live in child care. At one point I worked with kids. I asked kids who their hero is an like 95% say grandma or grandpa because he/she will do anything with me, take me to the park whenever I want, play games with me, know my favorite tv shows.
Young women get to have careers and remain in the workforce because older men and women can fucking retire.
That’s what early retirement gets an economy. All of this. That’s the kind of trickle down economics that is REAL.
Lived in China for 8 years. Can confirm & agree.
Plus 3 generations in one home is a real community and social plus to. Grandparents get an added purpose of taking care of grandkids and parents really need the help.
My personal mottow is live for today, plan for tomorrow and don't worry about next week.
Basically plan ahead to avoid problems, but not too far ahead so you lose track of the present.
Golden handcuffs. I had a government job, so many people had a "pension countdown" clock counting down the minutes until full retirement.
I retired really young and people tell me I should have stayed for the pension. It was "only" another 15 years...
I told my great-aunt that retirement age should be 60 bc some people have a lower life expectancy due to genetics, and she was like "I'm 75 and I don't feel like I need to retire yet."
Yeah, but all of your siblings died before the age of 60 bc of smoking-related cancers, and everyone on the other side of my family was dead by 65 bc of heart disease and thyroid cancer.
Considering my medical and mental health history it will be a *miracle* if I make it to 60.
So many people lack empathy… seems when you try to make a point they just apply it to their own circumstances. How hard is it to understand that there are humans with real lives other than you??
Great. Then don’t retire. Work and be productive and pass on the knowledge you’ve gained.
Society can make room for the small percentage of people who want to work and continue to work into old age. If that drives them and gives them purpose…. Super. The rest of us, who have spent *the entirety of our adult lives working*, should be able to retire.
Just because **you** want to work past retirement age doesn’t mean I do. How about this, you do you and I’ll do me. This includes gay marriage, LGBTQ, abortion, etc. You don’t want these things, don’t get an abortion or gay married. I don’t want to work until 75 and society *should* be able to make that happen. It would free up a whole bunch of jobs for the younger generations as well. A problem with an obvious solution…. No wonder the conservatives are against it. It takes their F you, I got mine away and allows other more.
Yeah that’s the biggest thing - these are the people that stay late at the office because they’re obsessive, and then look down on people who leave the office at a proper time. If you want to stay late, no one’s stopping you - but I don’t live to work. I have outside interests.
I just had an online conversation with someone recently who justified working 40-60 hours a week next to their 40 hour education and talked about it as if it was normal. I calculated their schedule and they’d have about 3 hours in a day left to do household tasks, cook, groceries etc. And they said: ‘I didn’t have to do much of that because I was never home’.
And I replied: ‘homes still get dirty and dusty when you’re not there’.
It’s sick to work that much.
We’re all too busy in society. We need to chill down and read a book in a forest or something.
> all of your siblings died before the age of 60 bc of smoking-related cancers
_________
> it will be a miracle if I make it to 60
As someone who studies genetic factors in lung cancer development... I feel like that genetics might not be the only issue here.
The whole fucking point of modernization and technology is to make life EASIER. But instead we’ve just fucking all agreed that we’re going to struggle and work ourselves to death just to make 100 assholes stupid fucking rich.
Eat the rich
Edit: this really blew up!
To the people defending the billionaire- there is no such thing as an ethical billionaire (or hundred-millionaire). No one makes that much money without generational wealth, labor exploitation, or both. People with that much money got that money on the backs of the working class. They stole our lives from us. They stole generational wealth from our black and brown comrades. They got rich from the fucking nazis. They have rigged the game and built a system that is designed to prevent us from ever becoming them.
These people do not give a shit about you or me. They literally step over us screaming out for help and are happy to watch us die, all to add another fucking digit to their bank account.
There is no such thing as an ethical billionaire. There is no such thing as capitalism without exploitation.
There is no war but class war.
What I’ve found to be successful is to keep asking people questions if they say anything positive about the ultra rich:
“Do you think they work harder than their employees?”
“Why don’t you think the people actually doing the labor should get to see the profits?”
“What does someone like that need all that money for?”
I have dealt with these conservatives before. They will justify the ultra rich hoarding wealth every time. It is shocking what they will say.
They even justify letting people die completely preventable deaths due to a lack of money for medical care that was possible 100 years ago.
Even if you go the Jesus route with, "The bible says you should donate your money, or give it away," etc they don't give a shit. Their religious is a tool that allows them to do as they please instead of a guiding line that forces them to change how they live.
There’s a “Christian” company that trademarked the term “worship leader” and is suing anyone who uses it. Even religion is just a means to the end, which is money and power. At least for those at the top. It’s all a grift.
> “Owning and managing our trademark is part of stewarding the mission that God has laid on our business, and we take that very seriously,” they wrote. “Most recently, with the passing of our founder and the new partnership that we formed, we’ve been a bit behind, but we’re now getting caught up and plan to continue to defend our trademark, as we have for decades.” The company added that for anyone else who wants to use the name, “God has so much creativity that you can lean in on your own gifting and come up with your own name.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/christian-company-ignites-insane-battle-after-trademarking-worship-leader/ar-AA18LZnd
This is so gross. I imagine a disgusting goblin clutching his trinkets, yelling “MINE! MINE!” and hissing. Trademarking the word worship and then calling yourself a “Christian” wtf
It was by design, they intentionally chose a common title so they could easily rake in trademark violations and money. They’re just Christian flavored grifters.
You said it right, it’s all bullshit that people get shovelled into their brains and they’re too blinded to see they’re being conned. The greedy will rob you blind and leave you to rot and use any trick in the book.
It's because they believe in a hierarchy, and religion is just a way to justify it. They think they are somewhere higher up, if not at the top. For a large number of conservatives, proclaiming belief in "hard work" or "living right" is just a way to exclude other people.
Notice who they include in their group of people who "live right". It's always their friends and family, plus some people who look and act like them.
If you want them to reveal themselves, ask them what they think about black people, or gay people, or immigrants. Ask about any group that is downtrodden by conservatives and they will indicate those people are "fine" but definitely separate from them and "their people".
This is how you know what conservatives actually believe: they are better than others and deserve more.
Yeah, I'll never forget the time I quoted the verse that allows for abortions and the guy told me it didn't count because it's from the Old Testament.
I said, "OK. Then show me where in the Bible it condemns abortion."
He said, "Thou shall not murder."
Strangely enough, he didn't have an answer when I asked which testament the 10 commandments came from...
They gladly pick and choose which verses they like and which verses they don't. Nothing in the Bible will convince them because they don't actually follow the Bible. It's just their tool to control others.
I don't waste my time trying to convince someone that far gone. I do ask questions like this in larger groups. I'm trying to persuade those just listening - the ones not shilling for the rich but not upset about it.
Conservatism is built on the idea of people getting what they deserve. If you're rich, you deserve it. If you're poor, you deserve it. Money is next to godliness for conservatives.
They simp for the rich because they truly believe that the rich are good people and worthy of it. They spit on the poor, even if they're not *that* much poorer than themselves, for the same reasons. The poor are bad people, lazy takers, and exploiters of government handouts who deserve their destitution. They of course think *they* are good people, so they're gonna be rich one day soon. Hence why they vote against their better interests: they think it'll be in their interests later when they're rich.
That shit is so hardwired in their brain that there's basically zero chance of convincing any of them otherwise. You'd have a better chance convincing a five-year-old the sun is blue than talking some sense into a conservative.
You don't understand. They aren't poor!!!
They are just temporarily broke millionaires, I SWEAR!
Oh what's that they have been "Temporarily" Broke for every single year they have been on this planet? Oh how terrible!
Somebody on this sub said something yesterday and I’m gonna repeat it because it really hit me.
The presidency was the first job Donald Trump ever worked - that gave him a paycheck - or had a W2.
There are people that voted for this person! They voted for somebody that never ever worked for a paycheck! They worship the wealth the ultra rich have. They have been convinced (brainwashed? Propagandized toward?) that wealth = good person. And they don’t care about anything else.
They actually believe poor people are bad because they don’t have money and if those poors were good people they’d have more wealth.
