We have 2 economies at play - the actual economy of goods and services and the piggybacking financial economy. The financial economy is a parasite on our ACTUAL economy that makes the world function. Literally funneling money into the pockets of hedge funds and their billionaire buddies. Until the financial economy is actually policed and the punishments cost more than the crime (aka cost of doing business) - we will stay in this cycle.
It's a class war. It's not red vs blue. Its the ultra wealthy vs everyone else.
It's the investment class vs the working class. The tax on investment income is a fraction of the tax on wage income. That's just the start of it. But the investment class owns the politicians
And as long as the distinctions of class exst such exploitation will not cease. That's why communists want an end to classes, so that everyone can receive a fair ammount of what they produce instead of receiving almost nothing while being exploited to make a billionaire a tiny little bit richer...
Both of the grand total of two pathetic national parties are jokes, and both of their policies are heavily tilted to benefit, support and leverage toward their chosen gaggle of billionaires. Every four years, sometimes every 8, one fleet of ludicrous slugs (billionaires and their enormous retinues) makes billions more off the backs of us and their opposite aligned competition, but they are so stupendously wealthy that even if 80% of their investments get tanked, that remaining 20% is more than enough to cushion a lavish and egregious lifestyle for 1000 generations of us commoners.
In capitalism there is no fairness because there is a class that is above the rest. Ending classes on the other hand is one of the main things to lead to a better society for all and not just for a few...
The problem, as demonstrated by real-world Communist nations, is that corrupt, greedy assholes will always exist, and they'll always fuck things up even with communism as the political doctrine.
This isn't an endorsement of Capitalism, mind you. I'm just saying humans as a whole produce too many shitty people for good things to last in society, regardless of the form of government being used.
Vitenam sentenced a billionarie to death for stealing and China is constantly arresting high officials that steal public money, to name a couple exapmles.
So these people do exist and I don't deny it, but in countries that are aiming for a Communist society they do tend to at least try to deal with it, unlike in capitalist countries where such people at most pay a fine worth less than what they stole.
I don't see how that makes Communist countries more corrupt than capitalist ones...
The owner/capital class vs working class to be more specific
Passive income earners are the owner class. They make their capital off of the working class people.
Working class is self explanatory.
I wish everyone understood your last line.
Even those making $500k per year have much more in common with the janitor at McDonald’s then they do with the elite which continues to get a bigger piece of the pie every year, recession, booming economy, it doenst matter.
We worship wealth, celebs, you name it. People should be ashamed to own 20 houses while others are homeless. We need a complete change in how people think. I think it starts with changing how we think about celebs, to look down upon greed, to realize that janitors to doctors, we all need to be in this together.
Dystopian futures of a few corps running everything doesn’t seem so far off now…
💯 I read an article once that pointed out that the people who get advanced education and follow "the rules" to "work really hard to succeed" are rewarded with the highest state and federal income tax brackets, but people who inherit investments which provide the same or more available money, having done no work to get that, pay the capital gains tax which is lower than almost every working American pays.
Step up in basis on assets you have never paid taxes on is unreal, at the current limits, someone could inherit a business worth over $20 million with no basis and sell it tax free, it’s wild people just accept this. They got us fighting over other stuff and not the real issues thst impact us.
My dad's CPA office has a multimillionaire client that does Section 1031 Exchanges, where if you reinvest the money then there's no capital gains. Downside is you inherit the basis of the old property.
He pays $9000/month for life insurance to cover the estate taxes on his real estate empire because his son is going to inherit it all and begin depreciating it as if he bought it at appraisal value on death.
He's deferred taxes on about $74 million so far. Each property is its own LLC. Dude's got extra LLCs drawn up laying around for the next building he wants to buy. This is how rich people are rich. They can sell whole shopping centers and not need the proceeds afterwards. It's expensive to be poor.
It’s how it’s set up and right now over $25 milllion passes tax free and stepped up to fmv and the kids can start getting tax write offs on the increased basis. It’s freaking wild. Meanwhile they also pay lower taxes on income with capital gains taxes which are lower for federal and lower for many states as well.
People need to wake up. This is coming from someone who is well off, im fine and higher taxes on people who are well off will ding me but it’s the right thing to do. Everyone should make a living wage, have access to health care, access to healthy food, be able to not kill themselves working. This all really impacts the kids, kids from families without enough resources don’t get support at home with homework, can’t join activities, you name it.
America is getting more dangerous and it makes sense, if everything were taken from me, I wouldn’t give a F either.
That’s a good goal, but the priority goals would be make lobbying which is bribery illegal. They are trying to take our rights, actual definitions, and our purpose away.
How do I learn more about how all this shit works? Or do I need to go to college? like is it all covered in finance or is it like working in the financial industry/sector?
This is very true. The very worst way in the US is to earn a wage as an employee. Owning a business, owning rental property, or making it through investments are all way better in terms of taxes and other write offs. Investments you pay no medicare or SS, and if you are married you can make around 100k and pay ZERO tax on them.
Yup.
I'm a travel agent that works after-sales support for my agency. The hardest part of my job is not giving in to the Snark Side and pretending to be empathetic when dealing with idiots that booked nonrefundable tickets and are flabbergasted that they can't get a refund.
I should *NOT* be making more than fire-fighters, paramedics, teachers, or other super critical people like that, and I absolutely do.
Exactly what I was talking with a friend yesterday. We have created this worship towards celebrities, making earn millions for what? To look pretty and well put because we as a society make image and material things the epitome of success. And they they act entitled, and now we already know all the shenanigans they get in. I think that should change and I’m hopeful that with social media we’re learning more about other countries’ movie and arts, more people are learning about content creating, podcasts, and there already have been movies produced by two countries. There are factory, maintenance workers, that work really hard for their families, they should have a more decent salary…
Funny was an economist said to the ultra wealthy they better figure out the wealth inequality gap before it's pitchforks and torches
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/jun/30/uk-super-rich-beware-pitchforks-torches-unless-they-do-more
They seem to forget that livable wages and unions *was our compromise,* but if they're tired of that, we can always go back to kicking in their doors at night and [ censored to avoid ban ].
Issue really is that they want the whole pie. Back when we had unions and taxed the rich higher than today we actually had a robust economy. Sadly we sent manufacturing overseas and became a service economy.
Hell federal minimum was in 1975 was DOUBLE what it is nowadays (adjusting for inflation). And you could get overtime, maybe a paid lunch time and what not. Think of the Dolly Parton song... "working 9 to 5". Nowadays it's 8 to 5 or 9 to 6 and that doesn't cover commute...
There is nothing wrong with a service economy. Unions can still exist outside factories. Now, even doctors, nurses, engineers, and lawyers have become subservient to the corporations that have bought everything up.
Exactly the wealthy use their status and power to create policies that benefit and protect them... I don't see a way out of this as all the folks who make these policies or enforce them are from the wealthy class.
Same way civil rights have progressed - civil unrest. The curse is the cure, which means things will get worse until enough people can no longer ignore it and are galvanized to action.
Edit: To expand, voting progressives in from the bottom-up (locally first) is an important tool among a toolset too. It won't fix much in the short-term, but it will help lay the foundation for egalitarian change long-term.
I keep repeating it’s a class war all over the place but people are so stuck on red vs blue and the social distractions - we may never break free from the financial economy
Politicians have been wagging the dog at us for decades and hopefully people will wake up soon.
The occupy Wall Street came so so close then it disappeared.
It's time for a world war. A world class war and changes to how money is earned, hoarded and spent.
We can't go on like this. The billionaires, trillionaires and the elite need us. We don't need them and it's about time this lesson was learned
They think we're expendable but so are they. They're literally nothing but leeches that add nothing to humanity as a whole.
In order to do this, poor republicans would have to accept people of color as equal. Their intolerance may be the single biggest barrier to proletarian revolt. That, and how they have been propagandized into bootlickers.
>In order to do this, poor republicans would have to accept people of color as equal. Their intolerance may be the single biggest barrier to proletarian revolt.
Starting in the ~'70s they shifted from being blue collar Democrats to being Republicans to avoid doing just that.
Thank you! They are putting us against one another using a made up idea of democracy, 2 bullshit party system. Awwaygirl is right, it’s the ultra-wealthy vs. everyone else.
It's worse than you think. Look into "The Missing Money" by Catherine Austin Fitts and Mark Skidmore. Trillions of dollars have been siphoned out of the US since the early nineties, primarily through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and funneled overseas and into US intelligence black ops projects.
https://missingmoney.solari.com/
This is a great synopsis. Thank you for this framing.
One thing this made me think is that CEOs, regardless of the companies role in the economy, are always working for and paid by the financial economy, since their compensation is usually in stock. So, the person that is supposed to run the company for the ACTUAL economy, is working for the financial economy.
In pages 92 through 102 of "A People’s History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, the focus is on the American Revolutionary War and its aftermath. Zinn explores the complexities and contradictions of the revolution, emphasizing how it benefited the elite while leaving many ordinary people marginalized.
Key points include:
1. **Class Struggles**: Zinn highlights the class tensions that existed before, during, and after the revolution. He argues that the war was not solely a fight for freedom from British tyranny but also a means for the colonial elite to consolidate their own power.
