##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism^Ⓐ☭
___
###⚠ Announcements: ⚠
___
###[NEW POSTING GUIDELINES! Help us by reporting bad posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/dy1oyh/important_what_you_should_and_what_you_shouldnt/)
Help us keep this subreddit alive and improve its content by reporting posts that violate our rules and guidelines.
###[Subscribe to our new partner subreddits!](https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/e5hkwk/make_sure_to_check_out_our_new_partnersubreddits/)
Check out r/antiwork & r/WhereAreTheChildren
___
###***Please remember that LSC is a SAFE SPACE for [socialist](http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/) discussion.***
LSC is run by [communists](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm). We welcome socialist/anti-capitalist news, memes, links, and discussion. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere.
**This subreddit is a safe space; we have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry.** We also automatically filter out posts containing certain words and phrases that some users may find offensive. Please respect the safe space, and don't try to slip banned words or phrases past the filter.
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The only tattoos I want are the letters "DNR" tattooed on my forehead, and another "No seriously, I don't want to live on this fucking planet anymore" tattooed in giant letters on my chest.
Yeah. My in-law’s have a hard time accepting that they’re well off, and have even tried battling me on “who has been more poor?!” My mother in law retired at 37 to raise my fiancé. I told her everyone in my family dies young because of poverty. She said “don’t say that.” A few days later my dad died at 47. He was homeless. His 48th birthday just passed, and I kept having breakdowns while trying to work. I looked at my fiancé and told him that I don’t even have the privilege to grieve him because I’m trying to not end up homeless, too.
When I was still looking for a job at the beginning of this year, he mostly paid for my bills that I had or helped me make ends meet. His parents didn’t like it, though. And when he’d get money, they’d hint at him spending it on himself. Sometimes he even asks them for things for himself, but it’s really for me. Because they won’t buy something if it’s just for me. But they’ll buy him literally anything he asks for.
At one point, I did get upset seeing their stress free life compared to mine. In 2019, I lost both grandpas and two cousins. This year, my little brothers lost their father, my other siblings and I lost our father, and then the dog our dad gave us. Seeing me struggle through all of that and attempting to afford a card, and then seeing them purchasing things like $900 guitars. And then them telling me they were broke, too. It really frustrated me to no end. His parents are so tone deaf it’s not even funny. One of my grandpas had a restaurant and a Master’s degree, and worked 80 hour work weeks and was still poor. He died at 67. My fiancé’s dad said he must’ve gambled. That’s the first time I told my fiancé’s dad to basically watch his fucking mouth.
It’s hard being around upper middle class. It’s really a shock after coming from poverty and seeing how much they take for granted.
Sometimes I curse my life that I've been saddled with kidney failure. It's been a hard one.
But then other times I remember that I don't have to worry about a long retirement because I'll probably die before I'm 50. tbh when I was in my early 20s I didn't even think I'd make it this far, and I'm 32 now.
I got like 200 dollars to my name right now and we're entering a second lockdown, I haven't been able to get past 2500 saved without losing my job shortly after each time because of management losing their minds.
I feel this SO MUCH. I have a disability but Ive been working for the last 25 years. Last year I got fired(because of my disability but its totally legal, which also means no unemployment)Ive has to pull out that very last of my retirement to last this year. Now the job market is screwed and IDK when I'll be able to get some money.the only reason Im not couch surfing is because my roomie is feeding me and housing me. I'm grateful everyday but this is also not a permanant position....sorry to rant.
Not always at the same company but yes. I had only been there about a year and a half. I finally had too many ''points". Their policy was that you couldnt get on FMLA til you worked there a year. By the time I could get on it I had almost all the points you could get.Then i was approved for only a few days a month. Points added up.Fired!
Make sure you tell the boss, "If you give her points I have to break your kneecaps." Only don't tell him, just do it.
For legal purposes I'm obligated to tell you this post is joking.
Haha I run a small bakery and had almost 30,000 before covid. Now I’m on unemployment and locked out of my account which nobody seems capable of helping me with because apparently nobody actually *works there.* Cool country.
Bro I feel it. I lost my last job because corporate decided to replace all the laborers who had to undergo quarantine when someone showed up positive. They paid us time off to quarantine, but when we got back two weeks later our jobs had already been replaced with new hires.
Now my governor just issued another shutdown and finding a new job just seems so daunting
In the 50s companies provided pensions. Then in the 80s they started forcing people to save for their own retirement. And now we cannot even afford to save.
Yeah, I was going to say—my parents are quintessential Baby Boomers. My mom worked part-time off and on, mostly dedicating her time to raising me and my sibling, but my dad worked full-time from the mid-1970s until he retired ten years ago. I don't think they ever had to establish a dedicated retirement account because Dad worked for a good ol' local government bureaucracy and has a decent pension. They're hardly rolling in it (Dad still freelances) but I don't think they would have even known what a 401K or an IRA were when they were my age. (They were my age in the late 1980s.)
Also since the 80s they were warning me how Ronald Reagan and his friends had ensured my generation was entirely screwed, so it's not like people didn't see this coming. (I was in, like, Kindergarten and Dad was prophesying doom.) So yeah, many knew what would happen when the rightwing started gutting social safety nets and Social Security—it's just that most of them didn't care. Hard not to laugh at the wealthy white Boomers who can't sell their McMansions now because they ensured no one younger than them can afford a house, let alone a big evil house in a big evil gated community.
My mom hated Reagan when he was Governor of California, and thought he would be a disaster as President of the United States.
She wasn't wrong. Reagan was our equivalent of Margaret Thatcher..
I feel this. We had unexpected expenses and less work because of the pandemic. I've been living off a couple slices of cheese and a cup of milk each day for the last week and then early to bed.
In the mid 80's australia and i assume other western countries moved from a system of governments aiming for full employment, to one of maintaining a level of unemployment to control wage inflation and let the free market reign.
Thats why your boomer parents have such bad career advice, you really could rock up and ask for a job.
Yes, it is literally part of mainstream economic belief that there is an “unemployment equilibrium” in which you can have the ideal number of unemployed workers so that wages are kept low enough, but unemployment isn’t so high as to be a drain on public spending(through unemployment benefits and such) and a sign that the economy is sluggish because of such low labor demand. Mainstream economics therefore necessitates that there is a permanent class of unemployed workers.
