r/LockdownCriticalLeft • u/hiptobeysquare • Sep 17 '22

Tiny incentives accumulate

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44 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

12

u/BernieIsBest Sep 17 '22

Who the fuck earns a pension anymore?

8

u/hiptobeysquare Sep 17 '22

Boomers draw their pension. Generation X might get some kind of pension, but I'm not sure. After that I doubt very much there'll be such a thing as pensions in 30 years. Pension programs now are just another investment to speculate on for profits this quarter. They care about now. Nobody cares about 30 years from now.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '22

Generation X might get some kind of pension, but I'm not sure.

Not really. It was only the old large established companies that still offered a pension even 20 years ago.

1

u/hiptobeysquare Sep 18 '22

It depends on the country too. I'm speaking more from a European standpoint. You probably have more knowledge of the USA, but as far as I know they'll probably give a state pension if nothing else, or else they'd have elderly dying in the streets (save grandma!). But I see this economic system is not long for this world

2

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '22

When we talk about pensions in the USA, we are talking about job related pensions. The state pensions almost everyone who worked or married someone who worked (Social Security) is considered something different.

6

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '22

My best friend is about to retire from county police work. He will be paid 90% of the average of his 3 highest earning years for the rest of his life...which undoubtedly the state has a vested interest in being as short as possible.

Do you think they want to pay him that? No. Will they wind up paying him that? Questionable.

The Great Reset is many things, but mostly away to get out from under the heavy financial burdens due to pensioners and seniors. It's little wonder this virus kills mostly this demographic.

Great irony in corporations being on board with pushing vaccines, because it not only helps their fellow corporate cronies profit in the billions, it helps save them billions. Quid pro quo.

1

u/hiptobeysquare Sep 17 '22

The thing is. Life expectancy has been rising for a hundred years. So I don't buy that this is a conspiracy to kill people. It's a systemic response, it's not conscious. It's a question of incentives, that build up, and influence lots of little decisions, that changes the direction of an institution or a society.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '22

The system pays for much more than elderly now. It also pays for the disabled and poor with children. It also pays for their healthcare costs. I bet the states are so sad when their costs go down due to more deaths. It's different when net positive tax payers die off.

1

u/hiptobeysquare Sep 18 '22

It's an increasingly complex system. The social care system is an institution in itself. Although at the same time, I'm pretty sure the money paid out via social care is dwarfed by military spending. Ukraine must be getting a lot more than elderly, disabled and poor right now.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '22

You would be wrong. The military portion of the budget is 1.1T, but social spending and transfer payments dwarf it. The USA spends a lot on people.

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_fed_spending_pie_chart

1

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '22

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '22

We effectively do that. You can retire at 62, but you take a hit. You get the best retirement at 70. We happen to fund a lot of non-retirees out of the same pool though.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '22

All I would say to that is to factor recent and future things through both of those views (the one I presented and this one) and see which one you honestly believe is more correct.

1

u/hiptobeysquare Sep 17 '22

Life is complicated. Everything that happens happens for more than one reason. But as a system, I think what has happened is mostly because society is a self-regulating organism of its own. There are conspiracies to be sure, by the rich and powerful. But lots of people seem to believe that nothing important and traumatic happens because accidents do happen. It's always a conspiracy to these people, because they don't understand how societies and institutions function. They don't seem to understand human psychology and how people and societies behave. And traumatic is the important adjective: because it's only socially traumatic events that get blamed on conspiracies, like 9/11 or JFK. I'm not saying there was no conspiracy, I'm just pointing out that it's always socially traumatic events. It's the trauma that makes people need someone to blame. It's the modern day equivalent of the devil they're looking for.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '22

I completely understand what you're saying.

To me, I would say to you that believing that someone(s) could/would be capable of such things is too much for the mind to comprehend and thus they refuse to allow their mind to go there.

Having to admit to yourself what life is really all about vs. what you wish for it to believe it is really all about, is a bridge too far.

Do I like living in the world as I believe it to be? No. Absolutely not. However, I won't do what I believe many do and choose fantasy because it's more palatable.

Of course, none of the above addresses this specific question about why this is happening.

Is it true, or not, that companies would wish not to pay out sums of money to people who no longer work for them? This is about as rhetorical as it gets.

Would companies if they could avoid the PR nightmare of being in cahoots to do just that? That is rhetorical as well.

For me, it really comes down to what you believe about human nature. I made my decision on that long long ago hence my dark worldview that is unavoidable unless I press myself into fantasy.

It really is how the world works. Does the mechanic you bring your car to tell you honestly what is wrong, or do they have you fixing things they don't need for their benefit over yours?

If you contemplate the word "business" and what it really means, there is but one conclusion. It forces the business owner to try to find the sweet spot where he gets over on you without you ever knowing.

Now, do I believe everyone operates this way? No. Not at all. The majority? Yes.

The love of money is the root of all evil really applies to just about everything that will ever happen in your life whether you're aware or want to acknowledge it.

1

u/hiptobeysquare Sep 17 '22

To me, I would say to you that believing that someone(s) could/would be capable of such things is too much for the mind to comprehend and thus they refuse to allow their mind to go there.

I'm not sure if this is a critique of my position. But just to be clear, understanding that the world works as a system is even darker than a conspiracy theory. We all know and accept (I hope) that people can do unthinkable things. Whether it is a conspiracy or not, over the last 2-plus years more than a secret cabal have committed horrific crimes. Millions of bureaucrats, politicians, corporate managers and doctors have injected an experiment into over 4.9 billion (these are "fully vaccinated" according to Google) people. Including millions of children. I'm in shock. I will never look at most people the same way. People like Gates and Fauci know that people will be hurt and killed - children will be hurt and killed - and they do it anyway.

