If this gets us closer to zero growth population rates, the better. Having multiple children is increasingly damaging in this Fifth Mass Extinction event. B/c the dying biosphere really needs your genetics.
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We’re stuck between two very large generations, I think. We’ll get screwed over both because of the size of our parents generation and because we have a larger generation coming after us.
Spot on!
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Not even that much is needed. Simply bring halfway decent EDUCATION to the 3rd world, with nearly everyone literate and numerate, and in a generation or so most of the problems will correct themselves. It sounds bizarre but it’s true.
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Well, is reducing payments necessary to avoid going broke? If that’s the case, it’s a distinction without a difference. There’s a difference between chapter 7 and chapter 13, but they are both called bankruptcy. “The taxpayers can always make up the difference” (either through reduced benefits or higher taxes) is hardly an argument that SS isn’t going broke, and depends on trivial semantic confusion over the term broke.
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There are limits to how fast you can lower the birthrate without causing profound human suffering. It’s also kind of classist to root for a system that treats human reproduction as a luxury reserved for the wealthy.
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The article I linked above explains in detail why it’s more than a mere semantic distinction. The shorter explanation would be that “going broke” generally happens when (sometimes due to circumstances beyond one’s control, like a chronic disease) expenses outstrip income to the point where one has to start cutting into principal, which frequently results in less income, which in turns results into more dipping into principal, etc., until one is in the death spiral that usually results in seeking bankruptcy protection.
People who talk about SSI “going broke” are simplistically likening that end result to Chapter 7, with the trust funds being completely liquidated to pay off current pensioners, leaving SSI with no principal – entirely destroyed, per the wishes of anti-statists who sell the “crisis” to the ignorant. In reality, in 20 years it will be more like Chapter 11, with the government negotiating with pensioners to take a 23% haircut in order to keep collecting something and keep the fund going for future generations (when the demographics will shift yet again).
Does cutting back on spending from what one is used to suck? Of course it does, as any retiree will tell you. But unless the retiree successfully rolls the dice on a “die broke” retirement strategy the alternative of having no income or assets for the last five or ten years of life (or more, if you live longer) sucks worse – which, by the way, is the reason Social Security insurance exists in the first place.
As I noted above, when it comes time to negotiate conservatives will “generously” offer the alternative of the neoliberal UBI, with SSI and all other social welfare programmes being liquidated to fund it. Since the then elderly Gen X-ers will probably see about the same amount and won’t expect to be collecting it for much longer they’ll take the deal, and that will be that.
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I was infuriated when Deadpool ripped off the Four Yorkshiremen sketch - even now when I watch it for the umpteenth time, I wonder if Marty Feldman is rolling over in his grave.
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no, i’m sorry, that was not meant as “dole = bad”
I truly meant, I WANT to live on the dole… but I cant
I am lazy, and really? i want stuff for free. I’d be totally tempted. in one brief (3 weeks) unemployment period, I applied for unemployment insurance, not for the money, but for the referral to state jobs.
Immediately received lots lots info on how to apply, govt programs, etc etc… it was tempting… — but i can’t. got job and back to work.
howver… I like the idea… 
We got you the first time. You appear to trade in popular fictions about the unemployed:
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That job referral services given by the various state Departments of labor is of any real value or given any kind of adequate setup/funding.
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If you couldn’t qualify for or find notice of state jobs before you were unemployed, you don’t qualify for them now. Civil Service employment news sources are rife.
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Actually, Deadpool sort of ripped off an old bit from “At Last, the 1948 Show”. The Four Yorkshiremen sketch is the stuff of legend.
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You really don’t.
I am on long term disability, with no hope of getting a job as the conditions I need to be able to work are usually considered benefits for people high up in any company.
You will get bored of not working, then the depression and loss of self confidence will start if you don’t get a job quickly.
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agreed, and? I truly hope and wish for the best for you>
the depression is horrible. fight it with everything you can.
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california has a wonderful job bank accessible for those on UI benefits.
it lists city, county, state and federal… according to the lovely job counselor I spoke with? “its almost as good as front-of-the-line passes at Great America - they WILL see your resume”
fortunately, I found something quickly. -
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