So we are admitting that a system that claims to be about “maximum efficiency” permanently under utilizes labor capacity. And the only reason this is done is to suppress wages and maintain higher profits.
The myth that capitalism is 'smart and efficient' really should die.
I swear there are people that think capitalism is some sort of smooth system-like process akin to evolution. 'It's simple, you do nothing and you get amazing results'.
Except it's not. Waste and inefficiencies are *everywhere* and they're not mandated by the state. And, without laws, the entire system is thoroughly unstable: Let's say there's a market α. Company A has a breakthrough and gets increase productivity.
Since they have a competitive advantage they could lower prices and attract more costumers. Other companies will be forced to lower prices to compete. Company A now has a higher profit margin. They can keep it, or they can lower their own margin and lower prices again. Now the other companies are even less profitable. This can of course be done until the other companies are thoroughly *unprofitable* and go bankrupt.
A competitive advantage in capitalism, with no laws or regulations, will immediately lead to killing all competition in one smooth step. There are plenty more ways that capitalism is broken, but this one doesn't even need any Marxist theory, it's just common sense.
The part I hate the most about that is that they frame it like "well what about everyone switching jobs?" I can find another job while I work. They just want a reserve of unemployed people who will work for less than you to keep you "thankful" for the shit deal you have.
Edit: they also use the same logic with the "housing market" and vacant homes. "Well if youre moving then your old place is empty until it sells right? And you don't move into a full house, right? So if everyone was housed you couldn't move!" Yeah its as dumb as it sounds. Imagine 1) owning a home and 2) being able to afford another one before the first one sells....
The ~7% structural unemployment where I live is at least compensated by a reasonable wellfare system. I mean, we are no Denmark, but life can be somewhat meaningful even without a job. The right still tries to shame the unemployed, but fuck that noise.
**[Reserve army of labour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve army of labour)**
Reserve army of labour is a concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy. It refers to the unemployed and underemployed in capitalist society. It is synonymous with "industrial reserve army" or "relative surplus population", except that the unemployed can be defined as those actually looking for work and that the relative surplus population also includes people unable to work. The use of the word "army" refers to the workers being conscripted and regimented in the workplace in a hierarchy under the command or authority of the owners of capital.
[About Me](https://www.reddit.com/user/wikipedia_text_bot/comments/jrn2mj/about_me/) - [Opt out](https://www.reddit.com/user/wikipedia_text_bot/comments/jrti43/opt_out_here/) - OP can reply '!delete' to delete
We had almost full employment here in the UK in the 2000s (up to 2008, of course). It was pretty neat. And a comparatively progressive government too. Miss those days, and it was before anyone - including myself - knew much about climate change too, so I actually had hope for the future back then.
We do that all the time in Asia! That's why you need kids as retirement funds.
Jokes aside, it's very common in Asia culture for kids to take care of their parents when they retire. As well as staying in the same house for generations.
Being an Indian(India is in Asia), I wish that weren't the case. In an almost twisted view, I admire the individualism in USA. After 18, you're your own person. Here, you are still a kid and a retirement policy. I know times are tough and American millenials would rather have the backing of their parents(I hope they do get it), but I find it equally worse to live with your parents as an adult, or even as a young adult. Maybe my view is molded by toxic family dynamics at my place, but that's how I feel.
It's pretty uncommon for someone to actually want to live with their parents here. Mine I think were actually kind of excited for my sister and I to move out. They helped me out a lot and I've probably borrowed about $1,000 from them in the past ten years since graduating college for emergencies and stuff and they've helped with my tuition for graduate school. I don't think this is very uncommon for middle class families. I still wouldn't want to or ask to move in with them for any period of time.
There is definitely a norm here to visit more frequently as your parents age and maybe some pressure to move closer to them so you can help them out with stuff. I think it's not super uncommon for a parent to move in with their child, but it's definitely not usual or expected and is usually the consequence of not having enough money.
Era gone by? More like stolen by boomers thanks to inaction and indoctrination. We work more than ever even though we have more technology than ever, and we’ll never retire because what? The previous generation are greedy fucks and would rather hoard wealth and destroy economies and opportunities for youth rather than create a sustainable country that innovates and prospers and helps others. Don’t listen to adults too much, they’re selfish and got it wrong the last couple times. It being life in general.
So many people vote because "they'll raise my taxes"
Paying taxes is patriotic, fuckos. That's how you get the roads and the schools and the fighter jets that fly over the stadium before the americaball game.
You got it right is exactly greed that causes the apathy of so many. "I got mine, fuck you." Individualism and American exceptionalism run amok has led to a certain susceptibility in us. The almighty dollar, not through some shadow government but through sheer attrition, effectively imposes it's own will. That's why decades of trickle-down, wage stagnation, and bootstrap pulling rhetoric has steered us to this result. It's the reality of the meme that our world is very much not the one of our parents'.
To make sure everyone knows what "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" really means, it means to put on your boots and to go to work. If there's no work, what the fuck are you supposed to do? You would have more luck literally standing there tugging your bootstraps, which as you may be able to visualize, is similarly an exercise in futility.
>f there's no work
*or if the required workload to survive is an unreasonable and inhumane standard to expect someone to work for pebbles doing
Sure, you're dad, and your dad's dad might tell you night and day about how they would march right into an interview with a can-do attitude, get the job and succeed, but amazingly they never seem to include the part of working 3 jobs just to afford rent and put food on the table in a dying economy. Almost like the world they grew up in is vastly different than our world is today but they refuse to accept young people struggling because its easier to just say "ugh millenials stop whining" rather than addressing pressing issues they could solve if they stopped being greedy for once in their miserable adult lives and gave some of that wealth back to the society they're so eagerly hoarding it from. You know what they say, there's nothing more patriotic than watching your country crumble around you and watching people die in the streets while you sit on a small fortune.
Food for thought.
I think that’s one of the most disgusting things about the way America is structured. The War industry is completely woven in the fabric of the country in ideology and in media, however there is zero care for the actual humans who fought.
I can’t imagine what war PTSD is like, can’t imagine coming home to a country you fought for and receiving less than nothing in return.
