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Baby boomers are what's wrong with America's economy

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Jhhnn said:
Cut the average SS benefit to $1300/month & raise the full retirement age to 68... Now you're thinking like a 1% Republican.
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Raise the retirement age to 70. That would solve the problem straight up. I have no problem working to that age. If I have to work an extra five years to help out my kids and my grand kids, I consider it the very least I can do for them. The mathematics of Social Security are broken at a retirement age of 65, long life spans and a population that is not growing.

worker-per-beneficiary-chart.jpg
 
bshole said:
Raise the retirement age to 70. That would solve the problem straight up. I have no problem working to that age. If I have to work an extra five years to help out my kids and my grand kids, I consider it the very least I can do for them. The mathematics of Social Security are broken at a retirement age of 65, long life spans and a population that is not growing.
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Do you dig ditches. A lot of laborers are be broken by their jobs long before they reach seventy. How about only white collar has to work to eighty and people with physical jobs to fifty.
 
Moonbeam said:
Do you dig ditches. A lot of laborers are be broken by their jobs long before they reach seventy. How about only white collar has to work to eighty and people with physical jobs to fifty.
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Hell, most of the people I know who work construction are pretty done by their mid fifties. Hell, I don't work construction, and I have to climb 20+ foot ladders and walk a 1/4 mile to where I can park my car to get to where my work is, and my bodies about done. I just had the inner meniscus removed from my left knee, and am just getting back to doing this and it still f'n hurts. Those people claiming that they want to work till they can't work anymore can have it. I'm going to be 65 in less than 2 years and that's when I can sign up for Medicare. I will be sacrificing 8% cause I am not staying another frick'n year. My only hope is that some economic catastrophe doesn't happen between now and then cause I have significant investments. Those are protection from the selfish spoiled spawn that want's to keep theirs and f their elders.
 
hal2kilo said:
Hell, most of the people I know who work construction are pretty done by their mid fifties. Hell, I don't work construction, and I have to climb 20+ foot ladders and walk a 1/4 mile to where I can park my car to get to where my work is, and my bodies about done. I just had the inner meniscus removed from my left knee, and am just getting back to doing this and it still f'n hurts. Those people claiming that they want to work till they can't work anymore can have it. I'm going to be 65 in less than 2 years and that's when I can sign up for Medicare. I will be sacrificing 8% cause I am not staying another frick'n year. My only hope is that some economic catastrophe doesn't happen between now and then cause I have significant investments. Those are protection from the selfish spoiled spawn that want's to keep theirs and f their elders.
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I think bshole is a good guy but nobody has 100% perspective sufficient to imagine themselves in everyone's shoes. If you are committed to doing the best that you can morally, and I think he is, the thing to do in my opinion, is to try to broaden his perspective. Personally I think the best way to help the 'spoiled spawn' is to try also to add to their perspective just as you did in your post, but with the understanding that they can only see what the are willing to take in and the forces that blind them are not a genetic or generational fault, but the product of the current popular excuse, ever changing, but present in every generation, that is unconsciously assumed and thus blinding . We are all the same with our different forms of conditioning, differently conditioned but conditioned none the less. I can't forgive them for that if I can't forgive myself and see it as a fault of personal responsibility. You can't change the world by guilt tripping people. It changes when you love yourself.
 
hal2kilo said:
Hell, most of the people I know who work construction are pretty done by their mid fifties. Hell, I don't work construction, and I have to climb 20+ foot ladders and walk a 1/4 mile to where I can park my car to get to where my work is, and my bodies about done. I just had the inner meniscus removed from my left knee, and am just getting back to doing this and it still f'n hurts. Those people claiming that they want to work till they can't work anymore can have it. I'm going to be 65 in less than 2 years and that's when I can sign up for Medicare. I will be sacrificing 8% cause I am not staying another frick'n year. My only hope is that some economic catastrophe doesn't happen between now and then cause I have significant investments. Those are protection from the selfish spoiled spawn that want's to keep theirs and f their elders.
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You know how it is- everybody else should work until they drop so that they guy saying so won't have to... not to mention so that the financial elite can engage in hoarding at the expense of everybody else.

And, uhh, never mind that retiring leaves a lob opening for somebody younger. Well, it used to do that, anyway.
 
hal2kilo said:
Hell, most of the people I know who work construction are pretty done by their mid fifties. Hell, I don't work construction, and I have to climb 20+ foot ladders and walk a 1/4 mile to where I can park my car to get to where my work is, and my bodies about done. I just had the inner meniscus removed from my left knee, and am just getting back to doing this and it still f'n hurts. Those people claiming that they want to work till they can't work anymore can have it. I'm going to be 65 in less than 2 years and that's when I can sign up for Medicare. I will be sacrificing 8% cause I am not staying another frick'n year. My only hope is that some economic catastrophe doesn't happen between now and then cause I have significant investments. Those are protection from the selfish spoiled spawn that want's to keep theirs and f their elders.
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why should the young work to support you? why should you get to retire at 65 when the young wont until they're 70 or maybe even later? especially as they won't get the same pension deals you will. even if the population grows the jobs market will be decimated in the next 30 years by automation. even mcdonalds jobs will mostly be gone in 5-10 years as they're already looking at automating burger flipping ffs
 
Jhhnn said:
This?



