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[–] 2 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah, once this system fails catastrophically then maybe people will finally see that relying on the stock market (i.e. gambling) for a potential retirement plan (and thereby incentivizing working class people to support policies that actively disadvantage them while giving their tax money to the rich) was a bad idea from the start, and then maybe we can start building a system where instead of working like slaves to make the rich richer, while paying taxes that only make the rich richer and don't do anything to help us, maybe if the workers get to keep more of the value produced by their own labor, and their tax money goes to building public infrastructure and social support, then we won't need to gamble for our retirements because it will already be guaranteed by the social safety nets that we funded instead of giving all that money to the rich in exchange for a flimsy promise that it might be paid back to us some day when we're too old to work and depend on it absolutely for our continued existence...

I thought it seemed plain as day but I tried talking about it years ago and people called me a lunatic, a psychopath, a conspiracy theorist.

Like I told them "if it doesn't burst now it's only going to keep climbing and making things worse and worse until it can't push the limits any further, and then the fall will only be greater and more painful." And lo and behold, what has become.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 hours ago (1 child)

    That's a lot of maybe in that plan...

    More likely, we'll just go through another wave of the cycle:

    market crash --> regulations enacted to prevent the problems that caused the crash --> decent prosperity under regulations --> lobbying to remove 'bad for business' regulations --> unchecked greed and bubble --> market crash --> repeat forever...

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  • [–] 2 points 4 hours ago

    Yes I use a lot of maybes when talking about the future, because the future isn't certain and I tend to be pretty honest about my epistemic limits.

    It's kinda funny how society tends to view that as a mark against my credibility, while putting their faith in whoever manages to sound the most confident. But I never claimed society is sane.

    Your scenario is another possibility. But it can't hurt to dream of better.

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