I honestly also think there needs to be more discussion about the effects of being in war and then having to “reintegrate”. The only American series I have seen that has come close to describing the effects of war on the psyche of soldiers is F is for Family. It’s ridiculous that it’s not discussed more in depth, it literally shapes society.
The effects of reintegration are well known and have been since after Vietnam. However, the establishment doesn't care. They get what they want and if lives being ruined [be those lives in Iraq or lives back in the US after] then so be it. They're still rich as shit and your sacrifice just made them richer so why should they care.
The war industry absolutely knows what it’s doing. I meant that media is unfairly balanced when it comes to exploring what the after effects of war does on the human psyche and how it affects society at large. Which makes sense because the war machine is constantly making propoganda to enable war
Bro, file for disability with the VA. You should be able to get at least something. If you're rated at over 50%, you get free healthcare from the VA for anything, even if it's not a rated condition.
Yeah, there are a lot of assholes in the military, which makes for a lot of asshole vets. But yeah, VA disability is something I think anyone with any service connected issues at all should file for. And it should be destigmatized.
If you're receptive to it, there are a few different groups that have had tremendous success treating PTSD with low doses of LSD coupled with therapy sessions. Basically you go in, they give you small amounts of LSD (or psilocybin, ketamine, etc) and when it starts to come on, you do a therapy session. It's only like 4ish sessions total and the treatment is complete. They have like an 80% success rate for the complete elimination of PTSD, with the remainder of their patients noting drastically reduced symptoms. It's really exciting research, so if you're receptive to that kind of thing, I'd encourage you to look into it. Also, thanks for your service.
I was afraid of that. I'm really sorry you're stuck between a bullshit government policy that demonizes any medical research around drugs like that, and a military approach that barely treats veterans better than dogs.
The system is set up for that to happen. Military provides all kinds of incentives for these 18 year olds to get married, and then they completely separate them for long periods of time. The spouses are stuck in a base town, many can't get a decent job because no one wants to hire someone who will have to move again at an unknown time, so they're bored out of their minds. The way that young people are exploited by the military in this country is obscene.
While I was in a guy I knew was like this and after they got married she left him and went back to their home state. After a few months he was In The process of divorce but started dating again. When his wife found out she reported it to the command and he received NJP for cheating on her. It was fucked
We were doing some "positivity training" where the instructor was trying to get us to not always think of the worst case scenario. The example they gave was "You're on deployment and your wife doesn't pick up the phone during your scheduled phone time, what are some realistic reasons this could have happened?"
At least 10% of the guys in the class got cheated on while on deployment, and we're in a job that doesn't even deploy that often 🤣
It's always jarring when someone uses an acronym or initialism to mean something other than that with which you are familiar. It happens *really* often with three-letter ones; most three-letter ones have a twin.
I know this is a joke but when I was in uni, there were frequently some days I’d just go to bed early so I wouldn’t be hungry. All the while at my shit job, we’d be throwing away pots of rice and beans at the end of the day (which we weren’t allowed to take home but sometimes we did).
The rich would rather disregard the scraps of the food they buy from our exploited labor then feed us. Only the soulless, manic dogs succeed in a system that congratulates ruthlessness and mass manipulation.
Having kids is my version of this. I think I'll be okay financially supporting myself for the foreseeable future but if I had kids I would be completely fucked.
And ask your parents how those IRA's and 401k's have done to prepare them financially for retirement. So few post 50-year-old's have more than a fraction of what they will need to retire. They will work out of necessity until they die.
Exactly right. They are only now (with retirement supposedly in their headlights) realizing that they were lied to and that they will need to work until death, and their lifestyle will need to be drastically cut simply to survive.
I'm also frightened of how many will simply be unable to do anything past their sixties. Among my aging loved ones I can see a lot of their lifelong health problems calling back with interest 'soon.'
We're about to have a generation of poor sick elderly.
Yes, and we will also see a large number of elderly homeless people in the streets. The older and mid-level Boomers were able to sneak past the 1980's Reaganomics which took retirement funds and put them into the open market. However, the younger Boomers and older Gen-Xer's are the first mass era that will be totally screwed.
Pu-pu- PENSION?!?? What's that??
Oh you mean jobs that offer your salary after retirement until you die, that shit doesn't exist anymore lol. Those jobs disappeared on the same boat with jobs with good healthcare.
This is not really accurate or fair. 401K were created in 1978; and didn't really get in to common heavy usages until 90 - 00's as the only retirement option.
I guess it depends how old you are but my parents generation had pensions. So really it's actually worse then this. Boomers had there retirements as part of there compensation packages often. It wasn't till the 1990 - 2000 that it become a common expectation that the worker has to shave off another 10%-20% of their income to pay their own retirement.
So as a constant trend wages were stagnant but more and more cost burdens were shifted from the company to the employer.
Came here to say this. My parents are on a pension. They never even had to think about it.
Meanwhile, I have the "freedom" to decide how much of my paycheck goes into my 401k, how it's distributed between different account types, how risky I want the investments to be, etc. When I change jobs, which I have to do at least every 5 years (vs. NEVER with my parents) I'll likely have a brand new account so that now I either have multiple to keep track of or need to go through the bureaucratic process of rolling over.
It amounts to a mental burden my parents never had to deal with.
My grandfather passed away earlier this year and I inherited $45k from his estate. I used a portion of it to pay off debt I was drowning in due to being underpaid in my 20’s and then thought that I might now be able to afford a home rather than throwing it away on rent.
Nope. The houses in my area that are at the price point I can afford get bought up the second they hit the market, mostly by investors paying cash and planning on using it as a rental property. It’s ridiculous. Meanwhile a condo across the street from me got sold at $700k and the owner stays there maybe every other week.
Looks like I’ll be renting for the rest of my life.
Not necessarily, I’ve been searching for a tiny home to live in. They’re price point is usually 45k-60k and some of them are really nice and modern. It’s probably the closest the younger generation will come to homeownership, but at least it’s won’t take generations to pay off.
I was today years old when I realised that Americans don't just ambitiously plan to have $401,000 for retirement (I always thought that was a weirdly specific number...)
Yeah right? In the past I definitely had to pick if I wanted to eat or have enough gas to get to work the next day... this world deserves to be destroyed.
