Messages

1

Politics / Re: Impacts of the "S"word

« on: August 11, 2020, 10:07:13 AM »

His point is that America sucked donkey balls, and anything good afterwards came from socialism, I guess. Seemingly everyone that's not a diehard socialist here isn't for unadulterated capitalism. Rather they're for a better-than-any-alternative balance between individualism and collectivism that is rooted in individualism. I think there's an issue here: There's a stark contrast between the actions and policies implemented for the collective in the mid-early 20th century and the trend we're seeing today.

No, Trump sucks donkey balls. America was a superior country before it became inflamed by Trumpism. America was founded on the ideal of "a more perfect union" but American politics today is all about separation and discrimination and systematic suppression of the individualism you espouse. If you have a job you've given up a significant portion of your personal freedom to work toward the goals of that collective and you have only the right to stay or quit. As a member of the corporate collective you have given up part of your financial freedom by participating in a pension where you literally hand over your money to let someone else decide how to invest it who is responsible only to the corporation and the collective of that fund. Individual choice is only to stay or to go and if you go you will lock in that money where it sits until you retire. If you go, you can't take your healthcare plan with you and there is significant risk to your ability to maintain any healthcare plan if you leave your job for another one. You are young in the workforce yet and you don't see a disadvantage but when you reach 50 and suffer a job loss or age discrimination you will have a different opinion, I am sure. You will also see the disadvantages of submitting to the will of the collective when stupid decisions are made by the corporation, solely for the corporation and the shareholders and the executive's bonuses.

Ok, I shouldn't use words like individualism because I'm too young to understand it, and I have forfeited my ability to have the opinion that it's better than any alternative to have a balance between individualism and collectivism that is rooted in individualism, because I pay into a pension. I have also forfieted my ability to be critical of our current trend largely for the collective because I pay into a pension. And perhaps when I'm older I'll see and understand how companies will solely act in the interest of shareholders and not the workers. Got it.

You sure trigger a lot don’t you? Everything is a criticism of you and your opinions. My original usage of the word “you” was the collective you, not the individual you and now everything you post is about the inference you made that makes it all about you and now you’re trying to exact revenge. I regret not using the word “one”, instead.

I never said you don’t have a right to criticize or hold your opinions. I said your opinions will change when you, yes you, become more enlightened about your standing in the collective. But by all means continue to let emotion and your triggered butt-hurt over a single sentence rule your life.

HAND

2

Politics / Re: Impacts of the "S"word

« on: August 11, 2020, 08:25:29 AM »

Lack of interest is a concerning issue for this entire nation.

That is true.

3

Politics / Re: Impacts of the "S"word

« on: August 11, 2020, 08:23:31 AM »

His point is that America sucked donkey balls, and anything good afterwards came from socialism, I guess. Seemingly everyone that's not a diehard socialist here isn't for unadulterated capitalism. Rather they're for a better-than-any-alternative balance between individualism and collectivism that is rooted in individualism. I think there's an issue here: There's a stark contrast between the actions and policies implemented for the collective in the mid-early 20th century and the trend we're seeing today.

No, Trump sucks donkey balls. America was a superior country before it became inflamed by Trumpism. America was founded on the ideal of "a more perfect union" but American politics today is all about separation and discrimination and systematic suppression of the individualism you espouse. If you have a job you've given up a significant portion of your personal freedom to work toward the goals of that collective and you have only the right to stay or quit. As a member of the corporate collective you have given up part of your financial freedom by participating in a pension where you literally hand over your money to let someone else decide how to invest it who is responsible only to the corporation and the collective of that fund. Individual choice is only to stay or to go and if you go you will lock in that money where it sits until you retire. If you go, you can't take your healthcare plan with you and there is significant risk to your ability to maintain any healthcare plan if you leave your job for another one. You are young in the workforce yet and you don't see a disadvantage but when you reach 50 and suffer a job loss or age discrimination you will have a different opinion, I am sure. You will also see the disadvantages of submitting to the will of the collective when stupid decisions are made by the corporation, solely for the corporation and the shareholders and the executive's bonuses.

4

Politics / Re: Impacts of the "S"word

« on: August 11, 2020, 08:05:15 AM »

Care to make an argument?

The gold standard was jeopardized long before the great depression. Time to look at Lincoln's era.

No thanks. I have never been a fan of the gold standard and have no interest in debating it.

