this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
328 points (99.7% liked)

United States | News & Politics

7321 readers
467 users here now

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] themeatbridge 226 points 1 year ago (35 children)

On an unrelated note, suddenly, boomers care about affordable housing for no apparent reason.

[–] [email protected] 87 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For them. Everyone else needs to use their bootstraps.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Suddenly boomers believe in a massive increase to social security taxes to pay for them.

I look forward to watching them die off.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (33 replies)
[–] [email protected] 107 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I blame the removal of pensions and replacement with inadequate 401k plans.

Social security was never meant to be a retirement plan.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Maybe it should be. Decoupling retirement and Wall Street would probably let us take a more honest look at the costs and benefits of for profit corporations in our society.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

We need regulations (laws) to make them viable for retirement.

A forced match plus a 10% pay paid for by the employer.

Most people just can’t save enough in a 401k to make it solid retirement program. You’re capped at little under 20k a year. I may mine every year.

I wouldn’t even mind a national pension plan or something similar.

The current system isn’t viable for many reasons.

My mom is retired but she has two pensions and social equity plus some other income. She’s in a rare spot that she’s very comfortable in retirement.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

agreed. retirement and healthcare should not be tied to employment. Want a snazzier retirement. Fine that is 401k/ira material. Retirement plus health insurance should be enough to pay for a retirment home private room where you won't be molested (i.e. - pays enough that folks don't want to lose their job)

[–] Eldritch 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Actually, it kind of literally was. Though it's frustrating how common it is for people to share that misconception.

[–] AdolfSchmitler 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

AFAIK it literally wasn't. It was meant to be "one leg" of a "three-legged stool". One leg was Social Securty, one leg was company pensions, and the third leg was personal retirement savings.

[–] Eldritch 5 points 1 year ago

The thing is. Not every company had pensions. And almost none do today. The concept of personal retirement savings is not something that has ever been reliable adequate or common throughout most of human history. Both are literally the reason Social Security was enacted. It is literally a retirement syatem/social safety net. To make sure that the elderly do not starve die or fall to homelessness in their old age.

Check out question 4 on this page on the actual Social Security Administration website.

Q4: Is it true that Social Security was originally just a retirement program?

A: Yes. Under the 1935 law, what we now think of as Social Security only paid retirement benefits to the primary worker.

I don't blame anyone for thinking that it isn't though. Fascists/capitalists in the United States have spent decades upon decades. Honestly nearly the last 100 years trying to destroy/raid the fund for their own benefit. And gaslighting everyone else.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] derf82 19 points 1 year ago

Or more accurately, social security should be a proper national pension plan. Fund it by increasing contribution rates and uncapping contributions.

I stick with my underpaid government job solely for my state pension. At 55, I can start to get 70% of my final salary guaranteed, with annual COLA adjustments. I may not be rich in retirement, but I can get by.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 96 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They should cut back on avocado toast and get rid of cable.

[–] dhork 35 points 1 year ago

They should get rid of that land line, you know they still have one

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago (3 children)

"Fuck you, I got mine" turns into "Fuck, they got mine".

Maybe voting just for soi and against vous wasn't that clever after all? Will they stop voting Republican?

[–] KaiReeve 23 points 1 year ago

Unfortunately, no. They're going to watch Fox News talk about how this is all Biden's fault and only the GOP can save them from suffering the same fate. They will continue to follow the same pied Piper that led them here.

[–] PP_BOY_ 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Dear Boomers,

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. [YOU ARE HERE]

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have they tried trickle down economics or maybe pulling themselves up by their bootstraps??

[–] tacosplease 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Enlarged prostate and arthritis are making that difficult

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

It’s a good thing they have an easy to use heath care system to rely on!!

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh no! It's the consequences of my own actions!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] TheWoozy 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure there were Zero homeless boomers during the great depression.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Anyone here who comments about how they deserved this fate or how they got what was coming to them needs to grow the fuck up.

There are very, very few people in this world who have done something bad enough to have this kind of condition even be remotely justified. They're gonna either be on the streets or in basic Medicaid nursing homes for the rest of their lives. Many will get beaten and robbed. Many will probably just commit suicide to avoid the nightmarish conditions. And people here are celebrating this?!

Newsflash, the baby boomer generation are also people who also deserve to have someone give a shit about them. You people are sick.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Enjoying the trickle down of piss? This is what you wanted

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Bruh they were and still are brainwashed by so much anticommunist propaganda. They had to survive in those material conditions, and if they made it they had to buy into the lie of American Exceptionalism for their prosperity and not the Dollar becoming the worlds reserve currency and propping up European Social Democracy, Dictators, and Kings. They reaped benefits they were actively being kept in the dark about, if they are waking up cause piss is tricking down their face, i will still celebrate them waking up. We need all the people we can to wake up and realize how the elite have stolen from the working class and are only taking more and more as we continue to kill our planet to give them more wealth...

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] InverseParallax 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Like there aren't babyboomers who also have nonsay in policies and those that haven't struggled their entire lives

The more things change, the more they stay the same

[–] InverseParallax 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

As a genx I had to struggle my whole life.

Because boomers around me were arrogant morons who didn't understand they didn't understand anything, and they weren't entitled just for being born.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm also genX and know boomers all across the spectrum from malicious to entitled to regular people to fantastic human beings - kind of like every other group or generation of people

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] crystalmerchant 7 points 1 year ago

There are many books and at least one Oscar-winning movie about this

load more comments
view more: next ›