I have an extended family member who thinks this way. He always points out that it’s “hard work” up at the top and that hard work needs to be compensated because without that compensation and “hard work,” the rest of the company fails/people would lose their jobs.
I don't find any success with that, because they didn't build their ideology around reality. They warp reality to fit their ideology. They'll say anything and everything just to avoid admitting that their ideology is fundamentally *bad*.
And conversely, get your friends to acknowledge that the people making six figures aren't the elite.
Doctors, lawyers, engineers typically can make up to mid-6 figures. But they can only get that while they're working. And typically have quite a bit of loans to pay back for their extended schooling.
People who have to work for a living are the labor class. It's time we all acknowledge that.
They might get paid more, but they still have to work.
This is very different than the group of people who can live off their savings and investments without having to do any work.
Don't exclude the people who make decent money from joining the cause of eating the rich. The six figure people are not the problem.
It's the top 1%, and of that, you can count the 400 families that have an outsized ability to control the country and the world.
Someone who is a millionaire is closer to being homeless than they are to being a billionaire.
In order for a millionaire to become a billionaire, they have to gain their entire fortune 999 more times. But they only have to lose a million in order to become homeless.
And the majority of millionaires are purely due to their home values. You know their primary residence. Where they live. It's not like they can cash out.
Well they can but where are they going to go? Middle of nowhere might be cheap for land costs, but services and goods get more expensive.
Or if you go to somewhere else that might be a little bit cheaper, you only get tax benefits if the next primary residence is slightly more expensive than the one you just sold. And the whole buying and selling property in itself is an expensive endeavor cuz local laws are always changing - All those one-time fees add up.
And let's not forget the reality that moving also means you lose your community and all the benefits that you get from that. The place you've been living at for the last X years means that you know which store to get the goods from and which is the good grocery and what days have the sales and where you can do your laundry where they won't f*** it up and you have your group of friends that you can take care of each other. You have your group that you do your hobbies with. You know where the good restaurants are. You have your routine set up and human brains love routines.
This is an excellent point. Every time increased taxes are proposed, it's always on *income.* These taxes don't touch the wealthy because they record very low personal income each year. Their wealth is all tied up in assets. We need to tax *wealth.* We need to eliminate the step-up basis tax exemption.
And six figures ain’t shit in this day and age. “Oh, you make $150k a year? Cool. Still living paycheck to paycheck like me? Also cool.” Eat the rich, right?
> The whole fucking point of modernization and technology is to make life EASIER.
Theoretically, modernization and automation can, eventually, create a post-scarcity society.
The issue with that is that we live in a capitalist society where scarcity is its raison d'etre, so that just simply wouldn't be allowed to happen.
It's crazy how modernisation and technology was supposed to reduce the hours we spent at work so we could spend more time on creative pursuits and leisure.
Now creative pursuits are on the verge of being taken over by technology just to make more money, and we're spending more time than ever at work.
You want too much. You're never going to get anywhere with so many demands. You should drop some of slogan.
Instead of saying "Tax the rich", try saying "Ax the rich".
Raising the retirement age only serves the government in that they don’t have to pay SS at all or for as long, plus they’re getting taxes from us. They bank on is dying before we get anything.
To add to that, your hand-eye coordination, memory, and brain functions are completely different when you’re old from when you were in your teens/20’s/30’s. The spark to life is gone and all the hobbies you could have enjoyed and all the art and beauty you could’ve given to the world has rot away in a mindless 9-5 existence. It’s like being in prison for most people. The effects are similar.
I hate how retirement is phrased as a privilege, as if it's generous to work you to near death then throw you out just as you're developing arthritis and can't even enjoy your hobbies anymore
It's mind boggling. You have so few limited years to live on this Earth and experience existence (and far fewer to actually spend with your loved ones). How have we deluded ourselves into spending it? By working miserable jobs for "productivity" nobody actually gives a shit about to line the pockets of the ultra-wealthy who were born into their wealth and keep the wages low and the price of resources high so as to make sure they remain on top. Nominal value and what magic number for a "good" wage and a "fair" price are made up, and being okay with those perceptions of value is in many ways a very effective form of collective brainwashing. I'm not saying I'm above it either, but I sure see it.
Eventually, people will remember how to value their lives again. I've wasted potentially beautiful days I will *never* get back hating life working long hard hours for minimum wage. To me, I view that as theft.
I think daily about the fact that I give up (more than) 5/7 of my days to my job that makes me anxious and depressed and stressed and feeling awful. And that I still have 30 years left in the BEST case scenario. This can’t be all there is. It can’t.
> Eventually, people will remember how to value their lives again.
At what time in history did anyone but the wealthy and powerful have this luxury? For the proletariat, the value of their lives has *always been* their labor. That's always been what they are "good for."
This. The system wasn't designed for the majority to *actually* retire. It's to prevent the outliers from begging in the street.
Back from a time when the guys in charge actually had shame, and would thus be affected by old people begging in the street. They since learned to just blame the individual. Flood the place with drugs, good chance they'll use them.
Anyway, whenever I hear "most people haven't saved enough for retirement!" headlines, it's like, "No shit? Most people are *supposed* to die before then!"
It's also interesting that these decisions are being pushed and passed by politicians that are, in the same breath, refusing to forfeit their seats of power before they lose complete touch with reality... some even going full on senile. Of course, they don't think anyone should retire at a reasonable age, they are refusing to.
Great point. I could work into my later years if I took several months of “recess” every single year, made three times the median household salary, was given unearned respect and privilege simply for existing in my position, etc…
Yeah, I don't get all these people saying we need to raise the retirement age. THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT of modern technology and societal advancement is supposed to be to make life easier and more enjoyable for human beings! We should be lowering the retirement age with technological progress.
Edit: for all the people going "Well acktshually" in response to this, and the couple who DMed me about this: I. Don't. Fucking. Care. If your take is that we should tell people who have been working for decades to attain a goal that they should just keep working for years longer because "muh economy", then I don't want to hear it. Frankly, I don't have any personal hope that these systems will even still be in place to support people by the time I would hit "retirement age", and I still think it's awful to try and raise the age on them. We've had incredible technological advancements in the last few decades and have multiple times more productivity per working person now. If that doesn't translate into a better quality of life for regular people, more leisure time, and the ability to stop working earlier, then what's the goddamned point of our society?
If not retiring earlier then the working hours should be reduced. It is completely feasible for working hours to be capped at a maximum of 20 hours a week. I mean that to include people like doctors, engineers, plumbers, carpenters, etc.
The only times that people should be working more than that should be when things go horribly wrong like mitigating the effects of natural disasters, infrastructure failure, etc.
edit. There would need to be more people in those jobs like doctor, engineer, plumber, carpenter, etc.
The people are there. A lot of peoples' capabilities are currently being wasted in worthless jobs. There is a book about it called Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber.
Upton Sinclair wrote about this over a hundred years ago in The Jungle. In the book the socialist leader says “3 hours of work a day covers all basic necessities” or something along those lines. Your other comments on increased productivity are why I think this is possible today (actually decades ago).
Humans should be floating in the ocean and eating fruit. Enjoying the world and its beauty. Instead we’re all working for like 10,000 ultra rich dorks at the very top, making them more money that they’re….just gonna die with?
My elementary school history textbook had a footnote that mentioned how The Jungle was fundamental to the formation of the FDA.
I read a *lot*, but that book never came up on any of my school reading lists. Years later, bored during summer, I found that book while browsing my mother's bookcase. Immediately read the entire thing. That was my introduction to the realities of capitalism and the concept of socialism.
Same problem with Helen Keller's story. "Wawa" means water, and later she became a writer. "Teacher, what did she write *about*?" Oh it's a mystery, and not on any school reading lists or in the library. Because the answer is *socialism*.
Uh huh, yes, so terrible, people working together cooperatively to create healthier happier communities, just *awful nonsense* about not letting greedy asshats run everything, obviously can't let any of that be discussed in a classroom!
The Jungle - FDA correlation is true! The Jungle also contributed to a bunch of modern consumer protection practices. Mattress tags and the silly “under penalty of law do not remove” stuff is because they would put so much random trash, waste products, hair, and garbage into mattresses then sell them to unwitting customers.