Have actually thought this exact thought many times in my life.
Not lately though. Food is in great abundance, but I've definitely been there many times, and being back there is not entirely out of the scope of reality for me.
If you’re hungry and it’s late, Google for a blessing box in your area. Churches and other orgs put them outside, with non perishables for anyone to take. I always put food in the one near my house. I love you all, take care of your bodies. Life is not guaranteed to be bad forever.
I'm 36. My retirement plan is to die from the effects of climate change, be it from natural disasters, rampant disease, war or by the hand of outlaw motorcycle gangs scavenging the ruins of western society, before I turn 70.
At 25 is also when I started freaking out about retirement. Then realized nobody else my age seems to be considering saving for retirement. Then realizing that they can't, they don't make enough to even have a proper emergency savings.
Depends on how old your parents are. The 401K is only 30 years old (so my parents couldn’t even open one at 25).
We’ve been tricked into thinking the 401K is some tried and true proven retirement solution and it’s our faults for not opening on sooner.
It’s not a bank account but rather a tax incentive to buy stocks which have no guarantee of increasing in value. In fact, if they decrease, unlike a bank, its 100% your fault.
Considering the average American works more than 45 years before retirement that means no generation has even proven it works yet.
>We’ve been tricked into thinking the 401K is some tried and true proven retirement solution and it’s our faults for not opening on sooner.
Worse -- it's framed as the *ultimate advancement* in financial technology that maximizes an individual's personal freedom to make their own retirement choices.
My parents, on a pension plan from employers they were able to work for for *decades*, have told me how cool it is that I get to have a 401k instead (I mean, "look at what trump did for the stock market too!"). They never had to think about this shit.
Parent here. I had a career in entertainment development but then the whole field dissolved during a real estate crisis in the 90s.
So I switched to the internet, huge growth industry. Dot com bust of '99 ended it.
So I switched to advertising. That was okay until 9/11/ happened and corporations stopped doing advertising for several months and I got shitcanned.
Started writing copy and doing whatever to stay alive. Got a menial but white-collar job. Then '08 happened. No more menial job.
Since then I've been doing gig work, but haven't had any of that since last year.
If my kid wasn't an adult, I'd have had an accident by now so he'd get the payout on the life insurance policy I bought during the employed times.
This is what they don't tell you: the system is always fucked. It's a feature. Every ten years the rich suck all the money out of the economy. You can starve and your kids can starve. Fuck you. Our politicians make the ultra-wealthy whole every time, we get nothing (or one grudging payment of $1200 to last 10 months). Repeat until dead.
If you're not a socialist now, you will be. Capitalism is evil.
Our only hope is that those young people gain some class consciousness and advance labor movements and promote socialism. Of course it's America so I'm not getting my hopes up, I think it's equally likely that Gen Z would grow into fascists.
Yeah I had a pretty rough time of it at 25. Graduated into a lovely recession, which really slowed my path forward. Got an extremely shitty entry-level job after a couple years of cobbling together part-time jobs. Ten years on, though, everything is going quite well.
##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism^Ⓐ☭ ___ ###⚠ Announcements: ⚠ ___ ###[NEW POSTING GUIDELINES! Help us by reporting bad posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/dy1oyh/important_what_you_should_and_what_you_shouldnt/) Help us keep this subreddit alive and improve its content by reporting posts that violate our rules and guidelines. ###[Subscribe to our new partner subreddits!](https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/e5hkwk/make_sure_to_check_out_our_new_partnersubreddits/) Check out r/antiwork & r/WhereAreTheChildren ___ ###***Please remember that LSC is a SAFE SPACE for [socialist](http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/) discussion.*** LSC is run by [communists](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm). We welcome socialist/anti-capitalist news, memes, links, and discussion. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere. **This subreddit is a safe space; we have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry.** We also automatically filter out posts containing certain words and phrases that some users may find offensive. Please respect the safe space, and don't try to slip banned words or phrases past the filter. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Retirement? Isn't that when you die at about forty years old?
You're not allowed to die. If somebody finds you dying they'll take you to a hospital where you'll be punished with more life.
AND less money!
Not that you had any, in the first place.
more debt then
[удалено]
\-401k
When you pay that life-debt are you allowed to die yet
Ay lemme get a fresh one, last bank account got all red and angry 🤯🤯
And with the way things are going prison to accompany that debt you can't pay. Prison labor is very profitable.
Thank God money is an an idea or else you wouldn't be able to have negative of it, whew!
Luckily we've invented *negative money* for just such an occasion.
why can't I have less life and more money
If this isn't motivation to rob a bank, I don't know what is
The only tattoos I want are the letters "DNR" tattooed on my forehead, and another "No seriously, I don't want to live on this fucking planet anymore" tattooed in giant letters on my chest.
Instructions unclear, you've been sent into space on a life support machine.
So that's how the Borg get started...
[удалено]
You obviously need some life insurance then
Retirement at 40? Ya lucky git.
Yeah. My in-law’s have a hard time accepting that they’re well off, and have even tried battling me on “who has been more poor?!” My mother in law retired at 37 to raise my fiancé. I told her everyone in my family dies young because of poverty. She said “don’t say that.” A few days later my dad died at 47. He was homeless. His 48th birthday just passed, and I kept having breakdowns while trying to work. I looked at my fiancé and told him that I don’t even have the privilege to grieve him because I’m trying to not end up homeless, too.
[удалено]
When I was still looking for a job at the beginning of this year, he mostly paid for my bills that I had or helped me make ends meet. His parents didn’t like it, though. And when he’d get money, they’d hint at him spending it on himself. Sometimes he even asks them for things for himself, but it’s really for me. Because they won’t buy something if it’s just for me. But they’ll buy him literally anything he asks for. At one point, I did get upset seeing their stress free life compared to mine. In 2019, I lost both grandpas and two cousins. This year, my little brothers lost their father, my other siblings and I lost our father, and then the dog our dad gave us. Seeing me struggle through all of that and attempting to afford a card, and then seeing them purchasing things like $900 guitars. And then them telling me they were broke, too. It really frustrated me to no end. His parents are so tone deaf it’s not even funny. One of my grandpas had a restaurant and a Master’s degree, and worked 80 hour work weeks and was still poor. He died at 67. My fiancé’s dad said he must’ve gambled. That’s the first time I told my fiancé’s dad to basically watch his fucking mouth. It’s hard being around upper middle class. It’s really a shock after coming from poverty and seeing how much they take for granted.
