DOGE Spending Cuts

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Originally Posted by Back

Selling the American people on 401K for their retirement is an entire other issue. I never thought that putting pensions into the pockets of corporations was a sound retirement plan for the fact that the corporations benefit from all that hard earned employee capitol and because there is risk in the market.

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Lets be real though... there was a pandemic. 1.1 million Americans and over 7 million people died world wide. We can second guess ourselves but we did the best with what we knew at the time. Measures were taken for safety not some diabolical scheme of political punishment. I think less Americans might have died if there was less misinformation being thrown around at the time.

And yep. After the pandemic the rich came out ahead (as they always do) and we got stuck with higher prices for everything.

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I'm suggesting this: If there is a financial crisis of any kind that is one of the things our government is here to protect US from. I mean citizens and corporations. Its up to the government to come up with a solution. I do not think that cutting services to all Americans should be the solution when corporations and billionaires are taking in record profits. In fact I see it as the corporations and billionaires taking in record profits are the real cause of any economic problems of the average American.

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Goddamn Back you are fucking clueless. The 401k is a fucking pension plan with special tax incentives. Every business used to offer pensions and social security was created to supplement them. A lot of businesses got rid of pension plans because they decided social security was enough, but obviously it isn't.

You should be retiring with personal savings including paid off assets, a 401k, and social security.

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Originally Posted by Back

What a pleasant surprise to have you actually engage in discussion this morning. Serious!

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I'm always happy to have a conversation when someone is being reasonable. Not when they are being hysterical such as this:

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Originally Posted by Back

Having a billionaire tear down the longest running, most successful, and prosperous government in world history is reckless at best and deliberate at worst.

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What the hell does "most prosperous government" even mean? I think you mean the most prosperous COUNTRY in the world, and sometimes the US government helped that along, and at times (many, many times) the US has been prosperous despite the US government trying its hardest to make things difficult for people and companies.

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Originally Posted by Back

All the people being fired/asked to resign are citizens with families they have to support just like everyone else.

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Appeal to emotion garbage. So what's the theory? A government worker can clock in at 9AM, literally sit at their chair and play video games on their phone all day and clock out at 5PM with full pay and we have to keep paying this person because they have a family to support? Imagine how many government employees have been put out of work due to the invention and widespread usage of the computer! Let's have the government get rid of all computers and do everything manually again! Think of all of the people the government can employee! Innovation be damned!

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Originally Posted by Back

So you see this hack and slash as saving ourselves and the rest of the world from a big market crash?

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lol

What are you even saying here? That we have to keep funding the government at unsustainable levels and if a huge crash happens no big deal because we just have to get used to them because the government spends money like a drunken sailor?

Also when did I even say anything about the market crashing? I said the ECONOMY, you do know there is a difference right? I think you do, but when you steer the conversation towards the stock market you can pretend the only people who would get hurt are billionaires who have a lot of money tied up in the stock market, but when you talk about the economy crashing you know everyone, billionaires and people making minimum wage alike, will get screwed over.

The economy going to shit and the US dollar becoming completely worthless or even mostly worthless would hurt EVERYONE alike, again not just in the US but all over the world because a lot of the world trades in US dollars and depends on a strong American economy.

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Originally Posted by Gelston

Goddamn Back you are fucking clueless. The 401k is a fucking pension plan with special tax incentives. Every business used to offer pensions and social security was created to supplement them. A lot of businesses got rid of pension plans because they decided social security was enough, but obviously it isn't.

You should be retiring with personal savings including paid off assets, a 401k, and social security.

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If the market tanks your 401k tanks. That's a bad bet. The creation of the 401K let companies drop the whole pension idea screwing over the working class in favor of the corporations/owners not to mention filling the market with employee cash. It's one of the biggest swindles in history.

We pay taxes to the government and pay social security and Medicare our entire working lives. Why shouldn't we get one decent livable retirement from it?

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Originally Posted by Back

If the market tanks your 401k tanks. That's a bad bet.

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If the US government keeps spending unsustainable amounts of money the economy is going to crash and the dollar will become worthless or worth much less. That's a bad bet on social security.

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Originally Posted by Back

If the market tanks your 401k tanks. That's a bad bet. The creation of the 401K let companies drop the whole pension idea screwing over the working class in favor of the corporations/owners not to mention filling the market with employee cash. It's one of the biggest swindles in history.

We pay taxes to the government and pay social security and Medicare our entire working lives. Why shouldn't we get one decent livable retirement from it?

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Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and only legal because the government does it. It was never meant to be your only means of retirement. Traditional pensions died out because they were bankrupting companies so they quit doing them. Give me the money I put into this scam and I guarantee you that I will make more money and have a more secure retirement putting it into my own retirement account than I will have with Social Security. It's not the government's responsibility to take care of you when you get old. Or at all, really.