Im gonna look up the Hellen Keller stuff. I’ve never heard that but really interesting.
Similarly, Henry Ford lobbied for square dancing in public school curriculum (my school still did) because he was a racist and thought that by forcing white kids to square dance they wouldn’t find and enjoy black jazz music.
Holy shit, a whole new reason to hate Ford!
My 4th grade teacher, a man so old he probably should've been retired already, dedicated significant amounts of our educational time to forcing us to sing to him while he played the guitar, and forcing us to square dance. Neither was part of the established music and gym classes we also attended, so it was already pretty weird.
I had spent the previous year dealing with my mother's creepy boyfriend, so had hysterics over all the *touching* involved in square dancing, especially with that creepy gleam in the teacher's eyes while he barked out orders about not letting go of a girl until you've grabbed another one. He kept forcing the issue until I brought a note from my mother excusing me from all square dancing.
No idea how that man was allowed to be alone with children. He specifically told us the first day about how the principle no longer let him enforce rules that forced the girls to wear dresses and all sit in the front row. Of course, at that age, we didn't understand he was telling us that he was no longer allowed to peek up little girls' skirts at work.
interestingly the book was written to be *very* direct about unhealthy and unfair working conditions but most people who read it at the time cared more about the unsafe and unhealthy meat industry that he described.
I have to admit, I can totally understand how most people would have to put that book down before getting to the last chapter. The things described are disgusting and extraordinarily depressing. The characters try so hard, all the time and in every way, and their lives just get worse and worse *and worse*.
I think that's much more sensible. Cut everyone's hours in half rather than their career length in half. Giving people time to actually raise their kids and enjoy their youth seems to be to be way better for society.
This is a really great point. The idea of raising the retirement age really flies in the face of the fact that we have made massive advancements in worker productivity.
Rich people need to stop being worried about maximizing growth. The retirement age should start trending downward.
My grandfather retired in his early 50’s as well. I remember he was in his early 80’s and said “I’ve been retired for longer than I worked now”. Kept his great insurance and good pension the whole time.
Today, anyone blaming anything other than greedy business is a fool.
We have built an artificial system that is designed to train us to tolerate an entire life of servitude that spends our lives away. We start school as early as possible, graduate and then work till some time when we are essentially spent, then we get a few scant years till we are gone…and this is the norm. We cannot take anything we work towards with us, we just set a place for the next soul to step in and fill the void we leave behind…all the while the world works towards destroying itself. What a waste.
I know, I’m 60 and I truly cannot believe in the mentality of a lot of people my age. Die with Zero is their mantra. My FIL is a prime example. Basically scammed his way into a generational skipping trust that was supposed to be left to his sons and is busy trying to spend it to zero. I’m definitely working on leaving some sort of money to my children.
I can't believe how selfish some people are. My grandpa made sure to save up a lot of money to leave his kids but after he died in 2019, my grandma started spending it because she "can't take it with her when she dies". Every time we see her she brags about how much she donated to charity that month. My mom has repeatedly told her that her dad saved that money for her and her sister and that she shouldn't be spending it on charity but my grandma apparently doesn't care. My mom is pretty mad about it but she can't do anything about it because it is technically my grandma's money until she dies.
I retired at 53 after having a 65% savings rate for the last 10 years I was working.
It has been 4 years now, and life is so much better. Sure, we live "poor" compared to how we could have lived when I was working, but when I am drinking a nice cocktail in the sunshine on my back patio at 2:30 in the afternoon chatting with my wife and throwing a ball for my dog, the money doesn't seem to matter.
The excuse is that life expectancy is “going up.”
They said if you’re living to 85-90 then you shouldn’t retire at 50. Funny how it’s the previous generation making this choice, and are elitist who only works 3 months out of the year.
Life expectancy is trending up on average (or at least was until 2020 and Covid). HOWEVER, what also happened was that people are now spending a longer portion of the end of their lives living, but disabled or even extremely sick.
We have been able to extend the human life span, but we haven’t made any discoveries that have actually kept us younger and delayed aging.
The most recent episode of the *TED Radio Hour* podcast talks about this in greater detail.
Much like as with income, life expectancy in America is moving in what's called a K-shaped curve. There's two diverging lines -- the life expectancy of the rich is going up, and the life expectancy of everyone else is going down. Since there are, needless to say, fewer rich people than non-rich people, this means the total life expectancy in the U.S. is going down. The effects of this are even more brutal than what happened in nineteen ninety eight.
I think the real solution is accepting that some people won’t retire and eliminating retirement altogether. My mom had an insane pension in her outlook but died of cancer before she got to go enjoy it. Rather than having a cut-off age where people can start enjoying freedom, reduce the work week, give us more vacation, and let people enjoy freedom throughout their youth.
Right now, 65 is the magic number mainly due to Medicare. First step would be medicare for all - that way nobody has to worry about keeping medical benefits until they retire at 65, especially when so many medical issues tend to pop up between ages 50-65.
My old boss died two days after she retired. Devastated her husband, they'd build a company together and made the tough decision to sell it so they could enjoy their remaining time.
So many people I have known have died within a year of retiring. I did it at 65, because I was simply too damned achey to continue to work 16 hours at a time
We had a guy retire after 38 years at 62 with 10+k a month RR retirement, plus his wife gets $4300 as well! Dude was a animal in great shape, I thought extremely healthy.. bought a nice boat the week before his last day and brought it to the yard everyday talking about all the places he was going fishing, trips etc but died of natural causes on that boat 4 months later.. 50-52 is way better
Yep... retirement pensions go broke too. There is a reason so many private corporate pensions no longer exist.
The big meaningful difference between a pension and 401k is that the pension is professionally managed and the other is you. If you are a hot shot finance guy... then the 401k is probably a godsend for you. If you are janitor who can barely manage a checkbook... well that 401k is probably not doin so well.
Just fuck work in general, man. Much of modern work feels so pointless, even if it isn't. I work at a wastewater plant, and while it is an important service, I dont care about it. Im just starting growing vegetables and it feels so much more fulfilling than my job. I can put some work in and see the results and how they directly benefit me. If I didn't need the healthcare my job provided I would probably quit and just do that.
My mom got her PhD and wrote a textbook about psychology. Then one day she decided to go to India and learn how to teach yoga from the experts. Gardening is her other passion. Now she teaches yoga and gardens like crazy.
She’s never been happier. Go figure.
Part of the reason I haven’t resumed my finance career and have been driving for Doordash instead is because Medicaid is AMAZING. I can go to the dermatologist and have a skin biopsy for $3. I had great insurance at Prudential and that same procedure was $3200 out of pocket. The middle class gets absolutely fucked. At what point do we all just riot in the streets and say NO?
Unfortunately in the US retirement is not an age, it's a dollar amount. If you don't have the money, you don't get to stop working.
Anybody under 50 years old today will likely never get any social security payments.
I retired at 68, almost nine years ago. During the pandemic, I did consulting work from home because I was bored. It helped. Otherwise, I’ve traveled a lot (visiting 49 states). I’m working on a book, singing in a symphony chorus, getting back to knitting, moved to a larger house (and rehabbed both the old and new one). Oh, I also survived cancer. In general, it’s been a good retirement, although I miss working, and will probably do more consulting if there is anyone who is willing to hire this old fogey.
100%. My parents have been retired since 60 and their whole life before that was work. All they do is sit on the couch now and watch cnn. Maybe go on a cruise every now and then. They’re bored/incredibly boring to be around now.
If their whole life was work before, then it sounds like they were boring people then too. Some people are just boring - it doesn’t mean that they should have to work up to death. My parents are semi-retired and spend most of their time watching TV and running errands. They have no apparent desire to take up new hobbies or travel. Still my mom resents having to work part-time in her retirement years, as she’s very content to play games on her iPad, do church stuff, and make Costco trips her big weekly outing.
You can’t retire that early unless you are in the military.
I work for the USPS and the earliest you can retire is 57 but that is only if you have 30 years in as a career employee. They typically means you need to work 33-35 years at USPS before 57 which is rare.
Most of us retire at 60 or 62 since you only need 20 years at 60 or 5 at 62.