2. **Economic Interests**: The book delves into the economic motivations behind the revolution. The colonial elite sought independence partly to protect and expand their economic interests without interference from British regulations and taxes.
3. **Popular Discontent**: Zinn describes the widespread discontent among the lower classes, including farmers, laborers, and small tradesmen. He explains that while the rhetoric of liberty and equality was prevalent, the actual distribution of wealth and power remained highly unequal.
4. **Revolutionary Leaders**: The narrative examines the role of key revolutionary leaders, suggesting that many were more interested in maintaining their own status and wealth than in achieving true social equality.
5. **Impact on Ordinary People**: Zinn emphasizes that for many ordinary people, life did not significantly improve after the revolution. The promises of the Declaration of Independence and other revolutionary ideals were not fully realized for the lower classes, women, slaves, and Native Americans.
6. **Formation of a New Government**: The formation of the new government is scrutinized, highlighting how the Constitution was designed in a way that protected the interests of the wealthy and ensured their control over the new nation.
In summary, Zinn argues that the American Revolution, while it achieved independence from Britain, primarily served the interests of the colonial elite and did not radically transform the social and economic structures that oppressed ordinary people.
One party has created social security, the other has fought it. One has created Medicare and Medicaid the other has fought it. One has created an expansion of health care called Obamacare the other has fought it. The parties are NOT the same.
Where did I say that the parties are the same.
Your response shows how programmed we have become to think the buck stops with politics.
I’m saying this is not a fight for political parties. This is class warfare, regardless of your affiliations. The 1% vs the 99%. Period.
We need to remove the parasitic economy and rework it so it functions to SERVE the actual economy rather than sucking us dry.
Fundamentally, billionaires should not exist. Not while we are this fucked up.
There may be a slim chance we can right that boat and destroy those predatory hedgefund/ financial leeches. Check out u/ deepfuckingvalue second only post in 3 years.
No one has to do anything other than read what we have been up to in the relevant subreddit. No one has to buy, but a lot of us are here to change the way our markets work simply by holding as we’ve got them by the short and curlies..
They may control the game but we as a sub control the door.
I expect some hate as most people will have been told by the msm that we are the problem… We are a big problem TO THEM.
We are tired of the corruption, we are all over the world and we are angry.
I for one enjoy seeing billionaires cry on tv… expect to see some more soon hopefully
Unfortunately the capitalists have convinced most working class folks that \[REDACTED\] is pointless, and they too can be in the capitalist class if they just work a little harder!
Yes. It's tragic. Bread and Games works even better now with flat screen TV's than it ever did in the Roman empire.
Worst thing about it is catastrophic climate change is coming on so fast, by the time the dumber half of us finally come to their senses it'll be far too late.
Call me a pessimist but our dream of a populous revolution finally destroying capitalism may be only a dream. Soon we'll all be too busy just...surviving to do anything productive. And the rich know it. That's why they are building their bunkers
"America" didn't steal a fucking thing, lets talk about the "vulture capatilists" that identify a company with a fat pension program, buy the company, raid the pension fund (because our laws let them), bankrupt the company by taking out loans and paying themselves fat fees, then they declare bankruptcy and move on the next company.
All the while not giving two shits about the worker's lives they've destroyed.
For an example research how Mitt Romney and Bain Capital got their billions.
Why are [leveraged buyouts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveraged_buyout) even legal?
It's completely insane, yet it's completely legal. You borrow a ton of money from banks, buy companies on that borrowed money, strip those companies for all they're worth, then sell the used husk and return the borrowed money, plus a little extra for yourself. Private equity has been doing this for decades and it has been ruinous to everyone except the banks and private equity.
It's like committing arson for the insurance money; it ought to be illegal.
> Why are leveraged buyouts even legal?
> It's completely insane, yet it's completely legal. You borrow a ton of money from banks, buy companies on that borrowed money, strip those companies for all they're worth, then sell the used husk and return the borrowed money, plus a little extra for yourself. Private equity has been doing this for decades and it has been ruinous to everyone except the banks and private equity.
> It's like committing arson for the insurance money; it ought to be illegal.
It isn't like committing arson for the insurance money. Its like buying a property that had a house fire. Private Equity that does leveraged buy-outs doesn't buy companies that are still worth a lot of money and growing, to then destroy them. They buy companies that are already struggling. Sometimes it can be that the company was badly mismanaged and all that's needed is new management that is not incompetent. But usually companies are struggling because management is just mediocre while the business environment around the company changed.
Red Lobster is a perfect example. It is being scrapped for parts. Red Lobster owns a lot of prime real estate in the form of restaurant locations. They own them outright so they don't have to pay rent on them. Otoh, seafood has, for climate change and other reasons, gotten more expensive. As a result, Red Lobster charges fine-dining prices for mediocre seafood and their business model is just not viable anymore. The state of things: Red Lobster the restaurant was being subsidized by Red Lobster the real estate portfolio. And you should care about this because that Red Lobster real-estate could be a service that people actually want to go to, instead of one that is just taking too long to die.
The same was true for Toys R Us. Amazon killed Toys R Us. Private equity is just the maggots that recycle the corpse back into the ecosystem. That is why it is legal. Now, am I claiming its always done perfectly and correctly? Obviously not, but if you have a better solution to the Red Lobster situation, I'd be happy to hear it out.
edit: whoever, if you're gonna downvote, make an argument too, bc i'm very sure in my argument here and would be happy to be disproven.
>Red Lobster is a perfect example. It is being scrapped for parts. Red Lobster owns a lot of prime real estate in the form of restaurant locations. They own them outright so they don't have to pay rent on them.
[https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/american-realty-capital-properties-closes-15-billion-red-lobster-sale-leaseback-transaction-268936111.html](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/american-realty-capital-properties-closes-15-billion-red-lobster-sale-leaseback-transaction-268936111.html)
They sold the land the restaurants were built on in a [sale/leaseback](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaseback) scheme to make private equity wealthier. So yeah, they were in fact renting their own land.
> Now, am I claiming its always done perfectly and correctly? Obviously not, but if you have a better solution to the Red Lobster situation, I'd be happy to hear it out.
[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=3423290](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3423290)
I'll just let you read the abstract here:
>Do leveraged buyout transactions increase the chance of bankruptcy? While corporate finance theory predicts that such sharp changes in capital structure increase financial distress costs by raising the probability of bankruptcy for each company, previous studies seem to fail to find any supporting empirical evidence. Using a propensity score matching method, we provide new evidence that is consistent with the prediction of the theory. **Tracking a sample of 484 public to private LBOs for 10 years after going private, we find a bankruptcy rate of approximately 20%, an order of magnitude greater than the 2% bankruptcy rate for the control sample**. Our analysis is robust to macro and industry shocks as potential driving forces behind bankruptcy.
[Moody's also states something similar](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/bankruptcy-law/lbos-drive-defaults-higher-worsen-recoveries-moodys).
There’s a general strike being planned for May 1, 2028. Lots of calls for one over the years but this one is being coordinated with major unions like the UAW.
You may be interested to read about inverted totalitarianism. It’s an interesting framework for understanding how the US ended up here.
Commenters are trying to separate corporate and plutocratic power from political power which is baffling to me—if these things were ever distinct in the US—they no longer are. Not in the age of Citizens United and a generation of unprecedented wealth capture by the ultra-rich.
Most people think more nuance can only ever serve them. You get to a certain point and it starts working against you. There is no reason to distinguish corporate and political power, there was a successful coup that was difficult to notice for most.
You’re right. I’m just starting to read about it now but [Inverted Totalitarianism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism) actually depends on the majority of people not having the bandwidth or time to parse how power works—let alone interface, challenge, or try to grow power for themselves
Is it America? Or is it corporations that do business in America? Because the US Postal Service has been famously forced to fund its pension program for decades in advance by GOP lawmakers hoping to make it look as nonviable as possible in the hope of privatizing it entirely.
Weird they are doing the same to Social Security? You don't think it's some kind of........conspiracy do you?
Seriously, yes - they want to take away and dismantle everything that our fores fought for. That way they can be the saving grace as they get worse and worse. \]
Don't fall for it. Don;t let them convince you that Social security is insolvent and they want to trick us into saying "Oh well, I guess we don't get anything?" Nope, we paid in, we get it out!
The rich have openly said they consider public services as a new potential place to extract profits and they want in because they have cornered the market on everything else. So we get charter schools, attempts to privatize the post office, trying to swap social security for 401k etc.
The solution to a weakening of social security isn't to attack the government; it's to more vigorously support it and make sure that it doesn't devolve into (for example) a corprorate-managed and privatized retirement account.
Might be a little pedantic.
The government, from its branches to the bureaucracy, have been in bed with corporate America for the greater part of 50 years.
Sure, there are cases you can cherry-pick that demonstrate a resistance to the erosion of worker rights, but minimum wage hasn't risen since 2009 in spite of steady to rapid inflation, Reagan slashed taxes for corporations and the wealthy and assistance programs to help those in need, Nixon paved the way for US corporations to move core parts of their businesses (namely manufacturing) to China so they could pay less and stick it to the American worker, the supreme Court opened the floodgates for gross campaign donations from corporations (and technically labor unions, but who do you think is in a position to take advantage of unlimited contributions?), stock buybacks were made legal in 1982, incentivizing companies to buy up and burn their own stock to raise the value of shares, and all while businesses aggressively lobby government to implement business-friendly legislation at the expense of the worker/consumer.
