I’m a Republican and this has nothing to do w/ parties. Some people are the grasshopper and some people are the ant. I’m an ant, I can retire right now at 50yo and it wouldnt be a an issue.
So they want to fritter their money away well thats their problem. I have been saving to retire since I was 19. And a diversified portfolio, gold, silver, guns, land, 401k, Roth, hard currency and a skill set that I can work into the 80’s if I chose to…
Bad choices shouldn’t be saddled on me.
I hear you, but what if, and hear me out here, human beings deserve the basics of living even if they, say, lost all their money due to medical debt, education debt, credit card debt, natural disasters, and/or just plain shit luck?
I don’t think anyone is saying that the average person looking to retire is planning on throwing millions of tax dollars around, they literally just want to live a decent quality of life. If you had to rely on something like the government when you couldn’t work any more, wouldn’t you want the same kindness?
And in those cases I can find exception. (not for CC or educational debt, you bought the ticket. Take the ride)
But if you willfully squandered your money and/or didnt sign up for the basic 401k at work then I have no pity. I’m an engineer, I found out the other day my coworker the same age as me has just signed up for a 401k. He left 6% on the table for more than 2 decades, fuck bailing that guy out.
I’m all for a decent quality of living, just not on my back because you didnt do anything to deserve it.
No but like that’s the point - the basic human decency thing means that it’s basic, inherent and needs no qualifiers. Even people you disagree with are still people who have inner lives all their own. They don’t deserve to starve and die just because they didn’t play some arbitrary money game we decided was important however many centuries ago the right way.
If you think simply working your whole life isn’t enough to deserve a comfortable retirement, you’re a despicaple sack of shit
Have you ever heard of the just world fallacy?
You seem to have made some good choices but you don’t seem to understand how much luck has to do with the outcome.
It doesn’t take very much to wipe out savings or destroy a plan, especially before you got any funds to handle the unexpected and even more so in the US and it’s low de-comodification.
Get hit by a car by no fault of your own, rack up a high medical bill and be fired due to not being able to work. It’s not that an outlandish scenario and one that most can’t plan for or have money in reserve for.
And that’s of course even harder for someone growing up in a poor household and working minimal wage jobs.
It was no luck, I made well informed decisions and sacrifice a lot making those decisions. I have lived all over the US for a step up. Sacrificed the comfort of friends and family to get that leg up. They don’t hand it to you, you have to claw it away from them.
I agree one bad event can wipe you out, I’m not against those social safety nets. I was once for a brief time on unemployment on a snafu w/ a contract.
I have issue if you willfully run a CC debt or live on student loans and I should have to bail those people out. Cancer, I’m in we can help, you spent 180k on a shit degree it took you 6 years to get, nope. But gucci on a CC, nope.
And I grew up on welfare when my dad left and refused to pay child support (oh the 80’s no enforcement). I’m well familiar of the taste of government cheese and Army PX peanut butter.
It absolutely was luck. You didn’t get hit by a car driven by a driver with no insurance. You didn’t get a rare form of cancer which your own insurance won’t cover. You didn’t get suddenly laid off and have to move because there are no other prospects in your area with good enough pay. All of that is luck, not skill. All of it can wipe someone out financially.
Classic Republican with zero empathy or ability to understand anyone else’s life experience outside of their own privilege. Slaves benefited from being owned, right? STFU.
Lots of people of people have called you out on how much luck you’ve had on not getting majorly sick or anything else that might have stopped you from making money.
But you’re also very privileged, or more accurately are in a position that you can’t expect from everyone, because you were free to move cities for your career. Some people just don’t have that comfort. They rely on family or friends to make them through the day. They might have kids, they might need the mental support, whatever.
Even if they could theoretically make it without the financial, practical, or emotional support, you can’t expect people to give that up just for their career.
I’m from Europe and lived in a country with a much higher pay than my home country. After 2 years I moved back because I just was not happy without being close to my family and friends. I would have been much better off financially if I stayed there, even if just for a few years longer, but it was just not a sacrifice I was willing to make.
Hard to take anything you say seriously as your party considers my vote and the constitution worthless. Seriously, anyone still in the Republican Party today can go fuck themselves.
It is now very clear that Jan 6 was an attempt to discard my vote and 90 million other Democratic votes to instill an illegitimate president. Anyone still remaining a Republican must find this treasonous behavior acceptable. Why would I ever respect the opinion of someone who feels their singular opinion is more important than anyone else, including the Constitution?
We’re not saddling bad choices on anyone. We waste so many tax dollars on corporate bailouts while allowing corporations massive tax breaks and we still don’t have the money to provide food and shelter to the vulnerable of our society? Somehow we never have money for helping individuals, but the second a corporation needs anything the money is magically there. We’re the wealthiest country on Earth by a fucking mile and we somehow cannot afford to not let people die in the street because they got dealt a fucked up hand in life, or had unavoidable medical debt, or didn’t have anyone to teach them finances because our education system sure as fuck didnt. Letting people die in poverty isn’t the morally right just because they didn’t have the opportunities or luck you did.
Do you have any idea how many people have 0 debt or kids and still can’t even afford to save for retirement because wages are ass and living is expensive, let alone at 19? I grew up surrounded by poverty, and I’ve seen first hand how inescapable it is. I’m extremely lucky in that I had my family to support me through college and allow me to make more money than I can even fathom at 23.
I’m making all the right choices currently. I’m maxing out retirement, saving for my future, and paying 35% of my income in taxes to the government to just give to a few billionaires so they can become richer instead of helping those who actually need it. Just because I’ve got mine doesn’t mean I’m gonna say fuck you to everyone else. I want to help people who are less fortunate, not pull the ladder up behind me.
Our country is a fucking joke for the poor and vulnerable of our society, and we should be doing so much better, but we aren’t because some dickwad needs another billion dollars.
Well lets start by cutting of funding to Ukraine, Israel, and every other country. Close all the foreign military bases and we could realistically take care of all these people in need. Won’t happen but its a nice thought…
Let the world take care of itself, I’m sick and tired of us (The USA) being the “World Police”
And fuck the bailouts, that pisses me off more than anything. Let them fail.
Foreign aid is less than 1% of the US budget.
What difference would that make?
Stop whining over helping your fellow human beings … because the hell you were able to set yourself up financially without any help from anyone at anytime in your life.
Things have changed considerably since you were 19.
I’m younger than you but not by a lot. When I was 19 I moved in to a 1 bedroom apartment for (inflation adjusted) $700/month. That exact same apartment now rents for $1445/month.
A couple of years later I bought 1 acre of land and put an 1800 sq foot home on it for (inflation adjusted) $275k. That exact same house was sold in 2021 for $433k.
I’m choosing housing here because it’s easy, but I could just as easily pick college, general cost of living, etc…
My point being that you (and I) were set up a lot better to save for the future than the 19 year olds of today.
[Edit] guess I went on a bit of a sidetrack. I’m not sure you were even talking about today’s 19 year olds…
guns
Is that a collectibles portion of your portfolio or just for some end times defensive murderin so you dont have to share your survivalist beans?