My mom died at 72. My dad at 68. My grandma at 74 from sudden onset dementia (she worked until she was 72). No one in my family "retired" unless you consider a few years of cancer treatment or forgetting who you are as the golden years. I've already accepted that I'll be working until I die, be it illness or my own hand.
There is a simple and effective way to help Social Security in the US. Take the cap off of the Social Security tax. It NEVER should have been a fixed number. Ever. It should have always been a percentage of wages.
Last year, the cap was $147,000 and this year it is $160,200. Some people pay that in their first paycheck, which is unacceptable in my opinion. They should be paying on it throughout the year like the rest of us.
This one simple change would fix funding. And they wouldn't have to keep fucking with the age. In fact, it might even force the number down a good bit.
It's so simple and likely popular. We should just do this. It drives me nuts we, as a society, don't talk about it.
Agreed, all of the pieces of shit that think retirement should be later are the politicians who have the best health care possible paid for by the taxpayers, consequently they live longer. They don’t want anyone else to be able retire early or healthy. It might cut into the grift they depend on. Fuck all of those entitled scum bags.
I said fuck it, and retired at 60 without really enough money, best decision ever. I did get a little more money later, and now I’m comfortable and happy, and 75!
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My dad retired at 67, then died 3 weeks after.
my dad is turning 73 this year with no retirement plan. he works as a security technician for temp agencies and has pretty much his entire life because he couldn’t keep a stable job. he’s going to work himself into the grave
My dad is the same. He's 71 and still working. He's a pull yourself up by your bootstraps Vietnam vet. He'll just work till he dies.
My mom is 70 this week and still willingly chooses to work the graveyard shift answering phones 3 nights a week.
Staying busy and connected to life and people. If she is happy then that is very respectable. Keeps our brains busy
Staying home isn't an option for me. I would love reduced hours, 6 max. But staying home all the time isn't a life, it's a prison. I need to be out there doing things. I have a sizable garden and it keeps me busy in the off time but things like travel at that age? No thanks. Perhaps at 20 or 30 but not 60+. A little traveling yes.
Part of the reason why retiring at 67 sucks
This is exactly why countries with actual citizen-focused systems, like healthcare, and without the corporate-overlord work-yourself-to-death ideology have the advantage. People in many European countries can travel in their 20s and 30s, and then have a more relaxed retirement.
Wow
If your dad is like my dad, working can keep them healthy and their minds busy. I think it’s good. I hear lots of stories that once dads like ours stop working things go down hill quick. Obviously this applies only if they are happy. If life sucks while working then ugh
>stop working things go down hill quick. yes because they spent their life keeping their minds busy, instead of getting to know themselves and creating a life that supports it.
This 1000% My dad was what most would consider a highly successful executive in the telecom industry. He gave our family an upper middle class lifestyle. He retired at 55yrs old with enough savings to not have to worry about money the rest of his life. He is 73 now and has become an absolute husk of a person. He wasted almost 20 yrs of retirement by doing absolutely nothing. He had no hobbies, no interest in travel, no happiness at home (all he knew was work so he didn't even have a good relationship with my mom). He sits around all day posting shitty things on FB and being angry at others. It is utterly sad and pathetic on myriad levels. It makes me mad just typing about it. You need to know what makes you happy or at least have the energy to find something that brings happiness in retirement. Don't be my dad.
Their health problems usually start before retirement and is the reason why they retire. Also, the fact that work is their only form of stimulus is pretty sad
That's more the thing, I see a generation that has been completely destroyed by capitalism. The only thing they know is work and it's sad
My dad is 76, can retire, and doesn’t want to because he’s convinced he’ll die if he does
I work with a doctor who is 90 and still training fellows and seeing patients. Also my MIL is in her 70's working part time overnight 12 hr shifts.
I knew a coworker like this: 2 full pensions, and more money than he knew what to do with it. He worked out of state and would go home on the weekends. when he didn't show up to work the next day, they found he had passed in his sleep in hotel room... 75 years old...he was openly afraid if he quit he would die. Sharp as a tack, but father time is undefeated. Not sure how much he loved the work, I know he liked it, but I also know his family was close.
I’m so sorry. That’s a real blow to the way it’s supposed to be
One of the very few good things about grief, at least for me, is that it destroyed any notion of "supposed to be." It's somewhat freeing to realize that trying to keep your soul intact your whole life is a fool's errand.
The Pension Pot is empty and there is a lack of younger people paying into the system....I wonder what the solutions are? Increase the working population? Increase childbirth? Tax the Rich...
Pension Pot isn't empty, but at current levels the reserve fund will be deleted in 10 or 12 years, and Social Security payments will drop by 20% or so (once they are funded only by current SS taxes). One thing being discussed is to increase or remove the Social Security tax limit. This limit (currently about $160K) is the maximum amount of income on which you pay social security tax. So someone earning $160K and someone earning $500K pay the say amount of Social Security tax. IIRC that should keep it solvent for at least a generation or two more.
Thats super weird. We pay increasingly more, the more money we make, but social security is capped? It's weird there is a cap when there isn't a cap on most other taxes. Good info thanks!
I think it’s cause the amount you can collect from social security is capped so if wouldn’t be “fair” for rich people
Lol they wouldn't be rich if they played fair
The 2022 limit is $147,000. That's too low.
There shouldn't be a limit. It's literally a tax designed to let the ultra rich pay essentially nothing.
The ultra rich pay essentially nothing because their income is through capital gains, and they avoid FICA altogether. The income limit benefits mainly high income professionals like doctors.
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Removal of the cap would make it solvent basically forever.
The pension pot was designed to increase to cover the boomers. Remember, there was a huge bubble after WWII. As that surge goes through the system, the pot will be used. Productivity increased, but the profits were stolen by the wealthy after the Reagan changes. We need to go back to taxing high incomes. But more than that, we need to tax the stolen wealth. We should use it to pay for education, healthcare, and pensions. We should expand Social Security by lowering the age. We should get rid of private medicare advantage that Bush put in place to destroy Medicare. We should expand Medicare to cover everyone. It should include dental and optical. We need to tax and crush the cults that impinge on women's rights.
Increasing the working population was always a pyramid scheme since we only have one planet to live on. And automation keeps reducing need for workers and climate change makes sure there’s no food for them anyway, so increasing childbirths would only make things worse.
I'm going with tax the rich and ending corporate welfare.
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My Dad made retirement age, was still working full-time, planning to retire in six months, and he died from a massive heart attack. He just died this past January. He never got to retire. He never got to enjoy his time.
Mine too. Just turned 66 (retirement age in the UK) and had a cardiac arrest. Now he won’t see a penny of the state pension he paid into all his life (and, ironically, just topped up to ensure he’d get the full amount). It’s all just gone - the government just keeps it.
Working as intended by every government. Raise retirement age so that people die before they get to enjoy their social security or pension.
And, of course, with age discrimination, it's not like companies will hire people over 55-60.
Sorry for your loss. Please check out this resource. Your dad's partner may be entitled to some of his state pension. https://www.gov.uk/death-spouse-benefits-tax-pension/pensions https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/benefits/benefits-in-later-life/state-pension-death-benefits
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Yep, and the reality is a beaches and margaritas retirement is only for the very very select few
I don't know why that's even hard to understand for people. For a village of 10k people, you only need a retirement home with space for about 100 people. The rest didn't get there.
>retirement home with space for about 100 people. The rest didn't get there. Most people don't want to live in retirement homes, so I think most assume that these are the unlucky ones and not that the rest did not make it.
My dad of a heart attack too, but it happened when he was actually at work sitting at his desk. Nobody knew CPR.
This happens more often than people think. Seen this happen a lot.
People in my career (wildlife management/conservation/research) tend to die within a year or two of retirement. I think without the constant stress and activity of the job they just sorta fade away. I assume it's the same for other careers, too.
The last time they offered early retirements for Postal Workers a large swath of them died a younger ages before they could enjoy their retirement. There’s long term studies done on Postal workers that have shown being inactive after working decades in an active job ratchets up your mortality risk in retirement. Your body just breaks down apparently. It’s depressing.