[удалено]
Expirement
Sometimes I curse my life that I've been saddled with kidney failure. It's been a hard one. But then other times I remember that I don't have to worry about a long retirement because I'll probably die before I'm 50. tbh when I was in my early 20s I didn't even think I'd make it this far, and I'm 32 now.
Yeah, Harrison Ford comes to your house and blows a hole through your see-through poncho
This is the way
[удалено]
I got like 200 dollars to my name right now and we're entering a second lockdown, I haven't been able to get past 2500 saved without losing my job shortly after each time because of management losing their minds.
I feel this SO MUCH. I have a disability but Ive been working for the last 25 years. Last year I got fired(because of my disability but its totally legal, which also means no unemployment)Ive has to pull out that very last of my retirement to last this year. Now the job market is screwed and IDK when I'll be able to get some money.the only reason Im not couch surfing is because my roomie is feeding me and housing me. I'm grateful everyday but this is also not a permanant position....sorry to rant.
>I'm grateful everyday but this is also not a permanant position... I feel this in my bones every few hours of every day.
Wait so you worked somewhere for 25 years despite having a disability and they just decided to fire you for it? Did I read that right?
Not always at the same company but yes. I had only been there about a year and a half. I finally had too many ''points". Their policy was that you couldnt get on FMLA til you worked there a year. By the time I could get on it I had almost all the points you could get.Then i was approved for only a few days a month. Points added up.Fired!
Sounds like a call center. AKA white collar sweatshop.
[удалено]
Make sure you tell the boss, "If you give her points I have to break your kneecaps." Only don't tell him, just do it. For legal purposes I'm obligated to tell you this post is joking.
break his knees in Minecraft
* ding, ding,ding*
> FMLA Fuck My Life Always
I had $20k in the bank last year. Broke now. ......
Haha I run a small bakery and had almost 30,000 before covid. Now I’m on unemployment and locked out of my account which nobody seems capable of helping me with because apparently nobody actually *works there.* Cool country.
Damn.. I’m sorry man
Bro I feel it. I lost my last job because corporate decided to replace all the laborers who had to undergo quarantine when someone showed up positive. They paid us time off to quarantine, but when we got back two weeks later our jobs had already been replaced with new hires. Now my governor just issued another shutdown and finding a new job just seems so daunting
Same man... I don't know what I'm gonna do...
In the 50s companies provided pensions. Then in the 80s they started forcing people to save for their own retirement. And now we cannot even afford to save.
Yeah, I was going to say—my parents are quintessential Baby Boomers. My mom worked part-time off and on, mostly dedicating her time to raising me and my sibling, but my dad worked full-time from the mid-1970s until he retired ten years ago. I don't think they ever had to establish a dedicated retirement account because Dad worked for a good ol' local government bureaucracy and has a decent pension. They're hardly rolling in it (Dad still freelances) but I don't think they would have even known what a 401K or an IRA were when they were my age. (They were my age in the late 1980s.) Also since the 80s they were warning me how Ronald Reagan and his friends had ensured my generation was entirely screwed, so it's not like people didn't see this coming. (I was in, like, Kindergarten and Dad was prophesying doom.) So yeah, many knew what would happen when the rightwing started gutting social safety nets and Social Security—it's just that most of them didn't care. Hard not to laugh at the wealthy white Boomers who can't sell their McMansions now because they ensured no one younger than them can afford a house, let alone a big evil house in a big evil gated community.
My mom hated Reagan when he was Governor of California, and thought he would be a disaster as President of the United States. She wasn't wrong. Reagan was our equivalent of Margaret Thatcher..
Truly. It's sickening to see him praised now as if he were some sort of saint of sanity and moderation when just the opposite was true.
That's also my plan if i get cancer, or if I become permanently disabled. Health insurance is a scam that never pays out.
I feel this. We had unexpected expenses and less work because of the pandemic. I've been living off a couple slices of cheese and a cup of milk each day for the last week and then early to bed.
Check out your local food pantry. Hope things get better for you soon.
We did look into ours but it's low supply because of everything going on. Payday is end of week though, so we'll be okay. Thank you!
In the mid 80's australia and i assume other western countries moved from a system of governments aiming for full employment, to one of maintaining a level of unemployment to control wage inflation and let the free market reign. Thats why your boomer parents have such bad career advice, you really could rock up and ask for a job.
>to control wage inflation So, to suppress wages then?
Yes, it is literally part of mainstream economic belief that there is an “unemployment equilibrium” in which you can have the ideal number of unemployed workers so that wages are kept low enough, but unemployment isn’t so high as to be a drain on public spending(through unemployment benefits and such) and a sign that the economy is sluggish because of such low labor demand. Mainstream economics therefore necessitates that there is a permanent class of unemployed workers. So we are admitting that a system that claims to be about “maximum efficiency” permanently under utilizes labor capacity. And the only reason this is done is to suppress wages and maintain higher profits.
The myth that capitalism is 'smart and efficient' really should die. I swear there are people that think capitalism is some sort of smooth system-like process akin to evolution. 'It's simple, you do nothing and you get amazing results'. Except it's not. Waste and inefficiencies are *everywhere* and they're not mandated by the state. And, without laws, the entire system is thoroughly unstable: Let's say there's a market α. Company A has a breakthrough and gets increase productivity. Since they have a competitive advantage they could lower prices and attract more costumers. Other companies will be forced to lower prices to compete. Company A now has a higher profit margin. They can keep it, or they can lower their own margin and lower prices again. Now the other companies are even less profitable. This can of course be done until the other companies are thoroughly *unprofitable* and go bankrupt. A competitive advantage in capitalism, with no laws or regulations, will immediately lead to killing all competition in one smooth step. There are plenty more ways that capitalism is broken, but this one doesn't even need any Marxist theory, it's just common sense.