5

Politics / Re: Impacts of the "S"word

« on: August 10, 2020, 08:52:44 PM »

What's your point exactly? That capaitalism caused the great depression?

It was the Fed's expansionary monetary policy throughout the 20's that caused the great depression. Printing money like crazy and lowering interest rates to cause an artificial boom and thus an inevitable fall.

Inflation is the most powerful tax, and it's coming again. The US dollar is about to be worth pig shit and capitalism will once again NOT be what caused it. Anyone who accepts government aid is not a capitalist. When you see prices skyrocket soon, you should know why.

The point was about SSI and the inability or failure of working class people to “get ahead” or have enough money to set aside for their own retirement and what life was like. One either had it made as a rich person, struggled as a working stiff, always in fear of losing your job, or you were homeless and dying. I may have blunted that point by discussing the Depression but it is the direct cause of the new deal and SSI.

But of course we have that same situation now. If you have a job you live in fear of losing it, if you’re one of the COVID jobless you’re on the brink of homelessness.

I don’t disagree that inflation is coming. I’m rather surprised that it hasn’t happened already considering the Fed’s “easy money” policy currently in place. But that’s not what caused the Great Depression. The Fed didn’t let loose with easy money in 1929-1933 and what started as a recession led to cash hoarding and massive bank failures. What caused the Great Depression world-wide was tariffs and the resulting trade wars. We didn’t start to pull out of the Depression until the New Deal and the loosening of Fed monetary policy and the growth of the money supply.

How do you explain reckless Fed money expansion “in the 20’s” when the world was on the gold standard?

6

Politics / Re: Impacts of the "S"word

« on: August 10, 2020, 12:19:30 AM »

Before SSI you had the rich, who didn't need it, and the working class who wouldn't survive long enough to enjoy any kind of retirement. There was no such thing as the "middle class". You saved your ass off during your working life but since there was also no FDIC and zero to negligible bank regulation, if the bank where your savings was deposited failed, you lost all of your savings. They failed often. This is why your great-grandma and grand parents never trusted banks. When rumors of a bank failure circulated people often flocked to their bank to pull their deposits out, precipitating a "run on the bank" that often caused the bank to really fail.

If you were a coal miner in PA, you worked as a child just about as soon as you could walk and carry a load until you were killed in a cave-in or died of black lung. You never learned to read and write. A town hired a teacher and ran a school if they could collectively afford it but children rarely attended past 6th grade. My father grew up in rural Wisconsin on the border with Illinois and went to school in a one-room schoolhouse with his brother, aunt and uncle, cousins and nephews. He went to high school in the next town and graduated HS and started his first year of college but enlisted at 19 when WWII started. Wounded in Germany, he got off the bus at Beloit on VJ day.

If you worked in a steel mill you got a pretty good wage but hazards on the job were likely to kill or cripple you and there was no such thing as disability compensation or income. If you were literate you got to work as a clerk or planner or if you had a college degree such as engineering you were pretty well set until there was a layoff due to frequent recessions as the economy cyclically went through booms and busts. 1898 saw lots of big iron being built for projects like the Panama Canal after France gave up on it and the U.S. moved in to continue the project. TR sent the U.S. Navy (17 battleships) around the world on a grand tour.

Cleveland and Pittsburg were polluted by the steel foundries and coke plants, there was no such thing as air or water quality standards or monitoring. Henry Ford was busy polluting the Rouge and Flint rivers. I can still remember the smell of Cleveland's air full of smoke and iron stench and the orange-red color of the coke ovens along the railway at night in 1968.

If you lost your job or became disabled you lived with your family and depended on the income from whoever was working. In 1928 my maternal grandfather owned an insurance company and a real estate company. In Illinois, he created a planned community near Chicago that had roads, rivers, fire hydrants and green spaces throughout the development. He had sold just about every lot and houses were being built when the depression hit. Banks failed, insurance companies failed, no one had any cash. Deposits were lost. When nobody could afford to pay their mortgage they simply walked away, homeless, to live on whatever work they could find or they got in line at soup kitchens just to get food to stay alive. In 1930, my grandfather was evicted from the home he had built in that development and my mother was 3 years old and as an adult, still remembered the "bad policeman" who evicted them.