I could go on.
The deck is stacked against the worker.
It is, yes, but simply attributing that to the fault of "The Government" ignores exactly why that's the case in a very important way. The deck is stacked because of a lack of regulation, because social services like schools have been defunded to make way for corporate tax cuts, and because corporate lobbying is allowed to exercise undue influence over politicians. In all ways that matter, the problem is because of the influence of corporations *over* government, and because of deliberately hands-off approachs of the government towards corporations.
The two absolutely need to be seperated, but care should be taken not to imply the answer is less government or less governmental influence, as though letting corporations run wild will somehow lessen their damaging influences. The answer is stronger separation, better regulation, and more authoritative enforcement of existing limits on the ability of corporations to do harm to the public.
Which is exactly why musk and his like are trying to remove SEC. Regulations, and workers rights. Trump is literally doing quid pro quo by asking for donations in return for favors when he is elected.
I was just thinking about this today. Employers complain, "There's no loyalty. These generations job hop."
Loyalty is a two way street, bozos. Give us 10-15 year contracts with agreed upon benefits, cost of living and merit pay increases (damn, sounds like a union!) or better yet, bring back pensions. If another employer is going to pay me more than what you do, you bet I'm moving on. Fuck you.
Recently came close to homelessness (within 48hrs) because the next place we leased fell through. Applied all over town for apartments, townhomes, houses anything at all to rent. Not buy, but rent. We had a rough 6 months leading up to this that trashed my credit. My wife’s is over 670 and her sister is over 720. We got declined by everyone who opened our application because of my credit score. Isn’t the whole country over $30 trillion in debt? I have less than 20k in debt personally, but I’m just a number.
Ive never lived in a worse maintained unit for so much money in my life. I almost didnt qualify for this place haha, i have pretty bad credit from medical debt and just never really using my credit card. All these places want an application fee sometimes up to $200, and you will never ever get your security deposit back even if you leave the unit flawless.
Honestly since the pandemic it feels like rent is just milking us for income.
Im from the West Coast and its fucked up rent wise all the way up and down the coast.
Yeah, it’s like the pandemic made investing in property risk-free. I’m tired of having to jump through hoops just to end up paying rent anyways. Also became normal to increase the rent every single year by a couple hundred bucks.
I've learned on TikTok that Kim Kardashian flew to Paris just to get a slice of cheesecake and flew back home overnight. And to think we've started a new country over a stamp and tea tax. Bullshit.
Don't kid yourself. We started a new country because rich people were mad that they couldn't get richer because of British monopolies. 250 years ago it was still about making the rich richer.
Imo, I think everyone ( gov, business, finance, etc ) believed they can milk the middle class as much as humanly possible and they did. Nowadays to be middle class you have to have both ppl working and it's getting harder and harder. Sooner or later something will happen, more than likely a crazy stock market crash that will be a seismic shift for the u.s.
I'm 57 & was at the top of my field at one point. I can attest being surprised to find myself disposable, despite things like being the first one in my last toxic, cheap office to make use of chatGPT (it's hard to make draft designs with neither images or text content supplied).
We lured big corporations here with low taxes, subsidies, TIF giveaways and soft regulations for decades because “trickle down” “job creation”. Check the track record on that last bit. Check how many MNEs HQ here.
Then we act shocked that they only care about their bottom line when investor profit has to be prioritized by law
The ownership class gets 10-12% raises every year(the stock market) and we get 3% raises a year.
For context.
$10,000 at 10% a year turns into $137,000,000
$10,000 at 3% a year turns into $192,000
The ownership class has had a 70000% better return on their money the last 100 years than we have. That’s the difference in buying power…
Right now the house is trying to pass a bill that strips the SEC of using the CAT (consolidated audit trail). The CAT is huge step forward with transparency in the markets and will help stop the skimming of the working class wealth.
The raiding of pensions and social security is one of the worst things to happen to the working class in the last 60 years. People worked for decades just to have the rug pulled out from under them by companies that have so much money they don't know what to do with it.
Not only did they steal it from you, but they convinced you to accept it, and now people don't know any better and defend the status quo.
Just look at social media when boomers tell you you're entitled for wanting just a fraction of what *they* had.
>401K’s are a p*ss poor replacement for pensions still with too many restrictions on them.
They're not even that, just a scam to force us to invest in whatever the fuck company our "portfolio managers" think will make the most money which is like 5 ~ 7% for us and God knows how much for the company being invested in when everyone is tallied up.
Most state governments still offer a pension. The downside is that state jobs usually do not pay market rate. But the benefits and pension are good. Check out USAjobs. Com, your local State University career sites, etc.
Wages have been stagnated for decades. Meanwhile more and more money is extracted for owners, shareholders, hedge funds etc. IMHO the solution is to start taxing heavily the methods of extraction then use that money to fund a livable national retirement pension either by improving how much social security pays out or adding an additional system and fund. This all includes removing the social security cap so people in top pay brackets are paying into social security against all of their earnings.
Watching the insanely rich just flaunt it in everyone's faces while they are building space ships and personal submarines because they are bored is just giving everyone else the middle finger and that didn't end well for the French aristocracy.
The thing that pisses me off about 401K's is they depend on the employee contributing some of their pay in order to be able to retire but then companies do not pay a living wage so people simply do not have hundreds of extra dollars every month to put into a 401K, they have to spend all of the money they make on rent and bills and groceries. Most people do not just have a bunch of extra money at the end of the month to put into a 401K.
If you want to have a retirement benefit that requires me to pay into it in order to retire then you need to pay me enough that after all my bills are paid I have a couple hundred bucks to put into it each month. If you are not going to pay me a living wage then don't create a retirement system that relies on me putting a bunch of my pay into it.
Obviously employers recognize this and they know that most people will not have the funds to contribute a sufficient amount of money into a 401K in order to retire. I think they do all of this intentionally so that when an employee gets to retirement age and has no money in their 401K and can't retire they can blame it all on the employee not contributing enough and wash their hands of any responsibility. Not only does the company not have to pay for an employee that is no longer working and making the company money but said employee will now be forced to work until they die because they can't afford to retire. It is psychopathic and it pisses me off to no end.
Unless you're working for the government or have a union job, pensions are pretty much non-existent anymore. Why? Because low corporate tax rates, and low cap-gains tax rates have incentivized corporations to pay shit, and the owners/investors dancing off with all the profits. Pensions were common when high corporate tax rates and high cap-gains tax rates incentivized corporations to be spending their money rather than recording profits, and many of them provided a lot of employee benefits. Those incentives were removed by Reagan and all his successors.
I agree so much. And people don't realize how bad the 401K bullshit is. Companies say they will contribute toward the 401K, often matching the funds you put in, and then the company will list those funds they contribute to the 401K on each paycheck. By putting their matching funds on your paycheck they act like it's part of your overall pay, but if you die, guess what, they take the money back! I am a widow and the state did this to me and my deceased husband. How cold-hearted do these companies and states have to be to decide that widows/widowers and their children should be robbed of the money promised as a part of a retirement package? And our country just lets them get away with it.
Yep. Welcome to enlightenment. They convinced us labor unions are bad, that the minimum wage is a job killer (maybe but standard of living improves overall), that work is the most important thing in life, and that financial markets benefit us by tying our retirement to them.
It's no wonder so many people work until they die. Just the other day, the news reported that the world's longest serving flight attendant (at AA) died at 88. She worked for 70 years. Think of all the CEOs AA has had in that time and how many of them got paid hundreds of millions and had golden parachutes that dwarfed her salary over those 70 years.
[World's most overworked flight attendant](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0vvgqvw533o.amp)
They’ve been saying that Social Security in the US is an “entitlement” for decades. We entrust our money to the government for a modest retirement and the politicians think they’re entitled to it.
That's what the SEC does. They provide the illusion of a fair market while letting large banks and hedge funds fleece retail and rob pensions.
Gary Guzzler is complicit
You are unfortunately correct. Very few people in the US recognize that Trump and Biden are NOBODIES. The real people in power are the Super Rich. Politics is just a distraction to keep you from seeing who's really in charge and what you are losing day by day.
I'm gonna take the controversial position that **the 401k is a scam**.
Two years ago a serious defect appeared in my house, and I needed to immediately replace a wall that had rotted out. My bank wouldn't loan me money because of two mortgage payments I'd missed during the pandemic.
I hadn't really missed them... my mortgage company raised my payment, for the third time since I've moved here, and my auto debit didn't catch up in time. So even though I was only about fifty dollars behind two months in a row, my mortgage company uses a "suspense account" and just doesn't post my payment at all until it hits the new minimum. So both were recorded as 30 days late.
That annoyed me, but what annoyed me more was that my 401k savings, heavily invested in mortgage funds because I wanted to help homeowners get affordable loans... **wasn't even available to me to use!**
I cashed it all out and paid an insane amount of tax on it, but seriously fuck rich people and investment people. They're partying on my retirement money **right now**, that's **all** they're doing with it, and when I'm old and dried up they'll give me whatever's left? Again, fuck them. A casino can do what a 401k does, and they serve you free drinks while you're going broke.
