401k plans are a scam not because of what they are, but what they replaced.
Companies used to offer pensions. These were retirement benefits that were handled by the company, and the company bore the risk of underperforming markets.
For a number of reasons, pensions were much better for workers. Now, only some unionized workers get them.
There’s so much inflation these days that pensions are impossible unless the pension money is invested to keep up with inflation. So it’s the same thing at best out a worse option.
So it’s the same thing at best out a worse option.
It’s not though. With a pension someone work that knowledge manages that investment. With a 401k, the employee is. Except most employees don’t have that kind of time or expertise. So, it’s “our fault” that we end up with a poorly managed retirement when… we could just do pensions.
I don’t know about you, but when I’m 70 and the company that pays my pension suddenly goes bankrupt, I don’t want to be caught with my pants down. I would rather not put all my eggs in one basket.
Like people don’t lose their saving in the market anyway? But when your 401k goes in the tank, your broker doesn’t have the legal obligation to fund your retirement.
If that happens to your 401k, that’s your fault. As you get older you are supposed to shift things to be more conservative… You can even put your money in things that are guaranteed to not go down. There are target date funds that do this for you without you having to think about it (although I think target date funds are a little too conservative from the start).
In my country, 401(k) is rare. My wife’s company is one of the few that offers it, and it’s way better than the government pension my dad is getting as a retiree.
So much shit around bicycles is a scam because barring some major inventions like shocks for mountainbikes or maybe carbon frames it’s very much a solved problem, but it doesn’t fit into a capitalist economy if everybody just buys one bicycle and then occasionally parts for it to fix it.
Same in Denmark, just have a bike there can handle your needs and that’s it. One bike can transport you everyday and be a Mountain bike(we don’t have mountain’s)
I didn’t know any companies still did that. I pay $25/month for unlimited and it’s only gone down over the years. I started paying $45/month about 15 years ago. I know of some companies that are cheaper, but I haven’t had any issues, so I haven’t bothered to switch.
Honest questions. Why do you seem unable to change anything of this? If you leave in a democratic country, why the majority of people won’t change the second amendment, the college tuition scam, swap to a free healthcare system, and vote people that won’t start another war in the name of democracy?
EDIT: I reckon is complicated, but you must have some opinions about the final motive(s) of this. Who/what is keeping things like this?
Lobbyists lobby politicians so they won’t make changes that hurt their business. Politicians in turn engage in brainwashing so the population agrees with them even if it actually goes against their best interests.
Trust me, nobody likes paying thousands for college tuition. But colleges lobbied politicians so now politicians won’t do a damn thing about it, and the politicians that won’t do a thing are now actively telling their base lies about how it’s a good thing that they have to pay more than rent on tuition.
America isn’t actually a democracy. The views of the average person have no influence on what the state actually does. The senate is anti-democratic by design (see James Madison: “[The Senate] ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”), and all of the founding documents were created by a bunch of slave-owning rich assholes to be as favorable as possible to themselves (reminder that slavery is still legal under the 13th amendment). The elected “representatives” do not accurately represent their constituents; compare the median wealth of a US congressperson (over $1 million) vs the median wealth of a US citizen (~$121k).
The people who actually hold power in America (and indeed all capitalist nations) are the ultra-wealthy capitalist class, which is to say those who own the means of production (the factories, tools, raw resources, etc that a business needs to produce a product or service). In “bad countries” (Russia etc), they would be called oligarchs. Since its founding, the US state’s primary purpose has been to perpetuate and grow the wealth of this capitalist class above all else. The interests of this capitalist class run counter to the interests of the working class, the common citizen. The capitalist wants their employees to work for as long as possible for as low a wage as possible, while the working class wants to work for as short a period as possible for as high a wage as possible. With this in mind, let’s now go through policies you listed.
Changing the second amendment. The capitalists generally aren’t effected by this, as they live in a safe and secure world separate from the general populace. However, this (and many other things, such as abortion rights and LGBT+ rights) serve as ways to divide the common people against each other, distracting them from the fact that their true enemies are the capitalist class. Between them, the state and the capitalists control almost all of the media in the country, so they are able to push the issues to the forefront. To be clear: I am not minimizing these policies. Things like gun rights reform, abortion rights, and LGBT+ rights are incredibly important; they just don’t matter to the capitalists.
The college tuition scam. This one is simple: the financial capitalists make loads of money by giving out predatory loans. They want that money, so the policy will continue.
Free healthcare. As above, the capitalists are making money hand over fist, and do not want to stop. Consider also that “Obamacare” and other policies primarily ease the burden on the common citizen NOT by regulating the healthcare sector to charge lower prices, but rather by simply handing tax-payer funds to the capitalists directly through subsidies.
In general, when looking at the policies pursued by a capitalist state, one should always ask “how does this benefit the capitalists?” America’s foreign policy, for instance, largely revolves keeping the “developing nations” of the world poor and their markets open to “free trade” such that their wealth can be extracted by American (and allied) capitalists at a lower price. Similarly, the US refuses to address climate change because the fossil fuel capitalists would stand to lose money.
The only way to achieve a better future is through the abolition of the capitalist class, which can itself only be achieved through a revolution.
So, in your opinion, what are the conditions the US people wait/need to start this revolution? What’s holding people back? The newer generations seem to have almost nothing to loose, and a lot of older people barely can keep up.
In short, the working class need to be better organized, class-conscious (IE aware that they are members of the working class and opposed to the capitalist class), and militant, and the repressive organs of the state need to be much weaker. Organization is trending up with things like increased unionization rates (though many of those unions are collaborationist and not revolutionary) and increased membership in revolutionary orgs like the PSL or even reformists like the DSA. Class consciousness is increasing naturally as the social contract that bought of the working class of the USA is torn up and people begin to look outside the status quo for alternatives. Likewise, militancy will come once people have nothing to lose, and as you say, the younger generations are well down the path, but the key element missing is the aforementioned organization.