If you were chronically unemployable you put everything you had left on your back and became a hobo. (The nice name for homeless person.) You went from town to town and door to door looking for any odd job to have enough money to buy a meal or else you ended up in the soup line. It wasn't all gloom and doom. If you were young enough you could enlist in the armed forces or merchant marine. Of course, that was a bit tougher to handle in 1917-1918. Once the war was over you came home to search for a job. There was no GI Bill and the war veterans came home to unemployment as the economy slid into recession. In 1932 they eventually marched on Washington DC in order to claim their war bonus scrips for real money. Out of work since 1932, they wanted payment in cash of their war bonus bonds that weren't redeemable until 1948. Imagine going to war and risking your life in 1918 for payment that isn't coming until 1948, if you lived that long without a job. The government response was to send army troops and 6 tanks against the protesters. Sound familiar?

Yeah, America was sure great back then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States

7

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: August 08, 2020, 08:51:32 PM »

https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs

8

Politics / Re: Retirement Planning

« on: August 08, 2020, 05:07:57 PM »

I have a mundane outlook over a post that enlightens us of the socialism in our current society. It's under the presumption that we're 1) ignorant to this fact and 2) not informed over the distinctions of individualism vs collectivism in today's society, AND 3) completely disregards how the current political climate encourages actively attacking individualism. What next, are you going to educate us on the difference between socialism and DEMOCRATIC socialism, as if we're toothless MAGA sign toting buffoons?

Like I said previously, you presumed a LOT about me in my post.

This is funny because you are the very product of your society. The root of socialism is "social". Your entire way of life is the product of more than 2000 years of agrarianism and urban socialization. Unless you have been living on a farm somewhere killing livestock, raising crops, by yourself without any help then you are not an individual. The fact you have a job proves the contrary. The fact you have a job and a pension that trade union members fought for, faced the threat of death from hired police for, some even died for; along with the 40 hour work week and overtime pay proves you are not an individualist but are the beneficiary of a struggle that succeeded 100 years before you were born. You have said you have 32 more years in harness before retirement. As someone who is more than twice your age and who has worked and paid into Social Security and Medicare for 47 years I can tell you have no clue about what's ahead for you if you are willing to permit the destruction of what used to be a great (but admittedly very flawed) society that needs to care about those who truly need help. Not everyone is so confident and successful as you seem to think you are, not everyone is as bright and smart and productive as you think you are. I hope you never encounter in your life a cousin who was born with a birth defect or downs syndrome or a sister who had schizophrenia or a daughter who had scoliosis and parents who couldn't afford the corrective surgery but were able to obtain that surgery through a combination of private and public charity. Rugged individuals like you who stand in freedom from Nazi tyranny because of what men who believed in collectivism did in Europe and in the Pacific. Those men gave up their lives and their health for the collectivism you denigrate. The survivors came home and picked up their lives and paid their taxes and worked their asses off to give us a better life and (If you support the orange moron) you are willing to throw it all away because "individualism". They see your attitude and recognize the foolishness of the misconception in it.

FFS, you are even using the Internet to brag about individualism vs collectivism. Ironically, that same Internet is the product of years of collectivism and research sponsored by the Government of the United States and taxes paid by me and my father before you were born. My father grew up on a farm and his father lost his farm in the Great Depression because greedy men who probably declared themselves self-made individualists destroyed the economy in the name of pure unfettered capitalism. Go. Pull the plug and turn off the electricity. Live the true individualist life, hand to mouth with only hand tools and the food you raise yourself. Then come back in 50 years and tell us how great it is.

9

Politics / Re: Retirement Planning

« on: August 08, 2020, 02:35:11 PM »

Welp, you see first hand why I use the term collectivism. There's always an idiot saying "you don't know what socialism is".

Do you own a car? That great big highway you commute to work on is socialism.
Do you eat good nutritious food year round? That’s all brought to you on trucks driving on that socialist highway.
Do you have a pension? That pension was fought for and achieved by trade unions.

Monopolies like Standard Oil or US Steel don’t initiate those things without a fight and even then they made sure to structure them so they could get their money out of it.

Socialism is all around you and you don’t even recognize it. Every aspect of your life is swimming in socialism and you think you are a member of some elite club of self-made millionaires or something. I have some news for you. Your fate is in the hands of an orange moron who doesn’t even know you exist or whether you live or die. And if your death will put money in his pocket he will gladly prefer that you die.
 

10

Politics / Re: Retirement Planning

« on: August 08, 2020, 12:23:53 PM »

I am semi-retired. I quit the captive wage slave gig about 7 years ago and I am now self-employed.