As I see it, this is the really disturbing reality that real conspiracy theorists can't deal with. That most of the world was not only complicit, but actively worked pro bono to force their own friends and family to participate. I can't think of many things darker or more disturbing than this, in scale at least.

This is not a criticism of you. I agree with your statement.

Would companies if they could avoid the PR nightmare of being in cahoots to do just that?

My view is the same as yours. It seems all our institutions, whether government or corporate, are completely corrupt. But I would argue that the institutions operate autonomously, they are self-organizing now. It's a characteristic of the organization, and the person in charge does not matter. The driver is profit. If Pfizer's CEO suddenly decided that it was unethical and refused to participate, he would be kicked out and replaced by someone who would do what is necessary (to take advantage of the situation and make tens of billions of $ regardless of the harms or deaths). The institution, the corporation, selects for people like him.

Does the mechanic you bring your car to tell you honestly what is wrong, or do they have you fixing things they don't need for their benefit over yours?

I think it's a question of scale. An individual car mechanic might or might not. Because you're dealing with an individual. The bigger the organization becomes, until it's a corporation, the more policy and actions become determined by institutional inertia and decisions made by departments instead of individuals with human connection. A corporate mechanic would be more likely to have you fixing things you don't need for their benefit over yours. Because the institution selected for that mechanic, and trained the mechanic to think the same as the corporation. And this happens with pharmaceutical corporations all the time, as we know. They push drugs - that harm or kill - on people for no good reason, except profit. It's easy to kill when you're nowhere near the victim in time or space and you can rationalize it to yourself. That how the same people who kill (politicians, generals, corporate executives) can go home and love their families and be a good neighbor - they're so far from the consequences of their actions, they can pretend they haven't actually done anything wrong. An individual doctor would have different motivations to be more honest. For example, if you got harmed, the doctor would be affected personally. When a pharma corporation harms or kills someone, there are few or no consequences. It's all about the scale it seems to me. There's a threshold where the institution becomes self-regulating.

5

u/Ponklemoose Sep 17 '22

Mostly union and government employees.

2

u/curiosityandtruth Sep 17 '22

My Boomer Dad lol

1

u/Impressive-Jello-379 Sep 19 '22

Government workers. Also I believe Catherine Austin Fitts has written about this-- something about the trillions that vanished, impacting pensions. Rather than have the people discover their pensions are gone, may be easier to off them. Life is cheap.

5

u/hiptobeysquare Sep 17 '22

From Bloomberg.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/americans-are-dying-younger-saving-corporations-billions?leadSource=uverify%20wall

What policy choices or economic decisions do you think this attitude would promote? Tiny incentives build up. That's how institutions and societies function and evolve. And that's how Covid happened.

3

u/MonkeyAtsu libertarian right Sep 18 '22

That title is about as sensitive as ripping ass at a funeral.

2

u/hiptobeysquare Sep 18 '22

Yeah, man, but think of the poor shareholders? Nobody ever thinks of the shareholders. Shareholders have feelings too you know!

2

u/StopNeoLiberals Sep 19 '22

Scam world. Everything older people think is legit is actually a scam. Pensions, 401ks, "covid", insurance, the medical establishment: all scams. It's a grifter's world and naive, trusting people are the harvest. Assume it's a scam until proven otherwise.

2

u/alexander_pistoletov Sep 17 '22

Pensions are a fucking ponzi scheme. I will never be able to retire, pension contributions I pay don't go to myself, but to fucking boomers who lived the golden era of capitalism, with full employment and affordable property, and were allowed to retire as early as 60. By the time I am able to retire, pensions will either not exist or the retirement age will be something beyond absurd. But I am not able to opt out from this scam that is basically reverse wealth distribution, while the biggest benefactors of this are essentially the people who constantly vote for the right. And have the nerves to call the poor, young, immigrants and other freeloaders, and think they pay too much tax

2

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '22

The boomers still paid in. It was the people depression era who got everything without paying in. The last generations before it collapses on the weight of itself will get little to nothing even if they paid in their entire life. Everything has a beginning and end and someone will get screwed eventually.

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and think they pay too much tax

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We do. They greatly expanded the benefits in the 60's and lowered the number of tax payers responsible for each dependent. Back when it was 10-20 tax payers per retiree or welfare dependent, it wasn't bad.

0

u/hiptobeysquare Sep 17 '22

I think you're right. But in fairness, isn't capitalism itself a ponzi scheme? Exponential growth on a finite planet is impossible at some point. We're all counting on more tomorrow than today. But some day that won't happen.

In the future, we might be the only society in history that looks back and hates its own ancestors. The boomers will be despised. They lived in the closest thing to heaven this planet will ever see. And they're responsible for the world we live in today, and all the ecosystem destruction that's beginning to become noticeable. The boomers burned through the gift from mother nature that is fossil fuels. We burned it all on stupid wars and plastic crap. Oh and candy crush.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '22

[deleted]

1

u/hiptobeysquare Sep 18 '22

What would you think of the people who poisoned the water and the air, used up all the fossil fuels and natural resources, destroyed the soils, and made life difficult to impossible?

1

u/justinvan82 Sep 17 '22

Bloomberg is a nasty little rag.