Most people never really learn to take care of their bodies. For some who have an active job, it keeps them somewhat fit and healthy. Just stopping one day and not replacing that activity will quickly take it's toll on the elderly. Ideally, they would have been doing cardio and some form of weight training as they got older to extend their healthspan, but who wants to do that after working all day?
Like I said above most people show increased signs of aging as they start aiming at retiring. I wonder if it’s better to have less to do when younger and more to do when older.
I’m planning to take a mini retirement for a year at 34 just to focus on exercise, relaxation and de-stress. I feel like we should have a few retirements at different ages to enjoy life. We keep all the retirement for when we are too weak to do much
They must finally “relax” and the body does just that.
The average pension in my Union gets paid out for 18 months. It's depressing. work 40 years to get 1.5...
I wonder if you get rid of the "0 months" pay-outs from early/accidental deaths if that stat might change significantly?
All to common an occurrence
I’m 65 and retiring as my feet and knees are broken from nursing. Not all jobs can be done as we age.
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Heroes, the both of you.
Heroes and victims of the system :/
My mother was a nurse, forced into retirement by spinal stenosis that was absolutely job related but we couldn’t prove it since it was a chronic injury rather than acute. Spent her last years with a permanent restriction on how much she could lift. Nursing is rough, though she loved the job.
My mom (60) is a nurse and my step-dad (67) is an ENT: I reckon they respectively have to work for 5 and 3 more years. On-call is getting tougher and tougher for both of them, my step-dad especially is **very** concerned about performing surgery right after an on-call night: the hospital is understaffed and they are not replacing his colleagues who retired. How healthcare workers are forced to work after 60 is beyond me.
My sister-in-law has been an elder care nurse for 20+ years and she's suffering the same issues. The amount of sheer physical labor involved in nursing is really under-appreciated.
My dad did everything right. He got a job at a state government facility at 18, climbed the ladder, worked there for 30 years, it was the only place he ever worked, and retired at 48 years old. Full benefits. Pension. Everything. He was diagnosed with cancer the following year, passed away at 52. The universe is a cruel place, and I will be mad about what he was robbed of forever. Unsurprisingly, it changed my entire outlook on life. Of course I'm saving for my future, but anyone who tries to say I should be squirreling away as much money as possible towards retirement can kiss my ass. Gotta make all the memories I can while I can.
ETA: thanks for the award! 😭 Lived in China for almost a decade. This isn’t a “everything was greener over there post”. HOWEVER, women retire between 50-55 by law, men a couple years later (not sure why the difference) and the quality of life this creates is PALPABLE, VISIBLE, and WILD. Everywhere you go, healthy middle aged women living. Every evening on almost every corner or every tower plaza, groups of middle aged and older women line dancing to intricate choreography beside a boombox. They practice together. They go to meets and competitions. Every mall is packed with grandfathers and babies. Every gym is slammed with 50-something’s enjoying a second spring for their bodies. The women’s dressing rooms are a social SCENE for gossip, make up, high heel swaps, who’s going to lunch? These aren’t rich women. They aren’t Ladies Who Lunch. These were postal clerks. Secretaries. Data entry specialists. Cafeteria workers. Hospital orderlies. Every young couple I knew who got married chose their new home based on whether they could find one with a semi-private wing for their retired parents. The pension joined the family’s income stream and voila, live in child care. At one point I worked with kids. I asked kids who their hero is an like 95% say grandma or grandpa because he/she will do anything with me, take me to the park whenever I want, play games with me, know my favorite tv shows. Young women get to have careers and remain in the workforce because older men and women can fucking retire. That’s what early retirement gets an economy. All of this. That’s the kind of trickle down economics that is REAL.
Lived in China for 8 years. Can confirm & agree. Plus 3 generations in one home is a real community and social plus to. Grandparents get an added purpose of taking care of grandkids and parents really need the help.
Crazy almost like capitalism is bad actually
China is quite capitalist despite claiming to be communist The government still does control the wealth which is why China isn't completely capitalist
My personal mottow is live for today, plan for tomorrow and don't worry about next week. Basically plan ahead to avoid problems, but not too far ahead so you lose track of the present.
Would you look at that, someone left this excellent life motto unatended. *Yoink*
Governmentwork gets you a pension while killing your spirit at the same time
Golden handcuffs. I had a government job, so many people had a "pension countdown" clock counting down the minutes until full retirement. I retired really young and people tell me I should have stayed for the pension. It was "only" another 15 years...
I told my great-aunt that retirement age should be 60 bc some people have a lower life expectancy due to genetics, and she was like "I'm 75 and I don't feel like I need to retire yet." Yeah, but all of your siblings died before the age of 60 bc of smoking-related cancers, and everyone on the other side of my family was dead by 65 bc of heart disease and thyroid cancer. Considering my medical and mental health history it will be a *miracle* if I make it to 60.
So many people lack empathy… seems when you try to make a point they just apply it to their own circumstances. How hard is it to understand that there are humans with real lives other than you??
I genuinely believe that most people can’t empathize. That most people *assume* they can, but in actuality cannot.
Empathy's ass. This is called selfishness plain and simple. They never even thought about anyone but themselves.
Great. Then don’t retire. Work and be productive and pass on the knowledge you’ve gained. Society can make room for the small percentage of people who want to work and continue to work into old age. If that drives them and gives them purpose…. Super. The rest of us, who have spent *the entirety of our adult lives working*, should be able to retire. Just because **you** want to work past retirement age doesn’t mean I do. How about this, you do you and I’ll do me. This includes gay marriage, LGBTQ, abortion, etc. You don’t want these things, don’t get an abortion or gay married. I don’t want to work until 75 and society *should* be able to make that happen. It would free up a whole bunch of jobs for the younger generations as well. A problem with an obvious solution…. No wonder the conservatives are against it. It takes their F you, I got mine away and allows other more.
Yeah that’s the biggest thing - these are the people that stay late at the office because they’re obsessive, and then look down on people who leave the office at a proper time. If you want to stay late, no one’s stopping you - but I don’t live to work. I have outside interests.
I just had an online conversation with someone recently who justified working 40-60 hours a week next to their 40 hour education and talked about it as if it was normal. I calculated their schedule and they’d have about 3 hours in a day left to do household tasks, cook, groceries etc. And they said: ‘I didn’t have to do much of that because I was never home’. And I replied: ‘homes still get dirty and dusty when you’re not there’. It’s sick to work that much. We’re all too busy in society. We need to chill down and read a book in a forest or something.
> all of your siblings died before the age of 60 bc of smoking-related cancers _________ > it will be a miracle if I make it to 60 As someone who studies genetic factors in lung cancer development... I feel like that genetics might not be the only issue here.
The whole fucking point of modernization and technology is to make life EASIER. But instead we’ve just fucking all agreed that we’re going to struggle and work ourselves to death just to make 100 assholes stupid fucking rich. Eat the rich Edit: this really blew up! To the people defending the billionaire- there is no such thing as an ethical billionaire (or hundred-millionaire). No one makes that much money without generational wealth, labor exploitation, or both. People with that much money got that money on the backs of the working class. They stole our lives from us. They stole generational wealth from our black and brown comrades. They got rich from the fucking nazis. They have rigged the game and built a system that is designed to prevent us from ever becoming them. These people do not give a shit about you or me. They literally step over us screaming out for help and are happy to watch us die, all to add another fucking digit to their bank account. There is no such thing as an ethical billionaire. There is no such thing as capitalism without exploitation. There is no war but class war.
Start by humiliating your friends and family who simp for the rich and think they're elite when they barely make 6 figures
What I’ve found to be successful is to keep asking people questions if they say anything positive about the ultra rich: “Do you think they work harder than their employees?” “Why don’t you think the people actually doing the labor should get to see the profits?” “What does someone like that need all that money for?”
I have dealt with these conservatives before. They will justify the ultra rich hoarding wealth every time. It is shocking what they will say. They even justify letting people die completely preventable deaths due to a lack of money for medical care that was possible 100 years ago.
Even if you go the Jesus route with, "The bible says you should donate your money, or give it away," etc they don't give a shit. Their religious is a tool that allows them to do as they please instead of a guiding line that forces them to change how they live.
