Can retire
I will never be able to retire, I will just become feral and wander into the woods to die
I feel like there’s probabilities associated with that stuff. Most people’s retirements are tied to stock markets
This was the common “retirement” for peasants living under heavy serfdom. They faced hunger every year so the old people unable to work “went to forest for firewood” or “go to hunt” to die there with some dignity and remove the excess mouth. A lot of time this was forced, and it happened not only to old people but to disabled, women and children, especially in worse years.
A tweet
Kinda surprised owning your own home wasn’t a part of this. For a long time that was the signature marker of “you’ve made it into the middle class.”
the term “middle class” originated from the aristocratic ruling class of european feudalism
when people’s place in society was determined by blood, by birth, there were two classes: peasants and nobility (and also there was clergy but there’s always more detail, isn’t there, so lets ignore the more fiddly categories…). As industrialization and market relations grew out of the early modern period, a funny thing started happening: there were people, born as peasants, who, through their property, started to amass wealth equal to (and often greater than!) the nobility. The nobles didn’t like that. They looked down on this strange class that was caught in the middle of two worlds. Middle Class has historically referred to the Capitalists.
I know today the term just means a sort of vague gesture to some ‘average of people’. But that’s fucking useless. It only really acts to obfuscate the real defining characteristic of modern class; birthright has been replaced with the right of property (specifically property that generates a passive source of income for the owner). I highly advise to rail against, or at least avoid, the term “middle class”. It just serves as a wedge to divide different levels of working class people from one another – that’s not a successful way to talk about and promote working class interests!
A tweet
Was reading about the three-legged stool the other day re retirement and realized too many people probably do not even know the term or what it refers to. Our politicians have stolen the American dream with zero consequence.
I’m older than most of you but I still didn’t know that term and I had to google. I almost laughed when I learned the definition.
Three-Legged Stool: Meaning, Overview, History
The “three-legged stool” is an old phrase that many financial planners once used to describe the three most common sources of retirement income: Social Security, employee pensions, and personal savings. It was expected that this trio would together provide a solid financial foundation for the senior years. None of the three was expected to support most retirees on its own.
They removed the employee pension part of the leg and replaced it 401k’s which have only been around since the 80’s and there is not a generation of people that have retired on them.
401k’s which have only been around since the 80’s and there is not a generation of people that have retired on them.
damn, somehow I know that after all my 401k-less comrads die in the freemarket famines, of 2050, probably the last rugpull on my generation will be the collapse of 401ks. Then in 2070 there will be YouTube videos explaining why 401ks were an obvious scam from the beginning, but you probably won’t find anyone explaining/claiming that today. It’s just going to happen somehow I know it lol.
That’s bullshit that 35% of Americans have all six. Only 50% Americans even have a job. Mayyybe 35% of Americans have the first one.
Yeah that doesn’t even pass the sniff test. How do they even print garbage like that?
