Deacon wrote:Then where's the rest of it coming from? If they're not providing fully for the relaxed retirement of those who no longer wish to earn their own keep and would rather have you do it, then who's providing the rest?
Ideally, and this is not the case, the money put into the system gets invested, not spent, and so that covers a portion of it. However, I thought I already pointed out that this is support in the form of a supplement - so, where does the rest of it come from? From the individual being aided. Duh.
And why are people owed this help, especially when we're not talking about the mentally and physically disabled who are incapable of taking care of themselves, just people who wish to retire and take it easy without having to pay their own bills?
Because while, ideally, they
wouldn't be, idealism translates poorly into reality. So it's sort of the case of them being folded in with the people who I do want to help, unless you find good ways to weed
them (the first group) out from the second group.
You say that, but then after attempting to be condescending and patronizing you go on to say, in response to whether "I owe it to you to pay your mortgage, your car payment, your food and light bills, your water bill, a cruise here and there, maybe a flight out to see your grandkids, etc? Maybe a hulking RV?" that, "Seriously, though: No, but I don't believe in that, either." You want me to pay your mortgage for you, put food on your table, pay your medical bills, pay your electric bill, your heating bill, but you don't believe in that?
Not pay for, help pay for. There's a big difference. I don't believe in what you're saying, and I especially don't believe in cruises or anything that comes after that. None of that at all. As for help - just help, chipping in, not 'doing it for me' - with food (and water), home, heat, and maybe car payments (may vary from city to city) - yes. I thought I made it clear that both that is what I believe, and that I consider that to be rather distinct and NOT what you're hyperbolically throwing out trying to stuff a (partial?) straw man.
And on what grounds do you say that I owe it to you? On the grounds that you exist. Well, shit, I exist. Maybe you owe it to me.
Yes. In fact, I said as much.
So if I spend my life of shallow unfulfillment slacking off in the mail room, always being paid a fair wage that's agreeable to me, being provided health coverage and such, I should be able to just decide to start slacking off at home, now, and that company that's already provided fair compensation for my time should suddenly be saddled with the burden of paying my bills for me? What? Why? If it was part of an agreement I worked out with them when I first started or at some point during my employment there, then by all means the terms of such an agreement should be fulfilled, but otherwise where is the promise of a magical bottomless money jar from which a company should pay me to sit on my ass for the rest of my life?
I don't really believe that what you agreed to is probably, all told, fair. "Wholly agreeable" is a jar of worms, because no one would settle for less than the 'magical jar', if that was the case...
You're saying, unless I'm mistaken, that you believe you have a right to demand that, so much so that you believe the government should step in and be enforcing it.
Maybe not a right, but it's at least a
privilege that should exist, yes.
It's nebulous because you seem to view a business and the government as magical sugar daddies either way, and it's unclear because I don't remember a specific stance regarding Hillary's attempt to inject more communism into our government, but that seems like a reasonable conclusion.
First: I haven't ever been discussing Hillary's plan. Second: sugar daddies? No. Again, mind your hyperbole.
Someone who worked there a month shouldn't be able to draw much in the way of retirement benefits, even under my systems - as said above, duration of employment would be a large factor in determining benefits, even if it only counts as "paying X per time unit they're employed into some form of savings to be presented to them" on top of their wages.
I'm certain you're completely aware of the fact that you dodged the actual question, and it frustrates me that you've done so.
It seemed necessary, first, to point out that you're probably thinking of a much more significant chunk of money than I am. Anyway: Maybe it's a cost of doing business. Maybe some from the government, too, I mean they bail out plenty of businesses. All told?
I don't know, but I'm not going to write off that ignorance as impossibility.
The hell are you talking about? Unwilling to explore it? What do you think we're doing here?
I'm positing ideas or protoideas and you're wholly rejecting them out of hand and without much in the way of consideration. That's hardly an exploration.
And it's irrelevant anyway because it's already been explored. This is not some new and original idea you've come up with from the massive tsunami of intellectual might that is your wondrous and unique brain.
Is an experiment valid or invalid if it's only done once? Are the first people to consider an idea the only ones who can figure out if it works or it doesn't? It's been tried, yes; but based on how so many times it ends up looking alike or like derivations on a theme, I think that not all possible ways have been considered, and perhaps, tried. Either due to a lack of creativity, sabotage, a lack of vision, or just plain no one's come along with the right perspective yet, I don't think you can generalize "all ways don't work" as "nothing works".
Fix it how? How can it be fixed? Everyone would love to live in a land flowing with milk and honey and everyone can be comfy and happy and lazy and content. Who wouldn't?
Oh yes, everyone would. But the system I'm talking about and trying to find a way to make work doesn't exist to transport everyone to such a place (but rather see that people who can't - not won't, but can't, this bears reiteration again until it sinks in that, if nothing else, even if you disagree,
that's what I mean - can be provided for so they don't freeze, starve, go crazy, whatever) ... and if I knew how, I WOULDN'T BE ASKING THE QUESTION, WOULD I?