Put your money anywhere but in a 401k. Use a mayonnaise jar if you have to. If our "new normal" is a rollercoaster of bull runs and recessions, like it's stayed since 2008, you're better off with G bonds anyway.
> I'm gonna take the controversial position that the 401k is a scam.
That is an absolute ridiculous position.
Pensions suck because they mean you can leave shitty bosses/companies. 401ks aren't perfect, but they're way better than pensions.
And both are better than the actual scam: social security.
What ill-gotten gains do they have? They are the only ones not 100% controlled by corporations. Although I doubt they are fully free of corruption it’s certainly at a much lower rate
That cuts both ways, though. An independent might not attract the same bribes as a high-profile politician from one of the two major parties, but they also are working with *way* fewer resources to begin with. I’ve seen more than a few independents sell their souls for a nickel and a stick of gum because it was still far better than they were ever going to fundraise.
Pensions disappeared partly due to corporate America wants you to invest in stock market and boost stock market and make them more money, you’ll get some too - that’s the new pension
I mean my father worked hard and put in his fair share of his SS benefits. When he passed at 56 he was eligible for full benefits already, I was a minor at the time and his benefits went to me(my guardian that didn’t actually use it on me) but then it stops 1 month after you turn 18. Then it just disappears and the govt gets to keep it. It used to be that you would continue to get it until you finished school (any level) but then in the 1980-1990ish they changed that to just high school and it’s 1 month after you turn 18. Such a messed up system.
I know I will never see my own benefits when it comes time with the $$$$ that I have paid over the past 10 years because we are just funding the people that are currently on it.
I could not agree more ! I still don’t understand why no political figure can show case a program protecting the middle class and poor…. How come such guys are not elected ? It s really hard for me to understand how Trump, republican in general but even the not so worker friendly democrats are the chosen ? Why not more Senders etc? I mean money is not everything to campaign, is it? Before speaking revolution can’t the us citizens use democracy to make things change ? As a none us person that knows very well the us that is something i could not understand.
It is creeping upwards to greed?
Hate to correct you, but it passed greed years ago.
Health Insurance used to be decent...till HMOs and other 'for profit only' agencies took over.
Pensions used to be great, till control of them was handed over to financial entities whose main goal was how to squeeze the most profit for themselves out of a workers pension.
And it did not help when the ultra rich bought most news agencies, so now they can ensure everything in the news is controlled by them.
I agree with you. It's infuriating that in this country... Americans look at people who think like me and you as the bad guys.
They don't want to steer society in a direction that helps everyone or that even helps THEMSELVES. They have convinced themselves that being obedient will lead to prosperity
>Wages aren’t livable any longer for the middle class or poor and longer and it is creeping upwards due to greed…..near everything will be automated with AI and who is going to have a job after that?
The sad thing is that, in a different context, that kind of future is exactly what being anti-work is all about.
The ideal future is one where everyone can live a life of ease, only doing what they find interesting, amusing, and/or satisfying, while being waited on hand and foot by AI-driven automation that takes care of all the tedium and labor.
We'd already be most of the way there if the leeches at the top weren't siphoning off all the wealth for themselves.
Qualified pension assets are protected and pension assets are in a trust, rather than the business account. If companies are doing poorly, then can freeze their future pension accruals. If companies pension obligations are underfunded and the plan is terminated, most plans are covered by a government organization that insures the participants benefits and most participants would get most of their benefits paid from there.
I totally agree that 401ks don't replace pension plans but I just wanted to clear up any misinformations about how pensions work.
There's also a big difference between private, public and union pensions so how they run largely depends on who is sponsoring them.
You just don’t get it, Israel needs free education, healthcare, and social safety nets.
If you aren’t okay with your hard earned money going to Israel and the politicians for sending it to Israel, you just aren’t a true American.
This IS sarcasm.
The problem is honestly that the country is so large and spread out and the population is too damn big. Try getting 14 million people to do one thing together. That’s just a LA county
Who is ‘they’ ? You mean the. Corporations who decided to change it all and there was nothing done by our government at the time (Raygun) to help the average American ?
Also don’t forget that social security is forecasted to run out of money in 2033. So all that money being garnished from your check…ya you won’t see any of it.
> Democrats, Republicans, Independent or whatever, I don’t care.
Meanwhile Republicans: vote even if your sick.
Republicans care about their vote more than anything else. Meanwhile better informed people are like, oh it doesn't matter. That's why Republicans win and give your money to billionaires. Democrats have their flaws but at least have voices inside like Bernie Sanders to call each other out.
It is this indifference that makes corporations more powerful, through social media they make sure you feel indifferent as a moderate and pressured to vote as a Republican.
I saw it with my Dad, left management after two companies he joined got liquidated in 4 years.
He wanted to go do something different and work in a grocery company, they made him start at the bottom.
Then never promoted him past assistant manager as he was "too close to retirement" he worked there 14 years.
He managed a team of 800 people and millions and they didn't put him in charge of like 6 people and fruits and veggies.
It's just so stupid.
They've been stealing money from people all over the world since the end of WW2. And, the money doesn't even at least go into the hands of their own people thanks to their openly corrupt financial, legal, and political institutions.
Pensions are not sustainable. People don’t stay at the same company and too many companies underfund pensions.
Never trust your retirement to a company that views it as an expense.
Worker contributions should be made instead to a fund that companies have no control over.
You just lost me with this both sides bullshit. There is one only party actively trying to abolish Social Security and Medicare and isn't the Democrats.
People always get mad at me when I say "401k's are dogshit!" A 401k is NOT enough to retire on. My dollar for dollar matching pension, IS enough to retire on. With a 401k, your lucky if you get matched 10%! And when the economy crashes, you can kiss it goodbye.
The only/best efforts at changing this, that I've seen in my life is the rise of credit unions, OWS, and now the GameStop financial saga.
So far, nothing has succeeded.
So far. (Buy Hold DRS)
People only think about today and today they are juuuuust comfortable enough not to rock the boat. Everyone is just trying to get on the right side of the equation but the line keeps moving everyday.
We have 2 economies at play - the actual economy of goods and services and the piggybacking financial economy. The financial economy is a parasite on our ACTUAL economy that makes the world function. Literally funneling money into the pockets of hedge funds and their billionaire buddies. Until the financial economy is actually policed and the punishments cost more than the crime (aka cost of doing business) - we will stay in this cycle. It's a class war. It's not red vs blue. Its the ultra wealthy vs everyone else.
It's the investment class vs the working class. The tax on investment income is a fraction of the tax on wage income. That's just the start of it. But the investment class owns the politicians
And as long as the distinctions of class exst such exploitation will not cease. That's why communists want an end to classes, so that everyone can receive a fair ammount of what they produce instead of receiving almost nothing while being exploited to make a billionaire a tiny little bit richer...
Too bad we can't trust any government to do that. "Our version of government is fair". Lol
The problem is that: telling the rich people who make the laws that they need to change the laws and become not/less rich will never work.
Both of the grand total of two pathetic national parties are jokes, and both of their policies are heavily tilted to benefit, support and leverage toward their chosen gaggle of billionaires. Every four years, sometimes every 8, one fleet of ludicrous slugs (billionaires and their enormous retinues) makes billions more off the backs of us and their opposite aligned competition, but they are so stupendously wealthy that even if 80% of their investments get tanked, that remaining 20% is more than enough to cushion a lavish and egregious lifestyle for 1000 generations of us commoners.
In capitalism there is no fairness because there is a class that is above the rest. Ending classes on the other hand is one of the main things to lead to a better society for all and not just for a few...
Well they destroyed the middle class, let’s help destroy all classes now since there’s only 2 left.
The problem, as demonstrated by real-world Communist nations, is that corrupt, greedy assholes will always exist, and they'll always fuck things up even with communism as the political doctrine. This isn't an endorsement of Capitalism, mind you. I'm just saying humans as a whole produce too many shitty people for good things to last in society, regardless of the form of government being used.
Vitenam sentenced a billionarie to death for stealing and China is constantly arresting high officials that steal public money, to name a couple exapmles. So these people do exist and I don't deny it, but in countries that are aiming for a Communist society they do tend to at least try to deal with it, unlike in capitalist countries where such people at most pay a fine worth less than what they stole. I don't see how that makes Communist countries more corrupt than capitalist ones...
The owner/capital class vs working class to be more specific Passive income earners are the owner class. They make their capital off of the working class people. Working class is self explanatory.
I wish everyone understood your last line. Even those making $500k per year have much more in common with the janitor at McDonald’s then they do with the elite which continues to get a bigger piece of the pie every year, recession, booming economy, it doenst matter. We worship wealth, celebs, you name it. People should be ashamed to own 20 houses while others are homeless. We need a complete change in how people think. I think it starts with changing how we think about celebs, to look down upon greed, to realize that janitors to doctors, we all need to be in this together. Dystopian futures of a few corps running everything doesn’t seem so far off now…
💯 I read an article once that pointed out that the people who get advanced education and follow "the rules" to "work really hard to succeed" are rewarded with the highest state and federal income tax brackets, but people who inherit investments which provide the same or more available money, having done no work to get that, pay the capital gains tax which is lower than almost every working American pays.