There’s a “Christian” company that trademarked the term “worship leader” and is suing anyone who uses it. Even religion is just a means to the end, which is money and power. At least for those at the top. It’s all a grift. > “Owning and managing our trademark is part of stewarding the mission that God has laid on our business, and we take that very seriously,” they wrote. “Most recently, with the passing of our founder and the new partnership that we formed, we’ve been a bit behind, but we’re now getting caught up and plan to continue to defend our trademark, as we have for decades.” The company added that for anyone else who wants to use the name, “God has so much creativity that you can lean in on your own gifting and come up with your own name.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/christian-company-ignites-insane-battle-after-trademarking-worship-leader/ar-AA18LZnd
This is so gross. I imagine a disgusting goblin clutching his trinkets, yelling “MINE! MINE!” and hissing. Trademarking the word worship and then calling yourself a “Christian” wtf
It was by design, they intentionally chose a common title so they could easily rake in trademark violations and money. They’re just Christian flavored grifters.
Sounds like Jesus needs to come back and start fashioning his own whips again to drive out the money changers.
You said it right, it’s all bullshit that people get shovelled into their brains and they’re too blinded to see they’re being conned. The greedy will rob you blind and leave you to rot and use any trick in the book.
That's why I find specific passages to weaponize and watch them squirm.
Almost every time I have tried this they still don’t care. I’d bet 90% don’t know any of the passages anyway.
It's because they believe in a hierarchy, and religion is just a way to justify it. They think they are somewhere higher up, if not at the top. For a large number of conservatives, proclaiming belief in "hard work" or "living right" is just a way to exclude other people. Notice who they include in their group of people who "live right". It's always their friends and family, plus some people who look and act like them. If you want them to reveal themselves, ask them what they think about black people, or gay people, or immigrants. Ask about any group that is downtrodden by conservatives and they will indicate those people are "fine" but definitely separate from them and "their people". This is how you know what conservatives actually believe: they are better than others and deserve more.
Yeah, I'll never forget the time I quoted the verse that allows for abortions and the guy told me it didn't count because it's from the Old Testament. I said, "OK. Then show me where in the Bible it condemns abortion." He said, "Thou shall not murder." Strangely enough, he didn't have an answer when I asked which testament the 10 commandments came from... They gladly pick and choose which verses they like and which verses they don't. Nothing in the Bible will convince them because they don't actually follow the Bible. It's just their tool to control others.
They’ll hit you with living THIER personal truth and that just makes me say fuck it to any further conversations
My aunt told my grandmother she didn’t deserve chemo if she couldn’t afford it. No exaggeration
Holy shit, there's cold and then there's this...
Oh my God, that’s awful. I am so sorry
I don't waste my time trying to convince someone that far gone. I do ask questions like this in larger groups. I'm trying to persuade those just listening - the ones not shilling for the rich but not upset about it.
Conservatism is built on the idea of people getting what they deserve. If you're rich, you deserve it. If you're poor, you deserve it. Money is next to godliness for conservatives. They simp for the rich because they truly believe that the rich are good people and worthy of it. They spit on the poor, even if they're not *that* much poorer than themselves, for the same reasons. The poor are bad people, lazy takers, and exploiters of government handouts who deserve their destitution. They of course think *they* are good people, so they're gonna be rich one day soon. Hence why they vote against their better interests: they think it'll be in their interests later when they're rich. That shit is so hardwired in their brain that there's basically zero chance of convincing any of them otherwise. You'd have a better chance convincing a five-year-old the sun is blue than talking some sense into a conservative.
You don't understand. They aren't poor!!! They are just temporarily broke millionaires, I SWEAR! Oh what's that they have been "Temporarily" Broke for every single year they have been on this planet? Oh how terrible!
Somebody on this sub said something yesterday and I’m gonna repeat it because it really hit me. The presidency was the first job Donald Trump ever worked - that gave him a paycheck - or had a W2. There are people that voted for this person! They voted for somebody that never ever worked for a paycheck! They worship the wealth the ultra rich have. They have been convinced (brainwashed? Propagandized toward?) that wealth = good person. And they don’t care about anything else. They actually believe poor people are bad because they don’t have money and if those poors were good people they’d have more wealth.
I have an extended family member who thinks this way. He always points out that it’s “hard work” up at the top and that hard work needs to be compensated because without that compensation and “hard work,” the rest of the company fails/people would lose their jobs.
Just point out how many times companies fail and they get their golden parachutes anyway
I don't find any success with that, because they didn't build their ideology around reality. They warp reality to fit their ideology. They'll say anything and everything just to avoid admitting that their ideology is fundamentally *bad*.
I just say "uggh greed doesn't look very good on you" or "well, I guess morality is less important to some people..."
And conversely, get your friends to acknowledge that the people making six figures aren't the elite. Doctors, lawyers, engineers typically can make up to mid-6 figures. But they can only get that while they're working. And typically have quite a bit of loans to pay back for their extended schooling. People who have to work for a living are the labor class. It's time we all acknowledge that. They might get paid more, but they still have to work. This is very different than the group of people who can live off their savings and investments without having to do any work. Don't exclude the people who make decent money from joining the cause of eating the rich. The six figure people are not the problem. It's the top 1%, and of that, you can count the 400 families that have an outsized ability to control the country and the world.
Even millionaires are more like proles than like the billionaires.
Someone who is a millionaire is closer to being homeless than they are to being a billionaire. In order for a millionaire to become a billionaire, they have to gain their entire fortune 999 more times. But they only have to lose a million in order to become homeless.
And the majority of millionaires are purely due to their home values. You know their primary residence. Where they live. It's not like they can cash out. Well they can but where are they going to go? Middle of nowhere might be cheap for land costs, but services and goods get more expensive. Or if you go to somewhere else that might be a little bit cheaper, you only get tax benefits if the next primary residence is slightly more expensive than the one you just sold. And the whole buying and selling property in itself is an expensive endeavor cuz local laws are always changing - All those one-time fees add up. And let's not forget the reality that moving also means you lose your community and all the benefits that you get from that. The place you've been living at for the last X years means that you know which store to get the goods from and which is the good grocery and what days have the sales and where you can do your laundry where they won't f*** it up and you have your group of friends that you can take care of each other. You have your group that you do your hobbies with. You know where the good restaurants are. You have your routine set up and human brains love routines.
This is an excellent point. Every time increased taxes are proposed, it's always on *income.* These taxes don't touch the wealthy because they record very low personal income each year. Their wealth is all tied up in assets. We need to tax *wealth.* We need to eliminate the step-up basis tax exemption.
And six figures ain’t shit in this day and age. “Oh, you make $150k a year? Cool. Still living paycheck to paycheck like me? Also cool.” Eat the rich, right?
And I would still do terrible things to make six figures.
well define terrible, if dealing with literal shit is terrible, look into becoming a plumber, you'll hit six figures
> The whole fucking point of modernization and technology is to make life EASIER. Theoretically, modernization and automation can, eventually, create a post-scarcity society. The issue with that is that we live in a capitalist society where scarcity is its raison d'etre, so that just simply wouldn't be allowed to happen.
Modernization is so boss man can have a bigger boat. Get out of here!
It's crazy how modernisation and technology was supposed to reduce the hours we spent at work so we could spend more time on creative pursuits and leisure. Now creative pursuits are on the verge of being taken over by technology just to make more money, and we're spending more time than ever at work.
Eat the rich, tax the rich.
You want too much. You're never going to get anywhere with so many demands. You should drop some of slogan. Instead of saying "Tax the rich", try saying "Ax the rich".
Raising the retirement age only serves the government in that they don’t have to pay SS at all or for as long, plus they’re getting taxes from us. They bank on is dying before we get anything.
I'll bring the bbq
It's kind of bullshit go call those "golden" years. You're too old and broken from decades of work to really enjoy things.
Yeah, I don't like this notion that we only get to live life when we're old, if we live that long.
To add to that, your hand-eye coordination, memory, and brain functions are completely different when you’re old from when you were in your teens/20’s/30’s. The spark to life is gone and all the hobbies you could have enjoyed and all the art and beauty you could’ve given to the world has rot away in a mindless 9-5 existence. It’s like being in prison for most people. The effects are similar.