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Originally Posted by Tgo01

I'm always happy to have a conversation when someone is being reasonable. Not when they are being hysterical such as this:



What the hell does "most prosperous government" even mean? I think you mean the most prosperous COUNTRY in the world, and sometimes the US government helped that along, and at times (many, many times) the US has been prosperous despite the US government trying its hardest to make things difficult for people and companies.



Appeal to emotion garbage. So what's the theory? A government worker can clock in at 9AM, literally sit at their chair and play video games on their phone all day and clock out at 5PM with full pay and we have to keep paying this person because they have a family to support? Imagine how many government employees have been put out of work due to the invention and widespread usage of the computer! Let's have the government get rid of all computers and do everything manually again! Think of all of the people the government can employee! Innovation be damned!



lol

What are you even saying here? That we have to keep funding the government at unsustainable levels and if a huge crash happens no big deal because we just have to get used to them because the government spends money like a drunken sailor?

Also when did I even say anything about the market crashing? I said the ECONOMY, you do know there is a difference right? I think you do, but when you steer the conversation towards the stock market you can pretend the only people who would get hurt are billionaires who have a lot of money tied up in the stock market, but when you talk about the economy crashing you know everyone, billionaires and people making minimum wage alike, will get screwed over.

The economy going to shit and the US dollar becoming completely worthless or even mostly worthless would hurt EVERYONE alike, again not just in the US but all over the world because a lot of the world trades in US dollars and depends on a strong American economy.

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When you say our government makes things difficult for businesses or people what do you mean exactly? Are you were talking about regulations like not being able to dump poison into our drinking water and things like that? That's all capitalist propaganda from the owners whining and crying because they can't treat people like slaves, pollute the atmosphere, monopolize, and do unfair things to make money. You know why? Because they will if someone doesn't stop them.

You may not give a s*** about all the people losing their jobs but I do. They all are trying to survive just like we are. And who the hell are you to think that all of them just clock in and play video games all day? You don't have any proof of that. You're just repeating what you're told by Republican leadership. Don't tell me you're not because I hear that drunken sailor comment all the time.

If there is some financial disaster it's not the working class' fault. I still maintain that our government is there to protect us from something like that and shouldn't be cutting our services that we pay for to solve it. The billionaire class needs to step the f*** up.

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Originally Posted by Back

If the market tanks your 401k tanks. That's a bad bet. The creation of the 401K let companies drop the whole pension idea screwing over the working class in favor of the corporations/owners not to mention filling the market with employee cash. It's one of the biggest swindles in history.

We pay taxes to the government and pay social security and Medicare our entire working lives. Why shouldn't we get one decent livable retirement from it?

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You don’t have to invest in the stock market with your 401k/IRA. You can invest in treasury bonds if you are that concerned about risk and are willing to accept a piss poor ROI. There are ways you can invest your 401k/IRA into real estate, or precious metals, or even cryptocurrency if that’s your thing. Bet on whatever you want.

I partially agree 401ks marked the beginning of the end to corporate pension plans. It’s a lot more complicated than simply pointing to corporate greed though. In the 80s & even before we began transitioning from a primarily manufacturing economy to a service economy. We and the world had a population boom & increase in life expectancy. We were also starting the transition to a global competitive economy. It’s a sad reality, but corporations can no longer afford to give all their employees a gold watch, retirement pension, and health benefits for life at age 55. Those days are long gone.

Now you are beginning to sound like a capitalist & a conservative. Why should we pay social security & Medicare tax our entire working lives when we have absolutely no agency over what happens to that money? Why must we and our children continue to pay into a broken Ponzi scheme that only benefits current recipients and offers no guarantee it will be there for us when we retire? Why can’t we instead take the money we pay towards social security and invest it for ourselves instead of having the government (who absolutely sucks at managing anything financially) tell us what’s best with our money?

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Originally Posted by Back

If the market tanks your 401k tanks. That's a bad bet. The creation of the 401K let companies drop the whole pension idea screwing over the working class in favor of the corporations/owners not to mention filling the market with employee cash. It's one of the biggest swindles in history.

We pay taxes to the government and pay social security and Medicare our entire working lives. Why shouldn't we get one decent livable retirement from it?

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Give people the option to opt out of it and invest that money where they want then. And people like you who want to depend on the government can keep doing that. Sound good?

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Originally Posted by Methais

Give people the option to opt out of it and invest that money where they want then. And people like you who want to depend on the government can keep doing that. Sound good?

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Hey I'm all for figuring out a better plan as long as we all agree on it.

The only issue I see with that idea is if the people who choose to invest in the stock market lose the retirement because their investments don't do well we really can't leave them hanging, you know? So if we're bailing them out that's unfair to the people who didn't lose everything in their investment. So any solution would have to be an across the board solution for all participants.