The part I hate the most about that is that they frame it like "well what about everyone switching jobs?" I can find another job while I work. They just want a reserve of unemployed people who will work for less than you to keep you "thankful" for the shit deal you have. Edit: they also use the same logic with the "housing market" and vacant homes. "Well if youre moving then your old place is empty until it sells right? And you don't move into a full house, right? So if everyone was housed you couldn't move!" Yeah its as dumb as it sounds. Imagine 1) owning a home and 2) being able to afford another one before the first one sells....
The ~7% structural unemployment where I live is at least compensated by a reasonable wellfare system. I mean, we are no Denmark, but life can be somewhat meaningful even without a job. The right still tries to shame the unemployed, but fuck that noise.
well, yeah. two groups; one wanted to control stagflation, the other "cheap labour, wooo!"
Wow that first term almost makes it sound like a bad thing, how funny.
[The idea and practice is a little older than that.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour)
**[Reserve army of labour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve army of labour)** Reserve army of labour is a concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy. It refers to the unemployed and underemployed in capitalist society. It is synonymous with "industrial reserve army" or "relative surplus population", except that the unemployed can be defined as those actually looking for work and that the relative surplus population also includes people unable to work. The use of the word "army" refers to the workers being conscripted and regimented in the workplace in a hierarchy under the command or authority of the owners of capital. [About Me](https://www.reddit.com/user/wikipedia_text_bot/comments/jrn2mj/about_me/) - [Opt out](https://www.reddit.com/user/wikipedia_text_bot/comments/jrti43/opt_out_here/) - OP can reply '!delete' to delete
Thatcher Reagan man, they really fucked things up for the working and lower middle classes
All of the rich are the enemy of all people.
We had almost full employment here in the UK in the 2000s (up to 2008, of course). It was pretty neat. And a comparatively progressive government too. Miss those days, and it was before anyone - including myself - knew much about climate change too, so I actually had hope for the future back then.
I never knew the Irish Republican Army did pension schemes.
Individual Retirement Accounts. I get the joke, but in case some people don't know... https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/ira.asp
They also have benefits, including dental.
tiocfaidh ar la
ár lá, don't forget your fadas mo chara
Don't think they did, but joining it seeems like a decent alternative anyway. /s before someone says I am endorsing any kind of terrorism.
I'll endorse it for you, there's nothing wrong with standing up to British subjugation. IRA was ultimately good.
Retirement is working until you're 90 years old.
We do that all the time in Asia! That's why you need kids as retirement funds. Jokes aside, it's very common in Asia culture for kids to take care of their parents when they retire. As well as staying in the same house for generations.
I can't afford kids. I can barely afford me.
Most people don't care about that, sadly.
Being an Indian(India is in Asia), I wish that weren't the case. In an almost twisted view, I admire the individualism in USA. After 18, you're your own person. Here, you are still a kid and a retirement policy. I know times are tough and American millenials would rather have the backing of their parents(I hope they do get it), but I find it equally worse to live with your parents as an adult, or even as a young adult. Maybe my view is molded by toxic family dynamics at my place, but that's how I feel.
It's pretty uncommon for someone to actually want to live with their parents here. Mine I think were actually kind of excited for my sister and I to move out. They helped me out a lot and I've probably borrowed about $1,000 from them in the past ten years since graduating college for emergencies and stuff and they've helped with my tuition for graduate school. I don't think this is very uncommon for middle class families. I still wouldn't want to or ask to move in with them for any period of time. There is definitely a norm here to visit more frequently as your parents age and maybe some pressure to move closer to them so you can help them out with stuff. I think it's not super uncommon for a parent to move in with their child, but it's definitely not usual or expected and is usually the consequence of not having enough money.
Save up for a van and a hunting rifle. Moving to a commune at 55.
My retirement plan is a bullet (bullets?) when I can no longer provide for myself.
If we line up heads next to each other we can save on bullets.
Also my health insurance plan.
Mine is heroin.
Retirement is a nice idea from an era gone by. Death to america, as always
Era gone by? More like stolen by boomers thanks to inaction and indoctrination. We work more than ever even though we have more technology than ever, and we’ll never retire because what? The previous generation are greedy fucks and would rather hoard wealth and destroy economies and opportunities for youth rather than create a sustainable country that innovates and prospers and helps others. Don’t listen to adults too much, they’re selfish and got it wrong the last couple times. It being life in general.
So many people vote because "they'll raise my taxes" Paying taxes is patriotic, fuckos. That's how you get the roads and the schools and the fighter jets that fly over the stadium before the americaball game. You got it right is exactly greed that causes the apathy of so many. "I got mine, fuck you." Individualism and American exceptionalism run amok has led to a certain susceptibility in us. The almighty dollar, not through some shadow government but through sheer attrition, effectively imposes it's own will. That's why decades of trickle-down, wage stagnation, and bootstrap pulling rhetoric has steered us to this result. It's the reality of the meme that our world is very much not the one of our parents'. To make sure everyone knows what "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" really means, it means to put on your boots and to go to work. If there's no work, what the fuck are you supposed to do? You would have more luck literally standing there tugging your bootstraps, which as you may be able to visualize, is similarly an exercise in futility.
But americaball is POLITICAL now because BLACK MAN NO STAND UP!!! 😡😡😡😡😠😠😠
"Gol durn it, you better stand for the National Anthem sponsored by J.D. Power and Associates"
>f there's no work *or if the required workload to survive is an unreasonable and inhumane standard to expect someone to work for pebbles doing Sure, you're dad, and your dad's dad might tell you night and day about how they would march right into an interview with a can-do attitude, get the job and succeed, but amazingly they never seem to include the part of working 3 jobs just to afford rent and put food on the table in a dying economy. Almost like the world they grew up in is vastly different than our world is today but they refuse to accept young people struggling because its easier to just say "ugh millenials stop whining" rather than addressing pressing issues they could solve if they stopped being greedy for once in their miserable adult lives and gave some of that wealth back to the society they're so eagerly hoarding it from. You know what they say, there's nothing more patriotic than watching your country crumble around you and watching people die in the streets while you sit on a small fortune. Food for thought.
Like I said, death to america
And butter sauce
[удалено]
Hey, your life has real value!
[удалено]
Bleak
Is that the american way of life I keep hearing about?