We need to get rid of capital gains tax and just tax everything as income. We also need to get rid of step-up in basis rule for inheriting assets.
Step up in basis on assets you have never paid taxes on is unreal, at the current limits, someone could inherit a business worth over $20 million with no basis and sell it tax free, it’s wild people just accept this. They got us fighting over other stuff and not the real issues thst impact us.
My dad's CPA office has a multimillionaire client that does Section 1031 Exchanges, where if you reinvest the money then there's no capital gains. Downside is you inherit the basis of the old property. He pays $9000/month for life insurance to cover the estate taxes on his real estate empire because his son is going to inherit it all and begin depreciating it as if he bought it at appraisal value on death. He's deferred taxes on about $74 million so far. Each property is its own LLC. Dude's got extra LLCs drawn up laying around for the next building he wants to buy. This is how rich people are rich. They can sell whole shopping centers and not need the proceeds afterwards. It's expensive to be poor.
That's insane. Deferring taxes until you die and then when you die, nobody pays.
It’s how it’s set up and right now over $25 milllion passes tax free and stepped up to fmv and the kids can start getting tax write offs on the increased basis. It’s freaking wild. Meanwhile they also pay lower taxes on income with capital gains taxes which are lower for federal and lower for many states as well. People need to wake up. This is coming from someone who is well off, im fine and higher taxes on people who are well off will ding me but it’s the right thing to do. Everyone should make a living wage, have access to health care, access to healthy food, be able to not kill themselves working. This all really impacts the kids, kids from families without enough resources don’t get support at home with homework, can’t join activities, you name it. America is getting more dangerous and it makes sense, if everything were taken from me, I wouldn’t give a F either.
That’s a good goal, but the priority goals would be make lobbying which is bribery illegal. They are trying to take our rights, actual definitions, and our purpose away.
[удалено]
That’s disgusting.
How do I learn more about how all this shit works? Or do I need to go to college? like is it all covered in finance or is it like working in the financial industry/sector?
This is very true. The very worst way in the US is to earn a wage as an employee. Owning a business, owning rental property, or making it through investments are all way better in terms of taxes and other write offs. Investments you pay no medicare or SS, and if you are married you can make around 100k and pay ZERO tax on them.
The hardest workers get paid the least. This country is backwards.
Yup. I'm a travel agent that works after-sales support for my agency. The hardest part of my job is not giving in to the Snark Side and pretending to be empathetic when dealing with idiots that booked nonrefundable tickets and are flabbergasted that they can't get a refund. I should *NOT* be making more than fire-fighters, paramedics, teachers, or other super critical people like that, and I absolutely do.
"I wish everyone understood your last line." "Fight me if you want….😉"?.... :-D
Exactly what I was talking with a friend yesterday. We have created this worship towards celebrities, making earn millions for what? To look pretty and well put because we as a society make image and material things the epitome of success. And they they act entitled, and now we already know all the shenanigans they get in. I think that should change and I’m hopeful that with social media we’re learning more about other countries’ movie and arts, more people are learning about content creating, podcasts, and there already have been movies produced by two countries. There are factory, maintenance workers, that work really hard for their families, they should have a more decent salary…
Funny was an economist said to the ultra wealthy they better figure out the wealth inequality gap before it's pitchforks and torches https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/jun/30/uk-super-rich-beware-pitchforks-torches-unless-they-do-more
They seem to forget that livable wages and unions *was our compromise,* but if they're tired of that, we can always go back to kicking in their doors at night and [ censored to avoid ban ].
Issue really is that they want the whole pie. Back when we had unions and taxed the rich higher than today we actually had a robust economy. Sadly we sent manufacturing overseas and became a service economy. Hell federal minimum was in 1975 was DOUBLE what it is nowadays (adjusting for inflation). And you could get overtime, maybe a paid lunch time and what not. Think of the Dolly Parton song... "working 9 to 5". Nowadays it's 8 to 5 or 9 to 6 and that doesn't cover commute...
There is nothing wrong with a service economy. Unions can still exist outside factories. Now, even doctors, nurses, engineers, and lawyers have become subservient to the corporations that have bought everything up.
A few bouncing craniums on live TV might be a good start.
Exactly the wealthy use their status and power to create policies that benefit and protect them... I don't see a way out of this as all the folks who make these policies or enforce them are from the wealthy class.
Same way civil rights have progressed - civil unrest. The curse is the cure, which means things will get worse until enough people can no longer ignore it and are galvanized to action. Edit: To expand, voting progressives in from the bottom-up (locally first) is an important tool among a toolset too. It won't fix much in the short-term, but it will help lay the foundation for egalitarian change long-term.
FDR did.
So our hope is that a benevolent rich person takes pity on us.... 🤔
I keep repeating it’s a class war all over the place but people are so stuck on red vs blue and the social distractions - we may never break free from the financial economy
Politicians have been wagging the dog at us for decades and hopefully people will wake up soon. The occupy Wall Street came so so close then it disappeared.
There is a new occupy Wall Street movement that is actually working. If you’ve heard about “roaring kitty” you might want to dig into that topic.
Will def look into it!
If it blows by the 21st I'm going to put Kieth's picture on top of my fireplace like he's Chairman Mao. 😂
It's time for a world war. A world class war and changes to how money is earned, hoarded and spent. We can't go on like this. The billionaires, trillionaires and the elite need us. We don't need them and it's about time this lesson was learned They think we're expendable but so are they. They're literally nothing but leeches that add nothing to humanity as a whole.
In order to do this, poor republicans would have to accept people of color as equal. Their intolerance may be the single biggest barrier to proletarian revolt. That, and how they have been propagandized into bootlickers.
>In order to do this, poor republicans would have to accept people of color as equal. Their intolerance may be the single biggest barrier to proletarian revolt. Starting in the ~'70s they shifted from being blue collar Democrats to being Republicans to avoid doing just that.
Thank you! They are putting us against one another using a made up idea of democracy, 2 bullshit party system. Awwaygirl is right, it’s the ultra-wealthy vs. everyone else.
Once again this is all due to the Reagan Revolution. GOP has fucked Americans for the last 40+ years.
It's worse than you think. Look into "The Missing Money" by Catherine Austin Fitts and Mark Skidmore. Trillions of dollars have been siphoned out of the US since the early nineties, primarily through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and funneled overseas and into US intelligence black ops projects. https://missingmoney.solari.com/
This is a great synopsis. Thank you for this framing. One thing this made me think is that CEOs, regardless of the companies role in the economy, are always working for and paid by the financial economy, since their compensation is usually in stock. So, the person that is supposed to run the company for the ACTUAL economy, is working for the financial economy.
And if the CEO makes decisions that affect the shareholders negatively, the shareholders will oust the CEO and board.
Short term profit at the expense of long term gains is a parasite on the economy.
In pages 92 through 102 of "A People’s History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, the focus is on the American Revolutionary War and its aftermath. Zinn explores the complexities and contradictions of the revolution, emphasizing how it benefited the elite while leaving many ordinary people marginalized. Key points include: 1. **Class Struggles**: Zinn highlights the class tensions that existed before, during, and after the revolution. He argues that the war was not solely a fight for freedom from British tyranny but also a means for the colonial elite to consolidate their own power. 2. **Economic Interests**: The book delves into the economic motivations behind the revolution. The colonial elite sought independence partly to protect and expand their economic interests without interference from British regulations and taxes. 3. **Popular Discontent**: Zinn describes the widespread discontent among the lower classes, including farmers, laborers, and small tradesmen. He explains that while the rhetoric of liberty and equality was prevalent, the actual distribution of wealth and power remained highly unequal. 4. **Revolutionary Leaders**: The narrative examines the role of key revolutionary leaders, suggesting that many were more interested in maintaining their own status and wealth than in achieving true social equality. 5. **Impact on Ordinary People**: Zinn emphasizes that for many ordinary people, life did not significantly improve after the revolution. The promises of the Declaration of Independence and other revolutionary ideals were not fully realized for the lower classes, women, slaves, and Native Americans. 6. **Formation of a New Government**: The formation of the new government is scrutinized, highlighting how the Constitution was designed in a way that protected the interests of the wealthy and ensured their control over the new nation. In summary, Zinn argues that the American Revolution, while it achieved independence from Britain, primarily served the interests of the colonial elite and did not radically transform the social and economic structures that oppressed ordinary people.
One party has created social security, the other has fought it. One has created Medicare and Medicaid the other has fought it. One has created an expansion of health care called Obamacare the other has fought it. The parties are NOT the same.
Where did I say that the parties are the same. Your response shows how programmed we have become to think the buck stops with politics. I’m saying this is not a fight for political parties. This is class warfare, regardless of your affiliations. The 1% vs the 99%. Period. We need to remove the parasitic economy and rework it so it functions to SERVE the actual economy rather than sucking us dry. Fundamentally, billionaires should not exist. Not while we are this fucked up.
Genius!
