Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

[jtabeb]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

-- and I will exceed jtabeb's zeal if events prove me wrong.

Now THAT is something even I would like to see.:rolleyes:
(The zeal part, Not the getting screwed on the IRA/401 part)

[charliebrown]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

how do you like the use of your login becoming a verb?

[Aetius Romulous]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

It's hard to imagine now, but there was a time in America when a promise by the full weight of the American Government may have had some traction.

We can and do go on and on about all the very real and significant issues America faces. But in the end, is it not significant that probably tonight on every web site and every editors office - regardless of politics - people are no doubt outraged at even the suggestion. Such has the trust of the people in it's most basic institutions eroded.

Remarkable really.

[ASH]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

Now THAT is something even I would like to see.:rolleyes:
(The zeal part, Not the getting screwed on the IRA/401 part)

One of my friends from the Marine Corps Reserve -- presently regular Army, and attached for the moment to 160th SOAR (to drop the name of a unit that is much cooler than any my reservist ass ever served in) -- just compared Joe Stack's manifesto to the movie Falling Down. I commented that one of my goals in life is not to be that guy. I can empathize with some of his frustrations, but I like to think I am better equipped to navigate this less-than-ideal world. I may wish the game had different rules, but I still believe I can win it. Stack basically tipped the game board over.

Well, I talk a good game now, but lets see how I'm feeling when I hit my 50's, eh? In particular, involuntary conversion of individual retirement savings to government bonds would take me to some extremes I'd rather not set in writing.

[flintlock]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

One of my friends from the Marine Corps Reserve -- presently regular Army, and attached for the moment to 160th SOAR (to drop the name of a unit that is much cooler than any my reservist ass ever served in) -- just compared Joe Stack's manifesto to the movie Falling Down. I commented that one of my goals in life is not to be that guy. I can empathize with some of his frustrations, but I like to think I am better equipped to navigate this less-than-ideal world. I may wish the game had different rules, but I still believe I can win it. Stack basically tipped the game board over.

Well, I talk a good game now, but lets see how I'm feeling when I hit my 50's, eh? In particular, involuntary conversion of individual retirement savings to government bonds would take me to some extremes I'd rather not set in writing.

Ha, I thought of that movie also when I read Stack's manifesto.

I am inclined to agree with some other posts that say this may just be a head fake to move people in other directions. More likely, just another dumb proposal by the desperate crack head politicians, searching for a tax fix.

[flintlock]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

Yep, sad when all we can discuss is what we think the next way our government will try to screw us will be. Not "how they will help us".

[karim0028]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

George Carlin said it best....
"Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice . . . you don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying . . . lobbying, to get what they want . . . Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want . . . they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that . . . that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin' years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers . . . Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin' retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it . . . they’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fuckin' place. It’s a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in The big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people . . . white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means . . . continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you . . . they don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all . . . at all . . . at all, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it . . .”

Its amazing how good George Carlin was.... One of the best comedians (i hesitate to call him a comedian, bc his commentary was spot on) i had ever seen, may he RIP... Right up there with Jon Stewart... They speak to the people in about the only way they seem to understand, comedy and entertainment...

Sad that we have become such an idiotic society that the comedians are the ones who tell the truth, while the MSM spews bull shit... I feel like i'n in a scene from the movie "Idiocracy".....

[jtabeb]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

Well, I talk a good game now, but lets see how I'm feeling when I hit my 50's, eh? In particular, involuntary conversion of individual retirement savings to government bonds would take me to some extremes I'd rather not set in writing.

Even then you can't get TOO mad, can you.

I mean, do you have any realistic suspicions that this may come to pass? Would you have an alternative to just keeping you funds captive?

I'm just saying I can say "I told you so" a thousand times, but what kind of good does that do after the fact?

For me, the potential risk was JUST TOO GREAT, I've read about this these types events in far to many countries and in far too many cases this century for me be willing to wait and see if I'm wrong and they don't go this route.

What I'm saying is NOW you couldn't possibly see yourself as stack because you haven't been cheated yet. But you admit you would be more sprung than I if this were to happen to you.

That's exactly WHO Stack was. The guy who played in the system (believing it to be honest) was cheated and then pulled "A Cheated ASH at 50".

Am I missing something here, or is it just the life experience of being cheated out your hopes and dreams that separates you from Stack. (I'm not trying to vilify or bait you ASH, just to humanize Stack a bit, not validating his choices mind you, but just to show you yourself admit that something beyond words would happen to you if you were cheated in that way.)