I have never been in favor of pensions and nobody in their right mind should depend on employer-sponsored pensions. Why? Because they are always under-funded and can be canceled on a whim. You are also acting against your own self-interest by depending on your employer to look out for your money. This is a) socialism, b) foolish. But most people seem to be ignorant of their own financial health and welfare and want Big Daddy Warbucks to look after them... this is the fundamental attraction of pensions.

I've had two pension plans canceled out from under me. The first time, they gave us the option of cash, stocks, or rollover into IRA, I took the latter as cash was 10% penalty, stock in the company was loser bet. The 10% penalty was a "forgiveness" one-time deal because it was involuntary pre-retirement age withdrawal. Thank you federal government for being so understanding. I rolled over $32,000 into IRA and never looked back. I dealt with a brokerage (M-S), and the old call your broker/advisor system for many years until he talked me out of selling some tech stocks that had performed REALLY WELL. I smelled the tech bubble about a week before the crash and I called him to sell but he talked me out of it. He also talked me out of MSFT IPO buy when it was $12 a share. Had I bought the shares when I wanted to it would be worth $15M today. Broker/advisors have a hidden flaw. They don't know what they don't know and they specialize in certain stocks and when you go outside their area of interest they will always give you bad advice. If you have to ignore your advisor it's time to go self-managed. Once I fired him and transferred my account to a self-managed discount brokerage my self-chosen investments took off. I finally bought my MSFT but I missed 4 splits as a result.

Second rug was pulled out when the company that acquired previously mentioned company denied us membership in their pension plan for 3 years after merger but allowed 401(k) plan withholdings. I wisely socked away 12% but in hindsight I should have done 15%, the maximum and taken advantage of the resulting maximum company contributions. Those employees who didn't do the 401(k) and relied on their pension plan have all lost in the process because it was underfunded and when they froze it they were all locked into the catastrophically bad monthly payments of the resulting termination plan.

Once I terminated I rolled it over into a rollover IRA and reorganized it into ETFs and stocks I selected without biased advice. It has been performing well but the Trump Recession put the big hurt on everyone. There's another one coming soon. I can sense it. Markets are volatile and fickle.

No one who is working and contributing to their IRA or 401(k) should be doing it in a ROTH IRA... they should be in a conventional IRA to take advantage of the tax shield and only do the Roth conversion after retirement. Suze Orman not withstanding. She has her own biases and she's speaking to retired or about to retire couples. One should be converting their traditional IRA to a Roth IRA at least 5 years prior to actual retirement and/or withdrawal of any funds from the Roth IRA. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated the ability to recharacterize any conversions or qualified rollover contributions made to a Roth IRA in 2018 or after. This is Trump and McConnell screwing over the little guys. Still liking your pitiful tax cuts?

Anyone who puts his faith in employer pensions and then turns around and yells at youngsters about socialism is not qualified to render an opinion about what and what is not socialism.

Lol. I see my avatar is as provocative as ever.

It had nothing to do with your avatar. I didn't even notice it until now.

11

Politics / Re: Retirement Planning

« on: August 08, 2020, 11:55:38 AM »

Here's the big gotcha with pension underfunding:
Employers always defer payments into the pension fund. This is due to the tertiary nature of "investment in their employees" that is the pension system. Pension payments come after profits, debts, dividends and most importantly - executive compensation. If they have to defer pension plan funding to make the books look good this quarter so they can get their performance bonus then that's what is going to happen.

Result: the net asset value of the fund suffers directly from the lack of investment that results from the under-funding and the performance of the pension fund suffers as a result. You lose. Your fellow employees lose. The CEO takes his bonuses to the bank.

They can bankrupt the company at any time, scarf up the pension money by collateralizing it (by borrowing against it) before the bankruptcy and leave the federal pension guarantee trust holding the bag for your pensions. Now you're on the federal socialist program Republicans like to complain about. Then your on welfare and what's left of your social security that they are hell bent to destroy after decades of stealing it from you all your working life. That's the Capitalist way.

12

Politics / Re: Retirement Planning

« on: August 08, 2020, 11:44:01 AM »

Nope, I'm NEVER collecting social security. Retirement will never be a viable of an option. Even if my house is paid for, it probably won't cover the property taxes and upkeep*, much less food and utilities and medical costs, much much much less anything else like... say I want to buy one no.2 pencil to jam in the artery in my neck to kill myself.

