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submitted 1 year ago by narwhal@lemmy.ml to c/usa@lemmy.ml
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[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 184 points 1 year ago

On an unrelated note, suddenly, boomers care about affordable housing for no apparent reason.

[-] InvertedParallax@lemm.ee 44 points 1 year ago

Suddenly boomers believe in a massive increase to social security taxes to pay for them.

I look forward to watching them die off.

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[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 109 points 1 year ago

I blame the removal of pensions and replacement with inadequate 401k plans.

Social security was never meant to be a retirement plan.

[-] Eldritch@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago

Actually, it kind of literally was. Though it's frustrating how common it is for people to share that misconception.

[-] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

AFAIK it literally wasn't. It was meant to be "one leg" of a "three-legged stool". One leg was Social Securty, one leg was company pensions, and the third leg was personal retirement savings.

[-] Eldritch@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

The thing is. Not every company had pensions. And almost none do today. The concept of personal retirement savings is not something that has ever been reliable adequate or common throughout most of human history. Both are literally the reason Social Security was enacted. It is literally a retirement syatem/social safety net. To make sure that the elderly do not starve die or fall to homelessness in their old age.

Check out question 4 on this page on the actual Social Security Administration website.

Q4: Is it true that Social Security was originally just a retirement program?

A: Yes. Under the 1935 law, what we now think of as Social Security only paid retirement benefits to the primary worker.

I don't blame anyone for thinking that it isn't though. Fascists/capitalists in the United States have spent decades upon decades. Honestly nearly the last 100 years trying to destroy/raid the fund for their own benefit. And gaslighting everyone else.

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[-] derf82@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

Or more accurately, social security should be a proper national pension plan. Fund it by increasing contribution rates and uncapping contributions.

I stick with my underpaid government job solely for my state pension. At 55, I can start to get 70% of my final salary guaranteed, with annual COLA adjustments. I may not be rich in retirement, but I can get by.

[-] shiveyarbles@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago

401k plans are ripe for abuse by predatory financial advisors.. a smile and a wink and your grandpa's retirement is getting drained.

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[-] teft@startrek.website 105 points 1 year ago

They should cut back on avocado toast and get rid of cable.

[-] dhork@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago

They should get rid of that land line, you know they still have one

[-] Lemmygradwontallowme@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago

Nah, they should've sold their houses to Aquaman, and move...

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[-] wolf6152@lemm.ee 67 points 1 year ago

Have they tried trickle down economics or maybe pulling themselves up by their bootstraps??

[-] tacosplease@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Enlarged prostate and arthritis are making that difficult

[-] wolf6152@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

It’s a good thing they have an easy to use heath care system to rely on!!

[-] jray4559@lemmy.sdf.org 36 points 11 months ago

Anyone here who comments about how they deserved this fate or how they got what was coming to them needs to grow the fuck up.

There are very, very few people in this world who have done something bad enough to have this kind of condition even be remotely justified. They're gonna either be on the streets or in basic Medicaid nursing homes for the rest of their lives. Many will get beaten and robbed. Many will probably just commit suicide to avoid the nightmarish conditions. And people here are celebrating this?!

Newsflash, the baby boomer generation are also people who also deserve to have someone give a shit about them. You people are sick.

[-] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 18 points 11 months ago

In any case, it's going to overwhelmingly not be reaganites who are going homeless. If someone spent decades shilling for austerity and had it bite them in the ass, that's one thing, but this is the economic bottom dropping out, so it's mostly not those people.

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[-] fred@lemmy.ml 29 points 11 months ago

Ugh, I just knew what this gross comments section was gonna look like.

Look, whatever perceived collective guilt an entire cohort of humanity has in your view, it's really disgusting to celebrate and gloat over a report about the elderly becoming homeless.

When subsequent generations decide they have the right to dance on our graves for whatever it is they decide we did, I hope your ghosts aren't too whiny about it.

[-] mojo@lemm.ee 15 points 11 months ago

If we made life significantly worse for our next generations, then they sure as hell should dance on our graves.

[-] Pratai@lemmy.ca 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Even those that tried their best to avoid causing problems and/or /revert the effects? You’re blaming the entirety for the crimes of the minority. This is dumb.

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[-] StarlightGlimmer@hexbear.net 12 points 11 months ago

The article doesn't say, but I'm assuming the demographics of these newly homeless boomers is not predominantly white male. I still say boomer remover tho so i'm not exactly above generational warfare, it's just the worst boomers get hurt the least from poverty

[-] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 3 points 11 months ago

I think you make a valid point, unlike the federated smuglord that you replied to. This is mostly going to hurt people that least deserved it, as is often the case. Yeah, I know one or two boomer chuds that will likely get hit by that, but that's not worth it overall.

[-] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The material conditions and sociopolitical norms for a large demographic group of people were such that the majority of them actively and deliberately destroyed social safety nets and privatized everything they could in the hopes of making a quick buck and sticking it to the (slurs), and you're only upset that some people fucked over by that group are feeling schadenfreude about that group now experiencing what they had been dishing out. what-the-hell

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[-] PseudoSpock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 months ago

Can't see the 11 replies. So frustrating.

[-] TheWoozy@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

I'm pretty sure there were Zero homeless boomers during the great depression.

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[-] jordanlund@lemmy.one 18 points 1 year ago

"over-50 demographic"

Hey, hey, hey, don't group all of us in with those assholes...

[-] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Enjoying the trickle down of piss? This is what you wanted

[-] Grayox@lemmy.ml 14 points 11 months ago

Bruh they were and still are brainwashed by so much anticommunist propaganda. They had to survive in those material conditions, and if they made it they had to buy into the lie of American Exceptionalism for their prosperity and not the Dollar becoming the worlds reserve currency and propping up European Social Democracy, Dictators, and Kings. They reaped benefits they were actively being kept in the dark about, if they are waking up cause piss is tricking down their face, i will still celebrate them waking up. We need all the people we can to wake up and realize how the elite have stolen from the working class and are only taking more and more as we continue to kill our planet to give them more wealth...

[-] amiuhle@feddit.de 3 points 11 months ago

Cognitive dissonance is really strong if you have to question the way you were living your whole life when questioning the current situation. This makes those people far more likely to be easy prey for far-right propaganda than to be waking up, I'm afraid.

[-] urshanabi@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 11 months ago

Solidarity friend 🤝

[-] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago
[-] PizzasDontWearCapes@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Like there aren't babyboomers who also have no say in policies and those that haven't struggled their entire lives

The more things change, the more they stay the same

[-] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As a genx I had to struggle my whole life.

Because boomers around me were arrogant morons who didn't understand they didn't understand anything, and they weren't entitled just for being born.

I'm also genX and know boomers all across the spectrum from malicious to entitled to regular people to fantastic human beings - kind of like every other group or generation of people

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[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 11 months ago

if they only voted blue 😭

[-] Lemmygradwontallowme@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Don't worry, as the saying goes "pull yourself up by the dick", and maybe they will gain enough wealth to become expats and gain more in foreign wealth and sex on Southeast and East Asia..., /s (Edited for clarification)

[-] thefartographer@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

Instructions unclear, tried unsuccessfully multiple times and now I just feel like God hates me.

You just gotta pull yourself back up harder, my friend, remember the bootstraps and remember you d***, that's the important part...

[-] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

There are many books and at least one Oscar-winning movie about this

[-] uis@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Meanwhile amount of empty homes is increasing. I WONDER WHY.

[-] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago

Wait, the people who caused all of this are now suffering the consequences? Oh no, whatever will at do?!

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this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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United States | News & Politics

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