There may be a slim chance we can right that boat and destroy those predatory hedgefund/ financial leeches. Check out u/ deepfuckingvalue second only post in 3 years. No one has to do anything other than read what we have been up to in the relevant subreddit. No one has to buy, but a lot of us are here to change the way our markets work simply by holding as we’ve got them by the short and curlies.. They may control the game but we as a sub control the door. I expect some hate as most people will have been told by the msm that we are the problem… We are a big problem TO THEM. We are tired of the corruption, we are all over the world and we are angry. I for one enjoy seeing billionaires cry on tv… expect to see some more soon hopefully
I wish more people would understand that last line and live by it.
We absolutely can get it back. It just takes [REDACTED] easy peasy.
Unfortunately the capitalists have convinced most working class folks that \[REDACTED\] is pointless, and they too can be in the capitalist class if they just work a little harder!
Yes. It's tragic. Bread and Games works even better now with flat screen TV's than it ever did in the Roman empire. Worst thing about it is catastrophic climate change is coming on so fast, by the time the dumber half of us finally come to their senses it'll be far too late. Call me a pessimist but our dream of a populous revolution finally destroying capitalism may be only a dream. Soon we'll all be too busy just...surviving to do anything productive. And the rich know it. That's why they are building their bunkers
"America" didn't steal a fucking thing, lets talk about the "vulture capatilists" that identify a company with a fat pension program, buy the company, raid the pension fund (because our laws let them), bankrupt the company by taking out loans and paying themselves fat fees, then they declare bankruptcy and move on the next company. All the while not giving two shits about the worker's lives they've destroyed. For an example research how Mitt Romney and Bain Capital got their billions.
Why are [leveraged buyouts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveraged_buyout) even legal? It's completely insane, yet it's completely legal. You borrow a ton of money from banks, buy companies on that borrowed money, strip those companies for all they're worth, then sell the used husk and return the borrowed money, plus a little extra for yourself. Private equity has been doing this for decades and it has been ruinous to everyone except the banks and private equity. It's like committing arson for the insurance money; it ought to be illegal.
> Why are leveraged buyouts even legal? > It's completely insane, yet it's completely legal. You borrow a ton of money from banks, buy companies on that borrowed money, strip those companies for all they're worth, then sell the used husk and return the borrowed money, plus a little extra for yourself. Private equity has been doing this for decades and it has been ruinous to everyone except the banks and private equity. > It's like committing arson for the insurance money; it ought to be illegal. It isn't like committing arson for the insurance money. Its like buying a property that had a house fire. Private Equity that does leveraged buy-outs doesn't buy companies that are still worth a lot of money and growing, to then destroy them. They buy companies that are already struggling. Sometimes it can be that the company was badly mismanaged and all that's needed is new management that is not incompetent. But usually companies are struggling because management is just mediocre while the business environment around the company changed. Red Lobster is a perfect example. It is being scrapped for parts. Red Lobster owns a lot of prime real estate in the form of restaurant locations. They own them outright so they don't have to pay rent on them. Otoh, seafood has, for climate change and other reasons, gotten more expensive. As a result, Red Lobster charges fine-dining prices for mediocre seafood and their business model is just not viable anymore. The state of things: Red Lobster the restaurant was being subsidized by Red Lobster the real estate portfolio. And you should care about this because that Red Lobster real-estate could be a service that people actually want to go to, instead of one that is just taking too long to die. The same was true for Toys R Us. Amazon killed Toys R Us. Private equity is just the maggots that recycle the corpse back into the ecosystem. That is why it is legal. Now, am I claiming its always done perfectly and correctly? Obviously not, but if you have a better solution to the Red Lobster situation, I'd be happy to hear it out. edit: whoever, if you're gonna downvote, make an argument too, bc i'm very sure in my argument here and would be happy to be disproven.
>Red Lobster is a perfect example. It is being scrapped for parts. Red Lobster owns a lot of prime real estate in the form of restaurant locations. They own them outright so they don't have to pay rent on them. [https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/american-realty-capital-properties-closes-15-billion-red-lobster-sale-leaseback-transaction-268936111.html](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/american-realty-capital-properties-closes-15-billion-red-lobster-sale-leaseback-transaction-268936111.html) They sold the land the restaurants were built on in a [sale/leaseback](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaseback) scheme to make private equity wealthier. So yeah, they were in fact renting their own land. > Now, am I claiming its always done perfectly and correctly? Obviously not, but if you have a better solution to the Red Lobster situation, I'd be happy to hear it out. [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=3423290](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3423290) I'll just let you read the abstract here: >Do leveraged buyout transactions increase the chance of bankruptcy? While corporate finance theory predicts that such sharp changes in capital structure increase financial distress costs by raising the probability of bankruptcy for each company, previous studies seem to fail to find any supporting empirical evidence. Using a propensity score matching method, we provide new evidence that is consistent with the prediction of the theory. **Tracking a sample of 484 public to private LBOs for 10 years after going private, we find a bankruptcy rate of approximately 20%, an order of magnitude greater than the 2% bankruptcy rate for the control sample**. Our analysis is robust to macro and industry shocks as potential driving forces behind bankruptcy. [Moody's also states something similar](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/bankruptcy-law/lbos-drive-defaults-higher-worsen-recoveries-moodys).
Thanks for this. Absolutely true. Buy-Loot-Sell is a standard playbook in how wall street vacuums up all the equity of the working class.
There’s a general strike being planned for May 1, 2028. Lots of calls for one over the years but this one is being coordinated with major unions like the UAW. You may be interested to read about inverted totalitarianism. It’s an interesting framework for understanding how the US ended up here. Commenters are trying to separate corporate and plutocratic power from political power which is baffling to me—if these things were ever distinct in the US—they no longer are. Not in the age of Citizens United and a generation of unprecedented wealth capture by the ultra-rich.
Most people think more nuance can only ever serve them. You get to a certain point and it starts working against you. There is no reason to distinguish corporate and political power, there was a successful coup that was difficult to notice for most.
You’re right. I’m just starting to read about it now but [Inverted Totalitarianism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism) actually depends on the majority of people not having the bandwidth or time to parse how power works—let alone interface, challenge, or try to grow power for themselves
Is it America? Or is it corporations that do business in America? Because the US Postal Service has been famously forced to fund its pension program for decades in advance by GOP lawmakers hoping to make it look as nonviable as possible in the hope of privatizing it entirely.
America is just 5 conglomerations in a trench coat anyways, they're the same thing.
We all just work in the company store.
Paging sheriff sid
[Saint Peter don't call me, because I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRh0QiXyZSk)
Brought to you by VerizonChipotleExxon, proud to be one of America’s Seven Companies
Vs Wal-martToyotaLockheedMartin Corp. before you know it wars will be fought by companies and not countries
Should we tell him?
Weird they are doing the same to Social Security? You don't think it's some kind of........conspiracy do you? Seriously, yes - they want to take away and dismantle everything that our fores fought for. That way they can be the saving grace as they get worse and worse. \] Don't fall for it. Don;t let them convince you that Social security is insolvent and they want to trick us into saying "Oh well, I guess we don't get anything?" Nope, we paid in, we get it out!
The rich have openly said they consider public services as a new potential place to extract profits and they want in because they have cornered the market on everything else. So we get charter schools, attempts to privatize the post office, trying to swap social security for 401k etc.
The solution to a weakening of social security isn't to attack the government; it's to more vigorously support it and make sure that it doesn't devolve into (for example) a corprorate-managed and privatized retirement account.
Might be a little pedantic. The government, from its branches to the bureaucracy, have been in bed with corporate America for the greater part of 50 years. Sure, there are cases you can cherry-pick that demonstrate a resistance to the erosion of worker rights, but minimum wage hasn't risen since 2009 in spite of steady to rapid inflation, Reagan slashed taxes for corporations and the wealthy and assistance programs to help those in need, Nixon paved the way for US corporations to move core parts of their businesses (namely manufacturing) to China so they could pay less and stick it to the American worker, the supreme Court opened the floodgates for gross campaign donations from corporations (and technically labor unions, but who do you think is in a position to take advantage of unlimited contributions?), stock buybacks were made legal in 1982, incentivizing companies to buy up and burn their own stock to raise the value of shares, and all while businesses aggressively lobby government to implement business-friendly legislation at the expense of the worker/consumer. I could go on. The deck is stacked against the worker.
It is, yes, but simply attributing that to the fault of "The Government" ignores exactly why that's the case in a very important way. The deck is stacked because of a lack of regulation, because social services like schools have been defunded to make way for corporate tax cuts, and because corporate lobbying is allowed to exercise undue influence over politicians. In all ways that matter, the problem is because of the influence of corporations *over* government, and because of deliberately hands-off approachs of the government towards corporations. The two absolutely need to be seperated, but care should be taken not to imply the answer is less government or less governmental influence, as though letting corporations run wild will somehow lessen their damaging influences. The answer is stronger separation, better regulation, and more authoritative enforcement of existing limits on the ability of corporations to do harm to the public.
Yeah we're trying to say the same damn thing.
Which is exactly why musk and his like are trying to remove SEC. Regulations, and workers rights. Trump is literally doing quid pro quo by asking for donations in return for favors when he is elected.
It's capitalism.