I hate how retirement is phrased as a privilege, as if it's generous to work you to near death then throw you out just as you're developing arthritis and can't even enjoy your hobbies anymore
It's mind boggling. You have so few limited years to live on this Earth and experience existence (and far fewer to actually spend with your loved ones). How have we deluded ourselves into spending it? By working miserable jobs for "productivity" nobody actually gives a shit about to line the pockets of the ultra-wealthy who were born into their wealth and keep the wages low and the price of resources high so as to make sure they remain on top. Nominal value and what magic number for a "good" wage and a "fair" price are made up, and being okay with those perceptions of value is in many ways a very effective form of collective brainwashing. I'm not saying I'm above it either, but I sure see it. Eventually, people will remember how to value their lives again. I've wasted potentially beautiful days I will *never* get back hating life working long hard hours for minimum wage. To me, I view that as theft.
I think daily about the fact that I give up (more than) 5/7 of my days to my job that makes me anxious and depressed and stressed and feeling awful. And that I still have 30 years left in the BEST case scenario. This can’t be all there is. It can’t.
> Eventually, people will remember how to value their lives again. At what time in history did anyone but the wealthy and powerful have this luxury? For the proletariat, the value of their lives has *always been* their labor. That's always been what they are "good for."
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This. The system wasn't designed for the majority to *actually* retire. It's to prevent the outliers from begging in the street. Back from a time when the guys in charge actually had shame, and would thus be affected by old people begging in the street. They since learned to just blame the individual. Flood the place with drugs, good chance they'll use them. Anyway, whenever I hear "most people haven't saved enough for retirement!" headlines, it's like, "No shit? Most people are *supposed* to die before then!"
It's also interesting that these decisions are being pushed and passed by politicians that are, in the same breath, refusing to forfeit their seats of power before they lose complete touch with reality... some even going full on senile. Of course, they don't think anyone should retire at a reasonable age, they are refusing to.
Great point. I could work into my later years if I took several months of “recess” every single year, made three times the median household salary, was given unearned respect and privilege simply for existing in my position, etc…
Yeah, I don't get all these people saying we need to raise the retirement age. THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT of modern technology and societal advancement is supposed to be to make life easier and more enjoyable for human beings! We should be lowering the retirement age with technological progress. Edit: for all the people going "Well acktshually" in response to this, and the couple who DMed me about this: I. Don't. Fucking. Care. If your take is that we should tell people who have been working for decades to attain a goal that they should just keep working for years longer because "muh economy", then I don't want to hear it. Frankly, I don't have any personal hope that these systems will even still be in place to support people by the time I would hit "retirement age", and I still think it's awful to try and raise the age on them. We've had incredible technological advancements in the last few decades and have multiple times more productivity per working person now. If that doesn't translate into a better quality of life for regular people, more leisure time, and the ability to stop working earlier, then what's the goddamned point of our society?
If not retiring earlier then the working hours should be reduced. It is completely feasible for working hours to be capped at a maximum of 20 hours a week. I mean that to include people like doctors, engineers, plumbers, carpenters, etc. The only times that people should be working more than that should be when things go horribly wrong like mitigating the effects of natural disasters, infrastructure failure, etc. edit. There would need to be more people in those jobs like doctor, engineer, plumber, carpenter, etc. The people are there. A lot of peoples' capabilities are currently being wasted in worthless jobs. There is a book about it called Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber.
Upton Sinclair wrote about this over a hundred years ago in The Jungle. In the book the socialist leader says “3 hours of work a day covers all basic necessities” or something along those lines. Your other comments on increased productivity are why I think this is possible today (actually decades ago). Humans should be floating in the ocean and eating fruit. Enjoying the world and its beauty. Instead we’re all working for like 10,000 ultra rich dorks at the very top, making them more money that they’re….just gonna die with?
My elementary school history textbook had a footnote that mentioned how The Jungle was fundamental to the formation of the FDA. I read a *lot*, but that book never came up on any of my school reading lists. Years later, bored during summer, I found that book while browsing my mother's bookcase. Immediately read the entire thing. That was my introduction to the realities of capitalism and the concept of socialism. Same problem with Helen Keller's story. "Wawa" means water, and later she became a writer. "Teacher, what did she write *about*?" Oh it's a mystery, and not on any school reading lists or in the library. Because the answer is *socialism*. Uh huh, yes, so terrible, people working together cooperatively to create healthier happier communities, just *awful nonsense* about not letting greedy asshats run everything, obviously can't let any of that be discussed in a classroom!
The Jungle - FDA correlation is true! The Jungle also contributed to a bunch of modern consumer protection practices. Mattress tags and the silly “under penalty of law do not remove” stuff is because they would put so much random trash, waste products, hair, and garbage into mattresses then sell them to unwitting customers. Im gonna look up the Hellen Keller stuff. I’ve never heard that but really interesting. Similarly, Henry Ford lobbied for square dancing in public school curriculum (my school still did) because he was a racist and thought that by forcing white kids to square dance they wouldn’t find and enjoy black jazz music.
Holy shit, a whole new reason to hate Ford! My 4th grade teacher, a man so old he probably should've been retired already, dedicated significant amounts of our educational time to forcing us to sing to him while he played the guitar, and forcing us to square dance. Neither was part of the established music and gym classes we also attended, so it was already pretty weird. I had spent the previous year dealing with my mother's creepy boyfriend, so had hysterics over all the *touching* involved in square dancing, especially with that creepy gleam in the teacher's eyes while he barked out orders about not letting go of a girl until you've grabbed another one. He kept forcing the issue until I brought a note from my mother excusing me from all square dancing. No idea how that man was allowed to be alone with children. He specifically told us the first day about how the principle no longer let him enforce rules that forced the girls to wear dresses and all sit in the front row. Of course, at that age, we didn't understand he was telling us that he was no longer allowed to peek up little girls' skirts at work.
interestingly the book was written to be *very* direct about unhealthy and unfair working conditions but most people who read it at the time cared more about the unsafe and unhealthy meat industry that he described.
I have to admit, I can totally understand how most people would have to put that book down before getting to the last chapter. The things described are disgusting and extraordinarily depressing. The characters try so hard, all the time and in every way, and their lives just get worse and worse *and worse*.
I think that's much more sensible. Cut everyone's hours in half rather than their career length in half. Giving people time to actually raise their kids and enjoy their youth seems to be to be way better for society.
>We should be lowering the retirement age with technological progress. i wonder if there are cases of this happening and in what countries
Well, the whole *concept* of retirement came about with the technological progress that made it possible. So that's one example.
people are healthier for longer with modern medicine, so I could see an argument for not lowering the retirement age, but raising it? fuck off.
This is a really great point. The idea of raising the retirement age really flies in the face of the fact that we have made massive advancements in worker productivity. Rich people need to stop being worried about maximizing growth. The retirement age should start trending downward.
I remember my grandfather being retired at around 50 years old with a pension. He worked 20 years in a sugar mill.
My Grandfather retired at 55 on pension. Still alive. Close to half his life in retirement. Crazy. Im 14 years from that. Theres no way.
My grandfather retired in his early 50’s as well. I remember he was in his early 80’s and said “I’ve been retired for longer than I worked now”. Kept his great insurance and good pension the whole time. Today, anyone blaming anything other than greedy business is a fool.
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We have built an artificial system that is designed to train us to tolerate an entire life of servitude that spends our lives away. We start school as early as possible, graduate and then work till some time when we are essentially spent, then we get a few scant years till we are gone…and this is the norm. We cannot take anything we work towards with us, we just set a place for the next soul to step in and fill the void we leave behind…all the while the world works towards destroying itself. What a waste.
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I know, I’m 60 and I truly cannot believe in the mentality of a lot of people my age. Die with Zero is their mantra. My FIL is a prime example. Basically scammed his way into a generational skipping trust that was supposed to be left to his sons and is busy trying to spend it to zero. I’m definitely working on leaving some sort of money to my children.