*= I paid about 30k for a new roof when my homo-ners insurance (AMERICAN FAMILY, FUCK THEM IN THE MOUTH WITH SATANS MAGGOT SPOOGING COCK) failed to cover me like they should have. I paid about 20k for painters afterwards. I pay about 500 bucks once a year just for pinestraw (80-100 bales) to put around my house to make it look presentable and prevent fines from the HOA... etc etc etc, shit's expensive.

You have my sympathy. Insurance companies are only interested in taking your premium and making profit. When I took wind damage to fence and roof I made a claim and was paying about $750 annual premium. They paid $4000 against a $10,000 roof claim and I had to pay the remainder. I bought a wall on 3 sides, sharing costs with my two neighbors for a total of about $1700. The roof re-cover was $10,000 and my premium the following year was $4100. Wow. Thanks a lot State Farm!

As for taking SSI, you should be taking it at 70 1/2 or earlier whether or not you actually retire or become a Walmart greeter.

13

Politics / Re: Retirement Planning

« on: August 08, 2020, 11:34:39 AM »

I am semi-retired. I quit the captive wage slave gig about 7 years ago and I am now self-employed.

I have never been in favor of pensions and nobody in their right mind should depend on employer-sponsored pensions. Why? Because they are always under-funded and can be canceled on a whim. You are also acting against your own self-interest by depending on your employer to look out for your money. This is a) socialism, b) foolish. But most people seem to be ignorant of their own financial health and welfare and want Big Daddy Warbucks to look after them... this is the fundamental attraction of pensions.

I've had two pension plans canceled out from under me. The first time, they gave us the option of cash, stocks, or rollover into IRA, I took the latter as cash was 10% penalty, stock in the company was loser bet. The 10% penalty was a "forgiveness" one-time deal because it was involuntary pre-retirement age withdrawal. Thank you federal government for being so understanding. I rolled over $32,000 into IRA and never looked back. I dealt with a brokerage (M-S), and the old call your broker/advisor system for many years until he talked me out of selling some tech stocks that had performed REALLY WELL. I smelled the tech bubble about a week before the crash and I called him to sell but he talked me out of it. He also talked me out of MSFT IPO buy when it was $12 a share. Had I bought the shares when I wanted to it would be worth $15M today. Broker/advisors have a hidden flaw. They don't know what they don't know and they specialize in certain stocks and when you go outside their area of interest they will always give you bad advice. If you have to ignore your advisor it's time to go self-managed. Once I fired him and transferred my account to a self-managed discount brokerage my self-chosen investments took off. I finally bought my MSFT but I missed 4 splits as a result.

Second rug was pulled out when the company that acquired previously mentioned company denied us membership in their pension plan for 3 years after merger but allowed 401(k) plan withholdings. I wisely socked away 12% but in hindsight I should have done 15%, the maximum and taken advantage of the resulting maximum company contributions. Those employees who didn't do the 401(k) and relied on their pension plan have all lost in the process because it was underfunded and when they froze it they were all locked into the catastrophically bad monthly payments of the resulting termination plan.

Once I terminated I rolled it over into a rollover IRA and reorganized it into ETFs and stocks I selected without biased advice. It has been performing well but the Trump Recession put the big hurt on everyone. There's another one coming soon. I can sense it. Markets are volatile and fickle.

No one who is working and contributing to their IRA or 401(k) should be doing it in a ROTH IRA... they should be in a conventional IRA to take advantage of the tax shield and only do the Roth conversion after retirement. Suze Orman not withstanding. She has her own biases and she's speaking to retired or about to retire couples. One should be converting their traditional IRA to a Roth IRA at least 5 years prior to actual retirement and/or withdrawal of any funds from the Roth IRA. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated the ability to recharacterize any conversions or qualified rollover contributions made to a Roth IRA in 2018 or after. This is Trump and McConnell screwing over the little guys. Still liking your pitiful tax cuts?

Anyone who puts his faith in employer pensions and then turns around and yells at youngsters about socialism is not qualified to render an opinion about what and what is not socialism.

14

Politics / Re: Beirut Port Explosion

« on: August 04, 2020, 10:20:00 PM »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster

15

Politics / Re: Beirut Port Explosion

« on: August 04, 2020, 08:37:23 PM »

Lebanon President Michel Aoun said that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, used in fertilisers and bombs, had been stored for six years at the port without safety measures, and said it was “unacceptable”.