In the not-too-distant future, Cruz envisioned, “we’re going to be able to go to parents and say, ‘Hey, you know that Trump Account your kid has? … Wouldn’t you like to be able to keep a portion of your tax payments that you’re paying already and, instead of sending it to Uncle Sam, wouldn’t you like to have a Trump Account just like your kid does?’'’
“My prediction is, within five years, that is going to have a really compelling constituency,” the Texas Republican added.___
401K’s are already an artificial siphoning of worker capital into the rich people’s stock market game. This is just par for the course.
Yeah and in Holland they’ve just killed the old reasonable pension system and replaced it with a similar 401(K) type thing 😢
This has been the case in much of the US for over a decade now. Pensions are essentially a thing of the past here (unless you have a very strong union, inshallah)
Why does Europe keep americanizing?
401k, tipping schemes, and I swear these aren’t the only things I’ve heard.
Stop trying to be like the US! The US is not better! That should be obvious at this point.
Yes the problem is that many other things are also blowing over. Like all the anti-trans and anti-migrant rhetoric. This is driving the rise of extreme-right politics.
It is so easy to use trans as a scapegoat, because it is so few of them and majority of people don’t know any, so they are more willing to accept made up facts.
The small number of them also means they don’t have any political pressure.
Gays for example are estimated to be almost 20% of the population, so consequences of attacking them can be significant.
Yes it bothers me a lot about the trans hate in particular because I am closely associated with the LGBT community and it hurts me seeing this happen to my friends. Some of my ex-friends in Holland are now rabid about all the usual tropes, like athletes, toilets etc. All things that aren’t actually true (HRT actually diminishes muscle power a lot and there are almost no trans athletes let alone successful ones, and people don’t go through a whole transition so they can walk into the women’s restroom, that whole premise is completely ridiculous). I’ve tried to educate them but the propaganda is constantly flowing in on social media.
Sometimes I wonder if these guys like being angry. Because they seem to be looking for stuff to be angry about all the time.
They won’t have to look for it, they’re being manipulated by social media algorithms.
Doesn’t excuse their hate, but it makes more sense when you think of them like old men with dementia who can’t keep their racism to themselves because they think this is still 1950…
Really? Do you have a link on that, I missed it, just found out reuters has let me back in without a paywall or I would maybe know already
I doubt it would be in the world news. But they basically made it into a system where everyone has like a private investment package as a pension.
The government has a lot of info on it but it’s all in Dutch.
The problem is the ruling parties of the last 30 years are very neoliberal and they adore America. So it’s been nothing but cut social welfare, privatisation and now this.
Are you Dutch? Do you have an idea what the sentiment over there is? The US is a lost cause at this point, but I was hoping other places would learn from our idiocy.
Yes I am but luckily I don’t live there anymore. The country has been very neoliberal, idealising America for the last 30 years, led by the VVD party. Lately the extreme-right fascists have had a much larger influence (PVV party and also FVD and JA21). They still do. In 2023 they gained more than 30% of votes. The resulting coalition screwed up very badly by constantly screwing each other over for political gain, so the government collapsed after only a year. The one that came after is the same old shit again.
Just think what Bush’s privatization was. They tried to borrow, tens of trillions, to pump into a stock market they knew was on the brink of collapse, and force people to use money managers that get paid regardless of their clients’ fortunes.
Gains would only be recognized for 8%, the rest kicked back in the pot, losses would be 100%. It was such a shit system, on top of trying to foist all of this have to invest money into a market to allow the rich to sell off on a high note and leave workers holding the bag, to die in the street with stolen retirement.
What was this called?
Edit: found it in here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_debate_in_the_United_States
No mention of the 8% gains cap though which would really be the infuriating part
I went to a local democratic rally of sorts where they went over the social security reform in detail, what was it, 2008 I think, right before the market was going to crash.
The most infuriating part of it is they were trying to force people to dump their retirement accounts in a failing market to allow stockholders to sell out their shares on a high note, and wipe out a good share of all retirement income, leaving retirees destitute.
They also had to pay a money manager, like a mutual fund kind of deal if memory serves. If it passed which it didn’t obviously, it really sank Bush’s popularity.
Thanks for that, very interesting.
What is baffling to me is they apparently were pitching it as a way of making social security solvent. If people can divert their SS tax dollars to private accounts, it makes the shortfall even worse. But sometimes that is their objective, I know.
The rich have been obsessed with killing the new deal from the start. Social Security is their prime target, they’ve been trying to kill it for 5 decades now.
Everything they say is opposite land as with everything else. They borrowed tens of trillions of dollars to subsidize business multiple times, but are trying not to borrow the surplus social security payments they took and spent elsewhere our retirees entire lives.
They borrowed that money, with the promise of paying it back when it was needed, and are now trying to default on America.