And no, "the market" isn't supposed to take care of you. You are supposed to take care of yourself.
...that's not what I meant. What I meant was, if there's demand for an idea, and proper incentive for the production thereof, market forces should push people towards trying to solve it.
It exists only as a collective of people all trying to take care of themselves and benefiting from the exchange of goods and services.
Ah, an economic implementation of the law of the jungle. Thus, on its own and left alone, my negative attitude towards it and all other forms of predatory anarchism.
And how exactly would this thing be "incentivised"?
Hmm ... Ever heard of the X-Prize?
If someone is being used and taken for everything they have, they're unwilling to take the steps necessary to take care of themselves. Regardless, since you believe this is somewhat common,
It exists in some degree or another every time a contract is made with a power inequality favoring the employer, as well as the more you move into the service and labor industries, especially when labor is a 'buyer's market'.
why don't you go ahead and start your own company where people will be coddled by your generous pension plan that sits well with you. I by no means will stop you. I would love you to prove that it's possible and that a viable business model is a company's first priority being not staying in the black but rather cradling your retirees for the last 30 or 40 years of their lives. If you can pull it off or can point to a company that has, then I would love to see how they did it.
Oh, I'm well aware of that when it comes to business, in a neutral field ethics are liabilities. As it stands, trying to do so on my own it probably wouldn't work unless I hit some sort of lucky break that couldn't be generalized.
Speaking again of incentives, and naked market greed as a motivator, I do believe that if you made that a part of staying both in the black and within the bounds of the law, people would figure out a way. Which might be one way to do it. Maybe remove the fact that you need to compete with people who don't ...
Also, because I'm going to keep doing it, cradling' is more care and money than I'm suggesting, except
maybe for vital and/or loyal employees who've given you years and years of service. Time ... and, I think, now, some sort of coefficient between service vs. ease of replacement ... would be big factors under a good system; as well as, now, naturally, you'd need to consider this vs. the number of other employers they've had to more equally distribute the burden.
And no, retirement isn't a right. It's something you work out for yourself should you desire to do so. And if you can't swing it for whatever reason, but you still want to kick back and take it easy, then it's up to you to find a way to do so. Generally this will involve assisting your family in some way in exchange for room and board. My best friend for a few years had a grandmother who's lived with his family for many years, as her husband had died, and she does things around the house (laundry, for instance, some cooking, picking up here and there, etc) and they're happy to have her.
And right or not, I don't believe that people should have to live like that to live.
Why? Why do you believe that strangers should have some of they money they're working to earn be taken away from them to provide a comfortable retirement for your parent? Why should you consider your parent living with you to be an undue burden but be completely fine with the idea of forcing everyone else to shoulder that burden for you so you can be rid of them? Come on...
It's not just me, but them, too. They shouldn't have to live with me just to live.
And I'll never be able to offer an explanation enough to satisfy you. It's a base disagreement in fundamental values. I care more about them, and you seem like you couldn't care less if they've made their mistakes, so you either don't really care at all or don't want to do anything about it.
It's amazing how well it seems to work in dirt-poor 3rd world countries, yet you think Americans can't swing it?
Where their costs are less? Sure. It is amazing. I also don't believe that it's either analogous or that we should devolve / consign parents living with us to third-world conditions to make it work.
I don't understand the question. You're talking about mentally competent adults working their entire adult lives without having heard of the concept of a budget or the idea of saving for retirement?
Seems like it based on the fact that so many people can't.
I honestly can't make sense of that. What are you asking?
You did that for your father, which come to think of it also wasn't even a case of what I was asking in the first place.
So fine. A restatement. Would you, personally, with your feelings on the matter on your sleeve, go door to door and tell people who're not family and you don't want to help, that they're losing their benefits both that they're losing them and that they deserve so, good luck?
You really ought to attain some skill and hold some job before making such assertions based on...nothing, that I can see.
Hrm? I've been employed. But I don't have to do so to notice a simple
fact of logic - unless you have an equal system, negotiations aren't equal. If there's more jobs than workers, then the workers negotiate from a stronger position than the employer; if there's more workers than jobs then the employer negotiates from a much stronger position; and this is especially at the far ends where this disparity of numbers is bigger - it's mutual in the sense that they both agree to it, but - aha, failure of terminology, sorry. It's not equal or even or equitable, even if they mutually agree to it.
It wouldn't be right then, either. And I really don't appreciate you suggesting you'd pray for my demise.
Still, it answers your question - do I think you'd be due help
if you needed it? Yes.
(emphasis on the important qualifiers)
Also: Your demise? Oh, hell no. I'd want you to live.
And it's nothing more nasty - in fact a bit nicer - than some things you've said to me in a similar vein in similar threads. <3
Spero, you ninja'd me. I'm not ignoring you, I just have no time to reply to you at the moment.