Unfortunately, it’s not all good news. This mass radicalization will be slowed, and worse, redirected towards fascism, by that omni-present multi-billion dollar propaganda network controlled by the capitalists. Further, any increases in worker organization will be met with increasingly brutal crackdowns by the cops, FBI, and other alphabet agencies. Ultimately I find it far more likely the US will descend into fascism; it would not be unreasonable to argue that it’s already there. That said, we must still fight for the better tomorrow we know is possible.
Because that’s not the government works. The populace doesn’t choose who the candidates are, introduce legislation, or (with relatively rare exceptions) vote on it directly.
Okay, but why do you not take a more radical approach? I mean, Trump followers were not right, but even they took the capitol by assault to accomplish essentially nothing. Most of these things exposed in this thread seem to me like legitimate causes to emulate some Malcolm X-esque actions.
I do support that, at least morally. In practice, a bunch of disorganized, untrained, and poorly equipped people who are already struggling to get by day to day are not going to win a fight against human history’s most powerful police and military force on its own home territory.
Some are afraid, others don’t know how, others feel like there’s no use in trying. A whole lot buy into the American exceptionalism propaganda that gets shoved down our throats from birth and think there’s nothing wrong with this country and that the people who are suffering deserve it, and that the people who want to make it better are literally trying to destroy it for Satan, or for the Jews, or for the reptilians.
Probably not originally a scam but something about Tax, maybe it’s just me but taxes are suppose for the betterment of society. Everyone suppose to pay their fair share of tax yet it’s strange that we can’t even see how are taxes were used to improve society. There is no breakdown like a receipt on how our tax was used. While we file taxes we have to be meticulus or we get ourselves in trouble.
You’re free to look into the budgets of governments you pay taxes toward and see a breakdown of where every dollar you spend in taxes goes by doing some simple math. Some countries will even do this work for you and send you a breakdown of where your money went. IIRC Australia does this. But even without that you can easily figure it out yourself.
Taxes go to “the betterment of society” in many ways. They pay for all kinds of shit. Don’t be silly.
You’re free to look into the publicly available budgets of governments you pay taxes toward and see a breakdown of where every dollar you spend in taxes goes by doing some simple math.
Doubt it’s that simple as asking for those kind of information are usually behind red tapes and some are even confidential. Most people are not motivated enough to do that.
Some countries will even do this work for you and send you a breakdown of where your money went. IIRC Australia does this.
That’s interesting was not aware of that. Only if my country does that.
Taxes go to “the betterment of society” in many ways. They pay for all kinds of shit. Don’t be silly.
Yeah agree they do I guess the way they are like blackbox makes a huge disconnect to those who are paying.
In Australia when you pay your land rates it tells you where your money goes. Information about where your income tax goes is available online. Your country is no doubt the same, you just haven’t looked.
I’ve heard the IRS can actually send this information to you if you ask. I can’t find much about it online though. I do think it should be standard to help people understand where their money is going though.
I used to think the same thing but it’s not really a scam. It’s a way to allow low income people to pay less to the government in taxes because they have less to give.
When you move things over to sales tax, high income folks don’t end up paying as much as they could because they don’t spend the money as aggressively, and low income folks can’t afford the bare minimum so you have to either further subsidize them (so you took their money to give back to them?) or deal with the ensuing homeless problem/never ending poverty cycle.
In the ideal situation, resources are transformed into goods with zero waste and with fair compensation for every person involved in that process. Any expense outside of costs and pay for the people involved is either inevitable inefficiency due to our imperfect technology or the laws of physics, or it is some sort of scam, and thus profit itself is a scam.
Profit represents surplus value that can be excersized to either sustain an organization when demand is low or to increase productivity through expansion. If there was no profit then all businesses would be on the verge of collapse at all times
I’d argue profit is essential to capitalism, which of course is probably you meant, blaming capitalism I mean. I think charging interest on debt (some of which you are essentially forced to borrow) is what is truly scandalous. Sure it makes sense when it is oversimplified, and told from the point of view of the banks who need to make an honest living by risking money, but money is created from thin air from loans, so the whole thing makes no sense imo.
Profit is older than capitalism; capitalism is a particularly egregious form of it, but it is profit itself - intentional inefficiency in the conversion of resources to usable product, for the purpose of benefiting those creating the inefficiency that I refer to.
In theory, something very close to capitalism could exist without profit - with everyone getting back only a fair and appropriate compensation for their part in the process. It’s the 'put in a little and get back infinite returns ’ part that makes capitalism specifically a problem.
Mortgages needing to be renewed every 5 years so that banks can jack the the interest rate. Cap residential mortgages at 25 years max and 2% interest for the duration.
Because it doesn’t matter the company. A bank creates money if you apply for credit. It just have to have a fraction - say 3% - real money to store at a central bank account. Then they literally type the numbers on your account. Money created!
So, for a bank, it doesn’t matter if you apply for 5.10.20 years. They get the interests anyway. May be there is some weird financial acrobatic behind the 5 years target. However, here in Germany it’s pretty common to get a 20 years credit.
Many people lock in interest rates for the life of the loan. Most often 30 years for mortgage loans. You don’t have to renew a mortgage’s interest rate unless you get an adjustable rate one.
This is the main reason why mortgage applications are down significantly right now. People with super low interest rates don’t want to move because they’d have to get a new loan to do so, and interest rates are much higher now. If they stay and they have a fixed-rate loan, nothing changes.
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