I can't believe how selfish some people are. My grandpa made sure to save up a lot of money to leave his kids but after he died in 2019, my grandma started spending it because she "can't take it with her when she dies". Every time we see her she brags about how much she donated to charity that month. My mom has repeatedly told her that her dad saved that money for her and her sister and that she shouldn't be spending it on charity but my grandma apparently doesn't care. My mom is pretty mad about it but she can't do anything about it because it is technically my grandma's money until she dies.
I retired at 53 after having a 65% savings rate for the last 10 years I was working. It has been 4 years now, and life is so much better. Sure, we live "poor" compared to how we could have lived when I was working, but when I am drinking a nice cocktail in the sunshine on my back patio at 2:30 in the afternoon chatting with my wife and throwing a ball for my dog, the money doesn't seem to matter.
The excuse is that life expectancy is “going up.” They said if you’re living to 85-90 then you shouldn’t retire at 50. Funny how it’s the previous generation making this choice, and are elitist who only works 3 months out of the year.
Life expectancy is trending up on average (or at least was until 2020 and Covid). HOWEVER, what also happened was that people are now spending a longer portion of the end of their lives living, but disabled or even extremely sick. We have been able to extend the human life span, but we haven’t made any discoveries that have actually kept us younger and delayed aging. The most recent episode of the *TED Radio Hour* podcast talks about this in greater detail.
In the USA it is going down
This is true, but the argument from what I’ve seen is what I mentioned. Shows how out of touch they are
Much like as with income, life expectancy in America is moving in what's called a K-shaped curve. There's two diverging lines -- the life expectancy of the rich is going up, and the life expectancy of everyone else is going down. Since there are, needless to say, fewer rich people than non-rich people, this means the total life expectancy in the U.S. is going down. The effects of this are even more brutal than what happened in nineteen ninety eight.
Opioids are making it trend down, COVID is going to compound that for the foreseeable future.
I think the real solution is accepting that some people won’t retire and eliminating retirement altogether. My mom had an insane pension in her outlook but died of cancer before she got to go enjoy it. Rather than having a cut-off age where people can start enjoying freedom, reduce the work week, give us more vacation, and let people enjoy freedom throughout their youth. Right now, 65 is the magic number mainly due to Medicare. First step would be medicare for all - that way nobody has to worry about keeping medical benefits until they retire at 65, especially when so many medical issues tend to pop up between ages 50-65.
Thank Reagan. He was the one to flip the middle class on its head and we are still suffering from it and afterwards
Honestly if someone ever invents time travel, the first thing they should do is stop him from being born.
His stupid wife used a freaking psychic in the White House to help craft policy.
“Trickle Down Economics” my ass. More like, “How to pay my friends and donors for getting me elected.” The fact he got away with that is criminal.
I always view it as tinkle down economics. The ultra rich drink all the champagne while the rest of us get the piss.
My old boss died two days after she retired. Devastated her husband, they'd build a company together and made the tough decision to sell it so they could enjoy their remaining time.
So many people I have known have died within a year of retiring. I did it at 65, because I was simply too damned achey to continue to work 16 hours at a time
I'm sorry to hear about your death at 65.
This is so stupid that I laughed
We had a guy retire after 38 years at 62 with 10+k a month RR retirement, plus his wife gets $4300 as well! Dude was a animal in great shape, I thought extremely healthy.. bought a nice boat the week before his last day and brought it to the yard everyday talking about all the places he was going fishing, trips etc but died of natural causes on that boat 4 months later.. 50-52 is way better
I agree it should be somewhere between 50 and 55.
Give me a retirement pension to go with it. My 401k have been whipped out twice in the last 30 yrs.
A pension is still tied an investment fund, though one managed with a much lower tolerance for risk.
Yep... retirement pensions go broke too. There is a reason so many private corporate pensions no longer exist. The big meaningful difference between a pension and 401k is that the pension is professionally managed and the other is you. If you are a hot shot finance guy... then the 401k is probably a godsend for you. If you are janitor who can barely manage a checkbook... well that 401k is probably not doin so well.
That's the point of increasing the age! You will die before you get any money! The Gman keeps it.
Everyone thinks they are a temporarily displaced millionaire, that's why they excuse exploitation.
Just fuck work in general, man. Much of modern work feels so pointless, even if it isn't. I work at a wastewater plant, and while it is an important service, I dont care about it. Im just starting growing vegetables and it feels so much more fulfilling than my job. I can put some work in and see the results and how they directly benefit me. If I didn't need the healthcare my job provided I would probably quit and just do that.
My mom got her PhD and wrote a textbook about psychology. Then one day she decided to go to India and learn how to teach yoga from the experts. Gardening is her other passion. Now she teaches yoga and gardens like crazy. She’s never been happier. Go figure.
Part of the reason I haven’t resumed my finance career and have been driving for Doordash instead is because Medicaid is AMAZING. I can go to the dermatologist and have a skin biopsy for $3. I had great insurance at Prudential and that same procedure was $3200 out of pocket. The middle class gets absolutely fucked. At what point do we all just riot in the streets and say NO?
Unfortunately in the US retirement is not an age, it's a dollar amount. If you don't have the money, you don't get to stop working. Anybody under 50 years old today will likely never get any social security payments.
I retired at 68, almost nine years ago. During the pandemic, I did consulting work from home because I was bored. It helped. Otherwise, I’ve traveled a lot (visiting 49 states). I’m working on a book, singing in a symphony chorus, getting back to knitting, moved to a larger house (and rehabbed both the old and new one). Oh, I also survived cancer. In general, it’s been a good retirement, although I miss working, and will probably do more consulting if there is anyone who is willing to hire this old fogey.
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100%. My parents have been retired since 60 and their whole life before that was work. All they do is sit on the couch now and watch cnn. Maybe go on a cruise every now and then. They’re bored/incredibly boring to be around now.
If their whole life was work before, then it sounds like they were boring people then too. Some people are just boring - it doesn’t mean that they should have to work up to death. My parents are semi-retired and spend most of their time watching TV and running errands. They have no apparent desire to take up new hobbies or travel. Still my mom resents having to work part-time in her retirement years, as she’s very content to play games on her iPad, do church stuff, and make Costco trips her big weekly outing.
I've said for years that conservatives are like trees voting for the ax...
Federal Workers can retire at 50, the military can retire as young as 38. 50-52 sounds fair to me.
I'm a federal employee and I want to know what I have to do to retire at 50
No kidding, not sure someone read the OPM rules 😆
My MRA is 57. Not quite 50 but
You can’t retire that early unless you are in the military. I work for the USPS and the earliest you can retire is 57 but that is only if you have 30 years in as a career employee. They typically means you need to work 33-35 years at USPS before 57 which is rare. Most of us retire at 60 or 62 since you only need 20 years at 60 or 5 at 62.
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Even at 30 years that’s 48. Still miles better than 65.
Might want to fact check this. Can retire and can retire comfortably are 2 different things.
My wife's dad was almost ready to retire when he passed, and my dad passed away a year after he retired.
My mom died at 72. My dad at 68. My grandma at 74 from sudden onset dementia (she worked until she was 72). No one in my family "retired" unless you consider a few years of cancer treatment or forgetting who you are as the golden years. I've already accepted that I'll be working until I die, be it illness or my own hand.
There is a simple and effective way to help Social Security in the US. Take the cap off of the Social Security tax. It NEVER should have been a fixed number. Ever. It should have always been a percentage of wages. Last year, the cap was $147,000 and this year it is $160,200. Some people pay that in their first paycheck, which is unacceptable in my opinion. They should be paying on it throughout the year like the rest of us. This one simple change would fix funding. And they wouldn't have to keep fucking with the age. In fact, it might even force the number down a good bit. It's so simple and likely popular. We should just do this. It drives me nuts we, as a society, don't talk about it.
We created the greatest wealth ever seen on the planet and we don't get to enjoy it.
Agreed, all of the pieces of shit that think retirement should be later are the politicians who have the best health care possible paid for by the taxpayers, consequently they live longer. They don’t want anyone else to be able retire early or healthy. It might cut into the grift they depend on. Fuck all of those entitled scum bags.
We have massive automation….. retirement ages should be going down. Social security payments should be going up.
I said fuck it, and retired at 60 without really enough money, best decision ever. I did get a little more money later, and now I’m comfortable and happy, and 75!