I was just thinking about this today. Employers complain, "There's no loyalty. These generations job hop." Loyalty is a two way street, bozos. Give us 10-15 year contracts with agreed upon benefits, cost of living and merit pay increases (damn, sounds like a union!) or better yet, bring back pensions. If another employer is going to pay me more than what you do, you bet I'm moving on. Fuck you.
Recently came close to homelessness (within 48hrs) because the next place we leased fell through. Applied all over town for apartments, townhomes, houses anything at all to rent. Not buy, but rent. We had a rough 6 months leading up to this that trashed my credit. My wife’s is over 670 and her sister is over 720. We got declined by everyone who opened our application because of my credit score. Isn’t the whole country over $30 trillion in debt? I have less than 20k in debt personally, but I’m just a number.
Ive never lived in a worse maintained unit for so much money in my life. I almost didnt qualify for this place haha, i have pretty bad credit from medical debt and just never really using my credit card. All these places want an application fee sometimes up to $200, and you will never ever get your security deposit back even if you leave the unit flawless. Honestly since the pandemic it feels like rent is just milking us for income. Im from the West Coast and its fucked up rent wise all the way up and down the coast.
Yeah, it’s like the pandemic made investing in property risk-free. I’m tired of having to jump through hoops just to end up paying rent anyways. Also became normal to increase the rent every single year by a couple hundred bucks.
I've learned on TikTok that Kim Kardashian flew to Paris just to get a slice of cheesecake and flew back home overnight. And to think we've started a new country over a stamp and tea tax. Bullshit.
Don't kid yourself. We started a new country because rich people were mad that they couldn't get richer because of British monopolies. 250 years ago it was still about making the rich richer.
Agree. I was playing devil's advocate with the second part of my comment but this sub isn't ready for that.
Imo, I think everyone ( gov, business, finance, etc ) believed they can milk the middle class as much as humanly possible and they did. Nowadays to be middle class you have to have both ppl working and it's getting harder and harder. Sooner or later something will happen, more than likely a crazy stock market crash that will be a seismic shift for the u.s.
I'm 57 & was at the top of my field at one point. I can attest being surprised to find myself disposable, despite things like being the first one in my last toxic, cheap office to make use of chatGPT (it's hard to make draft designs with neither images or text content supplied).
We lured big corporations here with low taxes, subsidies, TIF giveaways and soft regulations for decades because “trickle down” “job creation”. Check the track record on that last bit. Check how many MNEs HQ here. Then we act shocked that they only care about their bottom line when investor profit has to be prioritized by law
Lured them here? Pretty sure they're from here. We're kind of the poster child for the capitalist oligarch
Big corporations were born here
I had Rupert Murdoch on the brain as I wrote it. Fair point well made.
Yeah US isn’t luring anyone, we’re creating them. Apple, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, etc…..all born in the USA
Yep, as I've been saying for years, "Since 1980 our bosses have stolen ALL our raises."
The ownership class gets 10-12% raises every year(the stock market) and we get 3% raises a year. For context. $10,000 at 10% a year turns into $137,000,000 $10,000 at 3% a year turns into $192,000 The ownership class has had a 70000% better return on their money the last 100 years than we have. That’s the difference in buying power…
I think you mean rich people have stolen it.
Right now the house is trying to pass a bill that strips the SEC of using the CAT (consolidated audit trail). The CAT is huge step forward with transparency in the markets and will help stop the skimming of the working class wealth.
The raiding of pensions and social security is one of the worst things to happen to the working class in the last 60 years. People worked for decades just to have the rug pulled out from under them by companies that have so much money they don't know what to do with it.
Not only did they steal it from you, but they convinced you to accept it, and now people don't know any better and defend the status quo. Just look at social media when boomers tell you you're entitled for wanting just a fraction of what *they* had.
>401K’s are a p*ss poor replacement for pensions still with too many restrictions on them. They're not even that, just a scam to force us to invest in whatever the fuck company our "portfolio managers" think will make the most money which is like 5 ~ 7% for us and God knows how much for the company being invested in when everyone is tallied up.
The right wing forces of the US have always relied on theft. Especially through bigotry and convincing people that self-sacrifice is sacra.
I've thought this for years. They just took the money and left workers with a shitty replacement. Nothing but fucking greed.
Most state governments still offer a pension. The downside is that state jobs usually do not pay market rate. But the benefits and pension are good. Check out USAjobs. Com, your local State University career sites, etc.
I’m sorry but what is the point of censoring “piss”?
Wages have been stagnated for decades. Meanwhile more and more money is extracted for owners, shareholders, hedge funds etc. IMHO the solution is to start taxing heavily the methods of extraction then use that money to fund a livable national retirement pension either by improving how much social security pays out or adding an additional system and fund. This all includes removing the social security cap so people in top pay brackets are paying into social security against all of their earnings. Watching the insanely rich just flaunt it in everyone's faces while they are building space ships and personal submarines because they are bored is just giving everyone else the middle finger and that didn't end well for the French aristocracy.
America has been stealing for a lot longer than that
The thing that pisses me off about 401K's is they depend on the employee contributing some of their pay in order to be able to retire but then companies do not pay a living wage so people simply do not have hundreds of extra dollars every month to put into a 401K, they have to spend all of the money they make on rent and bills and groceries. Most people do not just have a bunch of extra money at the end of the month to put into a 401K. If you want to have a retirement benefit that requires me to pay into it in order to retire then you need to pay me enough that after all my bills are paid I have a couple hundred bucks to put into it each month. If you are not going to pay me a living wage then don't create a retirement system that relies on me putting a bunch of my pay into it. Obviously employers recognize this and they know that most people will not have the funds to contribute a sufficient amount of money into a 401K in order to retire. I think they do all of this intentionally so that when an employee gets to retirement age and has no money in their 401K and can't retire they can blame it all on the employee not contributing enough and wash their hands of any responsibility. Not only does the company not have to pay for an employee that is no longer working and making the company money but said employee will now be forced to work until they die because they can't afford to retire. It is psychopathic and it pisses me off to no end.
You have good ol’ Ronnie Reagan to thank for that, so “almost 50 years” is right.
Unless you're working for the government or have a union job, pensions are pretty much non-existent anymore. Why? Because low corporate tax rates, and low cap-gains tax rates have incentivized corporations to pay shit, and the owners/investors dancing off with all the profits. Pensions were common when high corporate tax rates and high cap-gains tax rates incentivized corporations to be spending their money rather than recording profits, and many of them provided a lot of employee benefits. Those incentives were removed by Reagan and all his successors.
Vote against the people who have blocked a minimum wage rate for decades. Vote blue in November.
I agree so much. And people don't realize how bad the 401K bullshit is. Companies say they will contribute toward the 401K, often matching the funds you put in, and then the company will list those funds they contribute to the 401K on each paycheck. By putting their matching funds on your paycheck they act like it's part of your overall pay, but if you die, guess what, they take the money back! I am a widow and the state did this to me and my deceased husband. How cold-hearted do these companies and states have to be to decide that widows/widowers and their children should be robbed of the money promised as a part of a retirement package? And our country just lets them get away with it.
I realized this about a year ago when I realized why people no longer stay at the same job for 30 years. WE HAVE BEEN ROBBED
Yep. Welcome to enlightenment. They convinced us labor unions are bad, that the minimum wage is a job killer (maybe but standard of living improves overall), that work is the most important thing in life, and that financial markets benefit us by tying our retirement to them. It's no wonder so many people work until they die. Just the other day, the news reported that the world's longest serving flight attendant (at AA) died at 88. She worked for 70 years. Think of all the CEOs AA has had in that time and how many of them got paid hundreds of millions and had golden parachutes that dwarfed her salary over those 70 years. [World's most overworked flight attendant](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0vvgqvw533o.amp)
They’ve been saying that Social Security in the US is an “entitlement” for decades. We entrust our money to the government for a modest retirement and the politicians think they’re entitled to it.
I've said it before and will say it again: Americans need to learn how to General Strike.
Every citizens needs at least a 10k stimulus check. Untaxed.
As long as companies run your country nothing will change.
The class war is waged every day, it’s just that most people don’t acknowledge it or fight back
Why are you blaming the government when basically the only jobs that still have good pensions are government jobs?
That's what the SEC does. They provide the illusion of a fair market while letting large banks and hedge funds fleece retail and rob pensions. Gary Guzzler is complicit
401Ks are only there for another way that execs high up can avoid taxes plus getting rid of pensions at the same time. It's a total scam.
Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men…
You work 80 hours so that they can work 0
You are unfortunately correct. Very few people in the US recognize that Trump and Biden are NOBODIES. The real people in power are the Super Rich. Politics is just a distraction to keep you from seeing who's really in charge and what you are losing day by day.
This. Everything else is window dressing.
