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401K's are already an artificial siphoning of worker capital into the rich people's stock market game. This is just par for the course.
Yeah and in Holland they've just killed the old reasonable pension system and replaced it with a similar 401(K) type thing 😢
Really? Do you have a link on that, I missed it, just found out reuters has let me back in without a paywall or I would maybe know already
I doubt it would be in the world news. But they basically made it into a system where everyone has like a private investment package as a pension.
The government has a lot of info on it but it's all in Dutch.
The problem is the ruling parties of the last 30 years are very neoliberal and they adore America. So it's been nothing but cut social welfare, privatisation and now this.
Are you Dutch? Do you have an idea what the sentiment over there is? The US is a lost cause at this point, but I was hoping other places would learn from our idiocy.
Yes I am but luckily I don't live there anymore. The country has been very neoliberal, idealising America for the last 30 years, led by the VVD party. Lately the extreme-right fascists have had a much larger influence (PVV party and also FVD and JA21). They still do. In 2023 they gained more than 30% of votes. The resulting coalition screwed up very badly by constantly screwing each other over for political gain, so the government collapsed after only a year. The one that came after is the same old shit again.
This has been the case in much of the US for over a decade now. Pensions are essentially a thing of the past here (unless you have a very strong union, inshallah)
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Just think what Bush's privatization was. They tried to borrow, tens of trillions, to pump into a stock market they knew was on the brink of collapse, and force people to use money managers that get paid regardless of their clients' fortunes.
Gains would only be recognized for 8%, the rest kicked back in the pot, losses would be 100%. It was such a shit system, on top of trying to foist all of this have to invest money into a market to allow the rich to sell off on a high note and leave workers holding the bag, to die in the street with stolen retirement.
What was this called?
Edit: found it in here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_debate_in_the_United_States
No mention of the 8% gains cap though which would really be the infuriating part
I went to a local democratic rally of sorts where they went over the social security reform in detail, what was it, 2008 I think, right before the market was going to crash.
The most infuriating part of it is they were trying to force people to dump their retirement accounts in a failing market to allow stockholders to sell out their shares on a high note, and wipe out a good share of all retirement income, leaving retirees destitute.
They also had to pay a money manager, like a mutual fund kind of deal if memory serves. If it passed which it didn't obviously, it really sank Bush's popularity.
Thanks for that, very interesting.
What is baffling to me is they apparently were pitching it as a way of making social security solvent. If people can divert their SS tax dollars to private accounts, it makes the shortfall even worse. But sometimes that is their objective, I know.
The rich have been obsessed with killing the new deal from the start. Social Security is their prime target, they've been trying to kill it for 5 decades now.
Everything they say is opposite land as with everything else. They borrowed tens of trillions of dollars to subsidize business multiple times, but are trying not to borrow the surplus social security payments they took and spent elsewhere our retirees entire lives.
They borrowed that money, with the promise of paying it back when it was needed, and are now trying to default on America.
I don’t give a shit if it’s straight up free money, I won’t ever enroll in a “Trump account”. I’ll just die at 67 instead.
It's okay. They'll probably steal whatever you put in it anyway. Imagine if the Trumps make a big stock move and then had everyone's "Trump account" cover the bet at a tidy profit.
Trump has tainted this entire country with this stank. The businesses paying him off. The people licking his crack. The politicians giving him cover. Fuck all of them. Forever.
There is a tiny bit of irony in that this is exactly what many rural voters said about Obamacare. One difference (of many) being that they have been dying because of that choice.
There's a cult growing in wallstreetbets.
When I did my taxes this year it asked if I wanted to open a Trump Account for my kid, so that it would receive any future deposits the government gave out.
It was so disturbing and disgusting to see something that gross in writing in a real-world context.
No fucking thanks.
Could you imagine if Obama made them actually call it Obamacare. There would have been riots.
Absolutely.
It's almost funny, like they are going through a checklist to retcon everything they ever said about their opponents to be projection.
Of course, a lot of it was genuine projection because that's how they think.
Plus obviously it's not funny to watch a cult of personality take hold so easily and wreck so much for so many.
said the quiet part out loud, eh?
Haven’t they always wanted this? “Trump accounts” is just branding for what they’ve been calling for for decades.
He was never one to hold his tongue.
He’s running for president and trying to improve his image.
Lmfao.
I'd rather invest it in a fucking NFT or better yet a bank in North Korea.
How many casinos did this dude bankrupt? Jesus man some people are fucking stupid
Literally stealing tax dollars and using the presidency to make money with his entire family tied into it.
Absolute scum
Social security is a bad investment for an individual, but most people are terrible investors if they invest into their future at all. So by giving everyone that baseline, it helps out everyone else, including the rich. And is therefore a fantastic investment for everyone.
Social security is not an investment at all. It's young people giving money to old people.
For a while, the country didn't have very many old people, so some of the young-people tax went into the general budget (through purchase of US Treasury bills). Now there's too many old people, and you can bet that the general budget won't be giving them anything.
You misclassify it. The government took the surplus with the promise to pay it back, and now is refusing to do so. They are trying to Default on America.
That's what he just said.
I thought they invest any surplus into government debt securities?
Right: SSA buys a treasury bill, and congress gets to treat that as income for the general budget. For a long time, SSA was the largest holder of US debt. Their surplus has been falling, while the Federal Reserve has bought up tons of Treasuries every time there's an economic crisis and have now eclipsed SSA. Fed holds about $4.5T, while Japan holds barely $1.2T
Whether you think of these inter-governmental loans as "investments," is probably a matter of where you fall on pedantry. If I take a loan from my 401k for down payment on a house, I don't think of that as "investing" my 401k in the house.
Thanks for clarifying!
It's more like insurance. Some people won't need it much, others will. It can be beneficial to those.
But the real thing you are 'buying' is peace of mind. That is part of the value of it.
You're also supposed to value the fact that you are contributing to the overall health and prosperity of your fellow Americans.
Lol imagine that.
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In five years you and I are fighting for the last scrap of rat liver, Ted.
No need to fight Cruz for the last scrap of rat liver. You've got a whole pig right there.
Pffft. You eat rats whole, slide the down the mouth.
Wasn't Ted the only senator who gave his support to Trump's attempted overturning of the 2020 election? Did he not waddle his fat ass into the House with that loser Boebert and give his support because they needed it? Why were NONE of these traitors arrested and charged? Wtf?!?
It’s literally a slush fund Ponzi scheme only a moron would enroll in a Trump account
United Corporations of America. Much wealth, Vast poverty.
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Lift the cap on FICA contributions and appropriate money from the billionaires in any way possible. Hopefully something egregious that will be remembered for decades, something their children and their grandchildren will take as a warning.
something their children and their grandchildren will take as a warning.
A warning? Like this?
I was thinking more like strip 75% of their net worth from them but perhaps I’m not as imaginative as you
Sometimes the best way to treat a cancerous tumor is to cut it out with a blade.
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"if" is the single dirtiest word in investment contracts
Maybe they should do something like a milestone payment. So you're able to put money away like social security but you can access it every 10 years. So if I put money away from 20 to 30 I can access that money at 30 and then I can put money away from 30 to 40 and then I can access that money at 40. The whole idea of working your entire life to if you're lucky get social security at 65 is kind of ridiculous to me because you're more prone to drop dead during the 65 to 75 decade. So what a waste that is. If I could get myself 5,000 extra dollars when I hit 30 from the savings that I accrued from the decade prior that would be something.
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this post was submitted on 08 May 2026
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