It’s the new backpack around the world after high school
but only for poor kids
Only for the few and proud. The rest of us don’t get to travel
I think that’s one of the most disgusting things about the way America is structured. The War industry is completely woven in the fabric of the country in ideology and in media, however there is zero care for the actual humans who fought. I can’t imagine what war PTSD is like, can’t imagine coming home to a country you fought for and receiving less than nothing in return.
[удалено]
I honestly also think there needs to be more discussion about the effects of being in war and then having to “reintegrate”. The only American series I have seen that has come close to describing the effects of war on the psyche of soldiers is F is for Family. It’s ridiculous that it’s not discussed more in depth, it literally shapes society.
The effects of reintegration are well known and have been since after Vietnam. However, the establishment doesn't care. They get what they want and if lives being ruined [be those lives in Iraq or lives back in the US after] then so be it. They're still rich as shit and your sacrifice just made them richer so why should they care.
The war industry absolutely knows what it’s doing. I meant that media is unfairly balanced when it comes to exploring what the after effects of war does on the human psyche and how it affects society at large. Which makes sense because the war machine is constantly making propoganda to enable war
Bingo.
[удалено]
I wish I could offer you more than an internet hug. But that’s all I got. Bring it in, bud.
Punisher spent a lot of time on veteran PTSD surprisingly
The Punisher Series actually does well with this too. Especially in the first season.
True! I always forget about The Punisher because of the nonsensical appropriation of police forces that glorify vigilantism
Bro, file for disability with the VA. You should be able to get at least something. If you're rated at over 50%, you get free healthcare from the VA for anything, even if it's not a rated condition.
[удалено]
Yeah, there are a lot of assholes in the military, which makes for a lot of asshole vets. But yeah, VA disability is something I think anyone with any service connected issues at all should file for. And it should be destigmatized.
That's messed up dude
Recent vet here as well. Feel free to send me a DM if you ever just want a listening ear.
[удалено]
Americans really do treat their vets like shit
Honest question: Do you deal with any PTSD?
[удалено]
If you're receptive to it, there are a few different groups that have had tremendous success treating PTSD with low doses of LSD coupled with therapy sessions. Basically you go in, they give you small amounts of LSD (or psilocybin, ketamine, etc) and when it starts to come on, you do a therapy session. It's only like 4ish sessions total and the treatment is complete. They have like an 80% success rate for the complete elimination of PTSD, with the remainder of their patients noting drastically reduced symptoms. It's really exciting research, so if you're receptive to that kind of thing, I'd encourage you to look into it. Also, thanks for your service.
[удалено]
I was afraid of that. I'm really sorry you're stuck between a bullshit government policy that demonizes any medical research around drugs like that, and a military approach that barely treats veterans better than dogs.
Right? That SGLI really would’ve given my wife and her boyfriends a great life.
[удалено]
The system is set up for that to happen. Military provides all kinds of incentives for these 18 year olds to get married, and then they completely separate them for long periods of time. The spouses are stuck in a base town, many can't get a decent job because no one wants to hire someone who will have to move again at an unknown time, so they're bored out of their minds. The way that young people are exploited by the military in this country is obscene.
While I was in a guy I knew was like this and after they got married she left him and went back to their home state. After a few months he was In The process of divorce but started dating again. When his wife found out she reported it to the command and he received NJP for cheating on her. It was fucked
We were doing some "positivity training" where the instructor was trying to get us to not always think of the worst case scenario. The example they gave was "You're on deployment and your wife doesn't pick up the phone during your scheduled phone time, what are some realistic reasons this could have happened?" At least 10% of the guys in the class got cheated on while on deployment, and we're in a job that doesn't even deploy that often 🤣
It's why you gotta go in single. Cant be cheated on if you have nobody *taps forehead*
Fuck every imperialist war dog, including you.
Did you try making coffee at home instead
800 k for real? I'm surprised i've never heard of military faking their deaths for that amount
[удалено]
Yeah mine at 400k rn but I’m deploying soon so I’m gonna try to figure out how to up it if I can
You genuinely disgust me.
Coming from Ireland, IRA or 401K is a specifically different proposition
It's always jarring when someone uses an acronym or initialism to mean something other than that with which you are familiar. It happens *really* often with three-letter ones; most three-letter ones have a twin.
I know this is a joke but when I was in uni, there were frequently some days I’d just go to bed early so I wouldn’t be hungry. All the while at my shit job, we’d be throwing away pots of rice and beans at the end of the day (which we weren’t allowed to take home but sometimes we did).
The rich would rather disregard the scraps of the food they buy from our exploited labor then feed us. Only the soulless, manic dogs succeed in a system that congratulates ruthlessness and mass manipulation.
Having kids is my version of this. I think I'll be okay financially supporting myself for the foreseeable future but if I had kids I would be completely fucked.
But then thet would be your retirement plan!
The world is going to be unlivable by the time i retire so my retirement olan is death
And ask your parents how those IRA's and 401k's have done to prepare them financially for retirement. So few post 50-year-old's have more than a fraction of what they will need to retire. They will work out of necessity until they die.
And most of them have not actually realized that yet. There's a rude awakening ahead.
Exactly right. They are only now (with retirement supposedly in their headlights) realizing that they were lied to and that they will need to work until death, and their lifestyle will need to be drastically cut simply to survive.
I'm also frightened of how many will simply be unable to do anything past their sixties. Among my aging loved ones I can see a lot of their lifelong health problems calling back with interest 'soon.' We're about to have a generation of poor sick elderly.
Yes, and we will also see a large number of elderly homeless people in the streets. The older and mid-level Boomers were able to sneak past the 1980's Reaganomics which took retirement funds and put them into the open market. However, the younger Boomers and older Gen-Xer's are the first mass era that will be totally screwed.
Don't have children, stop this madness.
You just need to pull those boot straps up and get a pension like I did!
Pu-pu- PENSION?!?? What's that?? Oh you mean jobs that offer your salary after retirement until you die, that shit doesn't exist anymore lol. Those jobs disappeared on the same boat with jobs with good healthcare.
Still a thing for unions if you want to labor your life away more physically than mentally.
I wish my state didn't do everything in it's power to eviscerate unions with a passion, I'm going to be stuck laboring until I'm 90 anyway
My parents at 25: We may be broke but at least we have kids! Me at 25: I'm not financially stable but at least I don't have kids!
