What's your generation and how would you change your government?

[Eric the Green]

(03-28-2022, 10:54 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-28-2022, 02:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-27-2022, 10:12 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-27-2022, 06:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Maybe. If you admit that such a progressive tax and benefits and means-tested program is no longer the social security program, but something different, then you may have a point. It isn't going to happen, though. Social Security works, its funding works, and in requiring people to save when otherwise they probably would not, it makes sure that money will be there when needed for retirement. Saying "be responsible and save" will not work, and libertarian economics ideas generally do not work well. 

If we DO get rid of it, then it would need to be replaced by a more robust benefits program, including for disability, plus requirements on all businesses to pay enough minimum wages so people don't require any other government support, or else all business will dry up. As robots take over, who will buy the products they make?

If we don't get rid of SS, then we still also need other programs.

I think people are more likely to support a guaranteed income program or other income support that is paid for by all who can afford it and available to everyone. Such a program could be progressive in taxation, I imagine.

I would be more than happy to call it something else. The entire program was literally a Ponzi Scheme built on faulty assumptions (assumption of stable population growth, continuous good economic times and a far lower average life expectancy)  I maintain that the current expectation people have of retiring comfortably for 20+ years with little to no savings is a delusion. If one is not very wealthy (say, the top 5% or so), all that does it put undo burden on the young for a purpose even the radical left FDR would not have approved of. He designed SS for what he referred to as survivors into old age. Not a program for the bottom half of the population to live like investment bankers at a country club, but a program to provide more humane final years for broken down bodies who had endured hard lives. 

The idea that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme neglects that fact that it is so well funded, that if the revenue from social security taxes were actually used for social security payments, the "scheme" would have such an enormous surplus that no-one would ever possibly imagine that there was any sort of "crisis" in funding the system. Maybe, if social security taxes were actually used only for social security, the SS taxes COULD be reduced, if neoliberalism were junked and we actually faced the fact that we need to pay more taxes for the other government functions that we seem to forever want.

Quote:The "just telling people to save doesn't work" argument has some merit if we're talking about a family paying exorbitant rent in a San Francisco ghetto, a patient with lifelong chronic illness or a worker who suffered a debilitating work injury with minimal payouts. But if we're talking, say, Republican boomer doctors, corporate managers and law partners?....yes, they can absolutely save for retirement as a group, and taking money from frontline workers (even if we did have a $15 minimum wage) to give it to them makes about as much sense a a parachute that opens on impact. 

Well, except many of them don't anyway; at least many upper middle class people don't. The "can" doesn't mean that they will.

Quote:The point of government aid is supposed to be about mending the snags that occasionally pop up in the market system when people need help to reintegrate into society. ex: 
- disabled people
- people who need a safety net for a few months in-between jobs
- forcing jobs to pay owed compensation due to grievance or services rendered
- taxes and regulations to account for negative externalities 
- relief for various unexpected disasters (ex: Flint Michigan) 

It was never intended to create an entire class of people (much less a disproportionately affluent one) who could comfortable rely on it for aid a quarter century after leaving the workforce.

This neoliberal doctrine, while perhaps plausible in the old days 40 years ago, is out of date in an economy where labor saving devices enable us all to work less, and in which they could provide us all a decent life while working less, IF ONLY the upper class did not monopolize ALL the benefit from these labor saving devices just because they have the power to do so. But such neoliberal, Reaganomic, market-oriented exhortations that social security is a ponzi scheme, and that people ought to earn their own way for all their lives and not depend on government, keep the 1% well endowed with ALL the benefits of the more-productive roboticized economy, and the rest of us subjected to substandard wages that keep us poor and dependent on the bosses.

Such an AI-endowed society, even if only a partial reality, certainly allows us to have a 20+year comfortable retirement, instead of subjecting ourselves (and especially those doing hard physical work) to a total lifetime of doing work for most of our lives. Gaining such a retirement is certainly worth the social security taxes that we pay, which are really quite modest compared to the high prices which the speculators and financiers and traders have imposed upon us through deregulation and globalization. And obviously, the SS benefits are quite modest too, nothing like the country club lifestyle you portray.

That is NOT a way to live if we want to attain fulfillment and rise to the potential that humans have, which is never attained merely through carrying out tasks to keep the economy going through advertising so people can spend money for things they don't really need or want, and keep the bosses from firing us despite the low wages and salaries they pay us.

If by "neo-liberal" you mean...basically what every Western Democracy does. Even if we look at, say, Sweden, they have much higher rates of savings because, even with more generous social programs, they have an attitude of "after a certain point, you are responsible for your own savings". It's society's job to give you the skills in order to function comfortably within society, but it isn't society's job to just provide you with a middle class job/income.

Before I continue though, are you asking for a push toward basic income? I have quite a few reservations if that's the case. Either way though, this might sound cruel, but....I think everyone needs to spend a little time being poor (including hundreds of spoiled mother fuckers I've interacted with. I'm not picking on the working class here). When you spend a good chunk of time having to worry about survival, budget, be resourceful, it changes you, gives you a combination of resilience and adaptability, but also quiet compassion, and a greater interest in solving tangible problems. Like, I'm not talking grinding poverty living in the ghetto or being unassisted with crippling illness, but enough for people to become a little more grounded. I'm pretty poor at the moment myself. I invest on the side, so I have my foot in the door to eventually make a lot more money, but my day job (retail worker) and the actual income (I can't withdraw any of that money for awhile) are solidly in the bottom quartile. My point in bringing this up isn't to talk about how I'm suffering, and certainly not to say I understand the situation of someone in life-threatening or abusive circumstances, but that the people I know who have never had to do this really don't have their head on straight, and I'm skeptical of the kind of spoiled world we would create if we just hand middle class living to people on a silver platter so they can focus on art all day. What college experience I had exposed me to some pretty nasty people who would have mellowed out quite a bit with just a little more struggle in life.


edit: this conversation is very much Civic knee-jerk reaction to overly internal societal focus vs Idealist knee-jerk reaction to an overly external societal focus

"Neoliberal" has been very well-defined now. Did you see the Monbiot video? It is also exactly what Hanauer refers to when he mentions "the ideological framework that got really-rolling under Reagan, and the rest is history..." and "It is an intimidation tactic masquerading as economic theory"... very well stated.

No, I don't think anyone needs to spend anytime being poor, but some time spent making a living on your own instead of depending on government or parents is probably a good experience. But I would not judge someone as having the wrong perspective on life if they haven't done this. I don't agree with judging people based on "people I know" either. What we need is more ability to empoathize, and if this takes working for a living on one's own, or just better education and higher consciousness, it's all the same to me.

What is society's job may have to be more generous if we take away peoples' ability to make a decent living from a job. That's true whether we have replaced jobs with machines, or whether through neoliberalism we enable bosses to fail to pay people what they have rightfully earned.





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