I for one, won't let anyone cheat me out of hopes and dreams (yeah yeah, I know government and gold don't mix, I would feel a little "Stack" myself if someone came for my gold and yeah, my response would be beyond words too). I think we all have a little "stack" in us, let's hope we never live to see the day when our collective "stack" is forced to the surface due to the injustice of others imposing their will upon our free choice. (because if we were all honest with each other, I think we'd all have to admit to possessing the capability to respond to monsterous behavior in kind).

[Sharky]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

I think we'd all have to admit to possessing the capability to respond to monsterous behavior in kind.

Isn't that called self-defense? I don't see it as monstrous.

In fact, until people understand that they have a right to stand up and defend themselves from theft and other immoralities, nothing much is likely to change.

[jtabeb]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

Isn't that called self-defense? I don't see it as monstrous.

In the US, the Government calls it "Domestic Terrorism", I think.

[jtabeb]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

how do you like the use of your login becoming a verb?

I don't feel worthy. Flattered, but unworthy.

[Sharky]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

In the US, the Government calls it "Domestic Terrorism", I think.

Sure; they make it sound terrible to discourage people from defending themselves. People shouldn't feel bad for standing up for what's right.

[loweyecue]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

I guess this s a neat trick to pull in order to increase the social security tax in effect?

[ASH]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

For me, the potential risk was JUST TOO GREAT

Without rehashing all we have respectively said on this topic, I'll just note that there are a multitude of different ways that I think my government may screw me, several of which would provoke a similarly bad reaction on my part. And it's not that I think the government is actively malevolent; it's just that the government represents constituencies whose interests run counter to my own, and is structured in a way that encourages short-term thinking and the concentration of power in the hands of narrow interests. (In this respect, I'm sort of a Pollyanna by iTulip standards; I tend to see some of the bad things which happen as the emergent behavior of a system with some perverse incentives and structural rules, where others are inclined to see the calculating hand of SPECTRE.) But I digress. We agree about the need to manage risks -- especially risks that might one day drive us to extremes. We only differ in our assessment of the relative likelihood of various potential risks. So, my eye is on a different ball, even though I admit that my reaction to confiscation of my IRA would be poor.

What I'm saying is NOW you couldn't possibly see yourself as stack because you haven't been cheated yet.

...

Am I missing something here, or is it just the life experience of being cheated out your hopes and dreams that separates you from Stack.

That is essentially what I was getting at, although the comparison to Stack was more figurative than literal. I don't think you're reading anything into my words that wasn't there. But as regards Stack, I'd like to think that my complaint would be more coherently stated, and my actions both more justified and more effective. Frankly, Stack's 'manifesto' was pretty jumbled, and I am suspicious that his grievances were partially imagined, and not entirely external. If I can read your 'manifesto' and be left wondering what your problem was, then it isn't a very good manifesto. And seriously... venting your rage on a local IRS office is damn lame.

Anyway, the whole point of my post is that I expect other citizens of this great nation to try to screw me (acting through our common government); that's the rules of the game. I don't expect them to try to screw me in precisely this way (involuntary conversion of individual retirement accounts to Treasury-based annuities) because it would be so much easier for them to screw me in a different way. And I know they're not trying to screw me out of malice, but rather self-interest, so there's no reason they would go out of their way to piss me off when they can get what they want by another route.

But that being said, if I'm wrong, I will nonetheless be very pissed.

[Sharky]

Re: Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

In this respect, I'm sort of a Pollyanna by iTulip standards; I tend to see some of the bad things which happen as the emergent behavior of a system with some perverse incentives and structural rules, where others are inclined to see the calculating hand of SPECTRE.

+1. Well said.

Many people seem lost without an explanation; the whole idea that anything can happen without a plan behind it seems to be counter to their way of seeing the world. Reminds me of some aspects of religion.

And I know they're not trying to screw me out of malice, but rather self-interest, so there's no reason they would go out of their way to piss me off when they can get what they want by another route.

I think many would agree with you. However, if you look closely, you'll find that it's not really self-interest that's the problem.

Many of these terrible decisions are made largely because some group thinks that they are trying to help some other group. The fact that others have to give up something in the process is considered to be unimportant. So, we have "help the poor!", "help the sick!", "help the elderly!", "everyone should have a home!", "help the banks!", with no thought about where that help comes from -- there's basically a huge disconnect between cause and effect.

The same problem flows into most legislation: "Guaranteeing loans is good", with no consideration to the idea that guarantees will increase bad loans. "Everyone should have the opportunity for a higher education", with no thought as to whether they will be able to pay back their student loans, or what the effect will be on the cost of higher education. "Everyone should get a basic education", with no real thought as to content or cost. It goes on and on.