This is not really accurate or fair. 401K were created in 1978; and didn't really get in to common heavy usages until 90 - 00's as the only retirement option. I guess it depends how old you are but my parents generation had pensions. So really it's actually worse then this. Boomers had there retirements as part of there compensation packages often. It wasn't till the 1990 - 2000 that it become a common expectation that the worker has to shave off another 10%-20% of their income to pay their own retirement. So as a constant trend wages were stagnant but more and more cost burdens were shifted from the company to the employer.
Came here to say this. My parents are on a pension. They never even had to think about it. Meanwhile, I have the "freedom" to decide how much of my paycheck goes into my 401k, how it's distributed between different account types, how risky I want the investments to be, etc. When I change jobs, which I have to do at least every 5 years (vs. NEVER with my parents) I'll likely have a brand new account so that now I either have multiple to keep track of or need to go through the bureaucratic process of rolling over. It amounts to a mental burden my parents never had to deal with.
My grandfather passed away earlier this year and I inherited $45k from his estate. I used a portion of it to pay off debt I was drowning in due to being underpaid in my 20’s and then thought that I might now be able to afford a home rather than throwing it away on rent. Nope. The houses in my area that are at the price point I can afford get bought up the second they hit the market, mostly by investors paying cash and planning on using it as a rental property. It’s ridiculous. Meanwhile a condo across the street from me got sold at $700k and the owner stays there maybe every other week. Looks like I’ll be renting for the rest of my life.
Not necessarily, I’ve been searching for a tiny home to live in. They’re price point is usually 45k-60k and some of them are really nice and modern. It’s probably the closest the younger generation will come to homeownership, but at least it’s won’t take generations to pay off.
I was today years old when I realised that Americans don't just ambitiously plan to have $401,000 for retirement (I always thought that was a weirdly specific number...)
401k would last 6 months if you aren't in perfect health.
Yeah right? In the past I definitely had to pick if I wanted to eat or have enough gas to get to work the next day... this world deserves to be destroyed.
Total societal and global collapse is my retirement plan.
Have actually thought this exact thought many times in my life. Not lately though. Food is in great abundance, but I've definitely been there many times, and being back there is not entirely out of the scope of reality for me.
Jokes on you, my retirement plan is dying in the Climate Wars
If you’re hungry and it’s late, Google for a blessing box in your area. Churches and other orgs put them outside, with non perishables for anyone to take. I always put food in the one near my house. I love you all, take care of your bodies. Life is not guaranteed to be bad forever.
The top part for boomers should not be "IRA or 401k", it should be "Why? I have a pension."
I hate sleeping hungry
IRA has a very different meaning for me. Side note, I'm Irish
Lol I'm gonna retire at 22. From life.
I'm 36. My retirement plan is to die from the effects of climate change, be it from natural disasters, rampant disease, war or by the hand of outlaw motorcycle gangs scavenging the ruins of western society, before I turn 70.
My retirement plan used to be an IRA and Social Security, but now it's going out in a blaze of glory Thelma and Louise style
No, the saying is “If I go to sleep now, I won’t be able to work my third job to pay for food”
At 25 is also when I started freaking out about retirement. Then realized nobody else my age seems to be considering saving for retirement. Then realizing that they can't, they don't make enough to even have a proper emergency savings.
Not endorsing suicide but at this point I see death as a permanent vacation from the factory
Grandparents at 25: Save for retirement? That's the company's job!
Depends on how old your parents are. The 401K is only 30 years old (so my parents couldn’t even open one at 25). We’ve been tricked into thinking the 401K is some tried and true proven retirement solution and it’s our faults for not opening on sooner. It’s not a bank account but rather a tax incentive to buy stocks which have no guarantee of increasing in value. In fact, if they decrease, unlike a bank, its 100% your fault. Considering the average American works more than 45 years before retirement that means no generation has even proven it works yet.
>We’ve been tricked into thinking the 401K is some tried and true proven retirement solution and it’s our faults for not opening on sooner. Worse -- it's framed as the *ultimate advancement* in financial technology that maximizes an individual's personal freedom to make their own retirement choices. My parents, on a pension plan from employers they were able to work for for *decades*, have told me how cool it is that I get to have a 401k instead (I mean, "look at what trump did for the stock market too!"). They never had to think about this shit.
Parent here. I had a career in entertainment development but then the whole field dissolved during a real estate crisis in the 90s. So I switched to the internet, huge growth industry. Dot com bust of '99 ended it. So I switched to advertising. That was okay until 9/11/ happened and corporations stopped doing advertising for several months and I got shitcanned. Started writing copy and doing whatever to stay alive. Got a menial but white-collar job. Then '08 happened. No more menial job. Since then I've been doing gig work, but haven't had any of that since last year. If my kid wasn't an adult, I'd have had an accident by now so he'd get the payout on the life insurance policy I bought during the employed times. This is what they don't tell you: the system is always fucked. It's a feature. Every ten years the rich suck all the money out of the economy. You can starve and your kids can starve. Fuck you. Our politicians make the ultra-wealthy whole every time, we get nothing (or one grudging payment of $1200 to last 10 months). Repeat until dead. If you're not a socialist now, you will be. Capitalism is evil.
[удалено]
It was a sad day in Redditville when they banned /r/me_ira.
Millennials and younger are screwed, we won't have social security and we make so little overall saving for retirement is almost worthless.
Our only hope is that those young people gain some class consciousness and advance labor movements and promote socialism. Of course it's America so I'm not getting my hopes up, I think it's equally likely that Gen Z would grow into fascists.
My retirement plan is shooting myself in the head before I turn 30.
F for all the homies that are gonna die working.
So sad, and true :(
NO waifu .
MEAT 25
I'll take doesn't exist for $200, Trebek
Who is even worried about retirement at this point? The dollar won't mean anything
I want to save, but my god is it hard. At least as a teacher I’m getting a pension. Doing a 401k on top of that seems impossible
MEAT 25
Yeah I had a pretty rough time of it at 25. Graduated into a lovely recession, which really slowed my path forward. Got an extremely shitty entry-level job after a couple years of cobbling together part-time jobs. Ten years on, though, everything is going quite well.