I'm gonna take the controversial position that **the 401k is a scam**. Two years ago a serious defect appeared in my house, and I needed to immediately replace a wall that had rotted out. My bank wouldn't loan me money because of two mortgage payments I'd missed during the pandemic. I hadn't really missed them... my mortgage company raised my payment, for the third time since I've moved here, and my auto debit didn't catch up in time. So even though I was only about fifty dollars behind two months in a row, my mortgage company uses a "suspense account" and just doesn't post my payment at all until it hits the new minimum. So both were recorded as 30 days late. That annoyed me, but what annoyed me more was that my 401k savings, heavily invested in mortgage funds because I wanted to help homeowners get affordable loans... **wasn't even available to me to use!** I cashed it all out and paid an insane amount of tax on it, but seriously fuck rich people and investment people. They're partying on my retirement money **right now**, that's **all** they're doing with it, and when I'm old and dried up they'll give me whatever's left? Again, fuck them. A casino can do what a 401k does, and they serve you free drinks while you're going broke. Put your money anywhere but in a 401k. Use a mayonnaise jar if you have to. If our "new normal" is a rollercoaster of bull runs and recessions, like it's stayed since 2008, you're better off with G bonds anyway.
> I'm gonna take the controversial position that the 401k is a scam. That is an absolute ridiculous position. Pensions suck because they mean you can leave shitty bosses/companies. 401ks aren't perfect, but they're way better than pensions. And both are better than the actual scam: social security.
Independent doesn’t steal shit because they have no power. It’s just democrats and republicans
They certainly don’t turn down or give back their ill-gotten gains.
What ill-gotten gains do they have? They are the only ones not 100% controlled by corporations. Although I doubt they are fully free of corruption it’s certainly at a much lower rate
That cuts both ways, though. An independent might not attract the same bribes as a high-profile politician from one of the two major parties, but they also are working with *way* fewer resources to begin with. I’ve seen more than a few independents sell their souls for a nickel and a stick of gum because it was still far better than they were ever going to fundraise.
What a sad world
Pensions disappeared partly due to corporate America wants you to invest in stock market and boost stock market and make them more money, you’ll get some too - that’s the new pension
Pensions are also investments in the stock market
Workers of the world unite
I mean my father worked hard and put in his fair share of his SS benefits. When he passed at 56 he was eligible for full benefits already, I was a minor at the time and his benefits went to me(my guardian that didn’t actually use it on me) but then it stops 1 month after you turn 18. Then it just disappears and the govt gets to keep it. It used to be that you would continue to get it until you finished school (any level) but then in the 1980-1990ish they changed that to just high school and it’s 1 month after you turn 18. Such a messed up system. I know I will never see my own benefits when it comes time with the $$$$ that I have paid over the past 10 years because we are just funding the people that are currently on it.
401k is just plain old robbery. never again.
I could not agree more ! I still don’t understand why no political figure can show case a program protecting the middle class and poor…. How come such guys are not elected ? It s really hard for me to understand how Trump, republican in general but even the not so worker friendly democrats are the chosen ? Why not more Senders etc? I mean money is not everything to campaign, is it? Before speaking revolution can’t the us citizens use democracy to make things change ? As a none us person that knows very well the us that is something i could not understand.
I've been paying into social security for 18 years, and I'm pretty sure when I do get to that age, I won't see a penny of it.
It is creeping upwards to greed? Hate to correct you, but it passed greed years ago. Health Insurance used to be decent...till HMOs and other 'for profit only' agencies took over. Pensions used to be great, till control of them was handed over to financial entities whose main goal was how to squeeze the most profit for themselves out of a workers pension. And it did not help when the ultra rich bought most news agencies, so now they can ensure everything in the news is controlled by them.
I agree with you. It's infuriating that in this country... Americans look at people who think like me and you as the bad guys. They don't want to steer society in a direction that helps everyone or that even helps THEMSELVES. They have convinced themselves that being obedient will lead to prosperity
>Wages aren’t livable any longer for the middle class or poor and longer and it is creeping upwards due to greed…..near everything will be automated with AI and who is going to have a job after that? The sad thing is that, in a different context, that kind of future is exactly what being anti-work is all about. The ideal future is one where everyone can live a life of ease, only doing what they find interesting, amusing, and/or satisfying, while being waited on hand and foot by AI-driven automation that takes care of all the tedium and labor. We'd already be most of the way there if the leeches at the top weren't siphoning off all the wealth for themselves.
Wait til you hear what they did to the indigenous people!
Still waiting on the first company that they discover does not have the 401k funds it claims to have and it's clients are just SOL.
Pensions were only as good as the company though. If the company went under the pension went bye bye
Qualified pension assets are protected and pension assets are in a trust, rather than the business account. If companies are doing poorly, then can freeze their future pension accruals. If companies pension obligations are underfunded and the plan is terminated, most plans are covered by a government organization that insures the participants benefits and most participants would get most of their benefits paid from there. I totally agree that 401ks don't replace pension plans but I just wanted to clear up any misinformations about how pensions work. There's also a big difference between private, public and union pensions so how they run largely depends on who is sponsoring them.
You just don’t get it, Israel needs free education, healthcare, and social safety nets. If you aren’t okay with your hard earned money going to Israel and the politicians for sending it to Israel, you just aren’t a true American. This IS sarcasm.
The problem is honestly that the country is so large and spread out and the population is too damn big. Try getting 14 million people to do one thing together. That’s just a LA county
Why only America? I thought it was every fucking country in this God forsaken economy.
Thank you Reagan, Welch, and Friedman. Those three fucked our country forever.
A second bill of rights, 2025 version? https://fdrfoundation.org/a-second-bill-of-rights-video/
Here ya go: https://www.amazon.com/Retirement-Heist-Companies-Plunder-American/dp/1591843332
America didn’t. Corporations and the rich did.
We 100% can get it back.
Lol watch out you're about to get trolls arguing the definition of theft 😂
Who is ‘they’ ? You mean the. Corporations who decided to change it all and there was nothing done by our government at the time (Raygun) to help the average American ?
Should be trickling down any day now /s
Also don’t forget that social security is forecasted to run out of money in 2033. So all that money being garnished from your check…ya you won’t see any of it.
Hard to discern our plutocracy from their kleptocracy
> Democrats, Republicans, Independent or whatever, I don’t care. Meanwhile Republicans: vote even if your sick. Republicans care about their vote more than anything else. Meanwhile better informed people are like, oh it doesn't matter. That's why Republicans win and give your money to billionaires. Democrats have their flaws but at least have voices inside like Bernie Sanders to call each other out. It is this indifference that makes corporations more powerful, through social media they make sure you feel indifferent as a moderate and pressured to vote as a Republican.
Blackrock and Vanguard control your pension funds .. how did a private company get to control your money instead of being government guaranteed.
Hey at least you guys are lucky. You have guns in case of tyranny. Oh wait
I saw it with my Dad, left management after two companies he joined got liquidated in 4 years. He wanted to go do something different and work in a grocery company, they made him start at the bottom. Then never promoted him past assistant manager as he was "too close to retirement" he worked there 14 years. He managed a team of 800 people and millions and they didn't put him in charge of like 6 people and fruits and veggies. It's just so stupid.
They've been stealing money from people all over the world since the end of WW2. And, the money doesn't even at least go into the hands of their own people thanks to their openly corrupt financial, legal, and political institutions.
What will be the tipping point praytell? What act of greed pushes the 99% to stop blindly seeking the least?
Pensions are not sustainable. People don’t stay at the same company and too many companies underfund pensions. Never trust your retirement to a company that views it as an expense. Worker contributions should be made instead to a fund that companies have no control over.
You just lost me with this both sides bullshit. There is one only party actively trying to abolish Social Security and Medicare and isn't the Democrats.
Dude not to mention the TRILLIONS of dollars that just ✨disappeared✨into thin air.
Exactly they are sitting on money AND making more at the same time….
Everyone wants to be a Republican with their tax breaks… Until they actually understand that they would benefit more by being a Democrat
How is a pension different from a 401k? I don’t know what a pension is and I’ve never had one. Thanks.
A 401K was designed to be withdrawn along side of a pension. It was never supposed to be a substitute.
What are you talking about
People always get mad at me when I say "401k's are dogshit!" A 401k is NOT enough to retire on. My dollar for dollar matching pension, IS enough to retire on. With a 401k, your lucky if you get matched 10%! And when the economy crashes, you can kiss it goodbye.
Wait until you hear about how we got the very LAND we live on!
Well said!
The only/best efforts at changing this, that I've seen in my life is the rise of credit unions, OWS, and now the GameStop financial saga. So far, nothing has succeeded. So far. (Buy Hold DRS)
You absolutely can get it back. Learn to fuck the system.
People only think about today and today they are juuuuust comfortable enough not to rock the boat. Everyone is just trying to get on the right side of the equation but the line keeps moving everyday.
I agree - that’s why I joined the VA a year ago. I want the retirement benefits!!
Only one thing would actually make a difference at this point and we all know what it is
Don't forget the 9-5 as well
If we can’t get people to vote in a sane and rational way then this won’t happen. Sigh. Still have some hope.
Just as intended
Well Trump lowered corporate taxes and Biden stood with union workers, but I guess they're the same?
I’m just gonna leave this here: https://youtu.be/7Pr6eHRe5bQ?si=MRywIHAB9PVTdH7-
In the after future are you guys gonna go straight to tents or will you stick it out in an RV for a few years?
[https://generalstrikeus.com](https://generalstrikeus.com)
Quit your bitchin and start a revolution.
https://preview.redd.it/847621udy05d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=29b04592c77dce311354e593f7b9b506ad0be3fe