Cut the average SS benefit to $1300/month & raise the full retirement age to 68... Now you're thinking like a 1% Republican.
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And when someone who is 20 years old today is eating 2 potatoes a day when they are 75 because we didnt want the boomers to make any sacrifices?
 
Moonbeam said:
Do you dig ditches. A lot of laborers are be broken by their jobs long before they reach seventy. How about only white collar has to work to eighty and people with physical jobs to fifty.
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Disability exists for those people who cant. We already have a solution for this.
 
Im not entirely sure why boomers expect me to pay for their retirements when they decided to spend money on other things then retirement.
 
tommo123 said:
why should the young work to support you? why should you get to retire at 65 when the young wont until they're 70 or maybe even later? especially as they won't get the same pension deals you will. even if the population grows the jobs market will be decimated in the next 30 years by automation. even mcdonalds jobs will mostly be gone in 5-10 years as they're already looking at automating burger flipping ffs
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Why? Because Boomers honored the generational social compact of SS by providing for their elders. If you won't honor it then don't expect younger generations to do so when you get old.

As you say, none of it will matter if we continue to allow the fruits of progress & technology to be hoarded at the top for ideological reasons. Our whole concept of ownership is ideological.
 
JSt0rm said:
Disability exists for those people who cant. We already have a solution for this.
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With the average monthly payment being $1148 & not necessarily to include healthcare benefits beyond the emergency room. Nobody is really anxious to get on board unless they also have substantial accrued pension benefits or a working spouse.
 
Jhhnn said:
With the average monthly payment being $1148 & not necessarily to include healthcare benefits beyond the emergency room. Nobody is really anxious to get on board unless they also have substantial accrued pension benefits or a working spouse.
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We have to have winners and losers still. A guy who didnt do anything but dig ditches for 40 years is gonna get what they get. He wont starve and he will be on medicaid or whatever.

And what happens to the guy who is 20 today and is a ditch digger? He gets nothing because a babyboomer gets more? Thats not cool.
 
Jhhnn said:
Why? Because Boomers honored the generational social compact of SS by providing for their elders. If you won't honor it then don't expect younger generations to do so when you get old.

As you say, none of it will matter if we continue to allow the fruits of progress & technology to be hoarded at the top for ideological reasons. Our whole concept of ownership is ideological.
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You guys have had 30 years to fix the problem and you didnt.
 
bshole said:
Raise the retirement age to 70. That would solve the problem straight up. I have no problem working to that age. If I have to work an extra five years to help out my kids and my grand kids, I consider it the very least I can do for them. The mathematics of Social Security are broken at a retirement age of 65, long life spans and a population that is not growing.

worker-per-beneficiary-chart.jpg
Click to expand...

Bad idea. Life expectancy is only going up among the wealthy, it is static or even declining for lower incomes.

Basically you’re taking social security away from poor people because rich people are living longer.
 
JSt0rm said:
Im not entirely sure why boomers expect me to pay for their retirements when they decided to spend money on other things then retirement.
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Because we have a basic duty to our fellow citizens that they don’t find themselves homeless or starve.
 
fskimospy said:
Because we have a basic duty to our fellow citizens that they don’t find themselves homeless or starve.
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We have safety nets for that. If the boomers want to make big changes to ss so that it is shored up for all and not just them then great. But they arent doing that.

I'm paying $165 a week into SS. Am I going to see that money?
 
JSt0rm said:
We have safety nets for that. If the boomers want to make big changes to ss so that it is shored up for all and not just them then great. But they arent doing that.

I'm paying $165 a week into SS. Am I going to see that money?
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Social security is literally part of that safety net you reference.

Yes, you will see social security money. More importantly, what you pay to support retiring boomers today has almost nothing to do with whether or not social security will be there for you as the vast majority of US debt is internal. It’s not like if we didn’t take care of the boomers today we could sock that away in a drawer for when you retire unless you’re talking about some mass purchase of foreign assets to eventually sell off. (Which would create its own problems.)
 
The american economic system is basically turning into a giant pyramid scheme with boomers at the top. At some point we will all get stuck paying the bill while the boomers live out their luxurious retirement in wealth and opulence. Then, when they are gone, the fight for survival against climate change and all the pollution they caused will begin.


I'm not resentful. But I won't make excuses for them.
 
fskimospy said:
Social security is literally part of that safety net you reference.

Yes, you will see social security money. More importantly, what you pay to support retiring boomers today has almost nothing to do with whether or not social security will be there for you as the vast majority of US debt is internal. It’s not like if we didn’t take care of the boomers today we could sock that away in a drawer for when you retire unless you’re talking about some mass purchase of foreign assets to eventually sell off. (Which would create its own problems.)
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So all this talk of SS becoming insolvent and unable to payout by 2050 is bullshit?
 
JSt0rm said:
So all this talk of SS becoming insolvent and unable to payout by 2050 is bullshit?
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He's going to tell you yes because he thinks the US economy will grow forever. Trump told him 4% and he believes it, in his heart. Even if he won't admit it. He LOVES 'murica and 'murican military expansionism.
 
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