Hardkill

They say that Social Security will become insolvent by around 2035 and Republicans keep threatening take social security away from Millennials and younger generations. Younger people like me are very worried that we may not ever have any guaranteed retirement savings at all by the time we reach the age of 65 to 70 something years old. Retirement savings and investing plans such as 401K have serious risks. Are people 45 years old and younger screwed?

Top COVID experts all over the world said last year that the COVID pandemic was going to be over by the end of last year. Then, the delta variant wave of the virus unexpectedly occurred. This was unexpectedly followed by the Omicron variant wave. The experts then said that the pandemic will probably be over by around Spring or Summer of this year. However, that of course turned out to not be the case, given the unexpected rise of the new subvariants of Omicron, particularly BA.5 that have been prevalent since Summer 2022. The B.A. 5 wave around the world is finally coming to an end. Yet, now Europe and other parts of the world have recently been dealing with another wave of new omicron subvariants, including BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and BF.7. Fauci and other COVID experts in the US in recent weeks have been telling the American public to be prepared for this newest wave of variants to arrive in the US by late Fall/early winter. Yes, this is still a new virus that even the best experts out there still don't fully understand or know, which is why they have been failing to predict the end of the pandemic crisis. Yes, lockdowns have no longer been needed since last year and are never coming back in any part of the world ever again (except in China). Yes, the death rates and hospitalization rates all around the world have kept improving significantly over time ever since beginning of the crisis, thanks to the constant improvement in the vaccines and the covid pills like Paxlovid. Nevertheless, this crisis has already been going on for almost 3 years now and is still not over. That means that this crisis is taking much longer to end than it took the Spanish Flu pandemic crisis from over 100 years ago to end. So, that's now one big worldwide problem that we don't know will ever end for good. Another major uncertainty out that's been around for almost 2 years now, is state of the global economy and what is going to happened to it a year or two from now. Last year, the general consensus of top economists and central banks in every developed country said last year that inflation was transitory and that it would come back down to normal levels by either the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Then, at the beginning of 2022, the general consensus of economists and central bank officials changed to to saying that they realized that they were wrong about the inflation issue being totally transitory and how it would end relatively soon. There have been a few economists, including Larry Summers and Mohammed El-Erian, who correctly assessed last year and in the beginning of this year about inflation largely not being transitory and that the US economy got too overheated by both excess fiscal stimulus and significant mistakes made in monetary policy. Now those same economists who called it right have been constantly saying since around Spring 2022 that the US and the rest of global economy will very likely enter into a serious recession within the next 1-2 years. Even Fed Chair Powell, recently announced to the American public that unfortunately the Fed now has no choice but to cause some rise in unemployment and even lower economic growth in the near term in order to aggressively tamp down inflation in the US. Powell also said that this might cause the US to be in a recession in 2023 or 2024. I am very worried about what that's going to mean economically for many people in the world and what the political ramifications will be for Biden and the Democrats for the midterms coming up and the 2024 general election. Then, there is the War in Ukraine. It's a tragedy that this war is happening. It's especially became terrible timing when the war began at a time when the world was and still is in the midst of the COVID pandemic crisis and inflation. I am impressed with the Ukrainians being able to successfully hold off Russia from taking over their country this long, but this war has been going on so much longer than we expected it would be with no end in sight. Countless amounts of innocent casualties have already been dying from this war and the longer this fight continues the more innocent people will die in Ukraine. Also, the longer this war keeps going on, the more possible oil price shocks and food prices shocks will happen all around the world for God knows how long. Not only has this made the inflation problem all around the world even worse. It also has further increased the risk of a serious global recession. Plus, it has made the world hunger problem worse. Not to mention that because this war has been going on much longer than anyone would've ever anticipated and because Russia has been surprisingly struggling to win the war, the threat of nuclear warfare is now at the highest it has ever been since the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 60s. I am also very concerned about China still not ending its constant lockdowns and how that will continue to negatively affect the global economy a year or two from now. Moreover, with regard to China, I am concerned about what will happen to the world if China does invade Taiwan in the near future, now that Russia has already invaded Ukraine. Furthermore, I am nervous about what will happen to the US if the Democrats lose control of at least one if not both chambers of Congress after the upcoming midterm elections. I am even more nervous about what will happen to the US and perhaps the rest of the world, if the Republicans ultimately regain control of the House, Senate, and the Presidency by 2024. I know that there's nothing much I can really do about any of these situations, but I've been trying my best for months now to tell myself that everything will be okay and that the future may turn out better than I fear, but it's not working for me.

Even if I wanted to move to somewhere else like Canada, it would probably take me more than 2 years for me to move out of the country.

I don't see how I would be able to cope with the worse outcome. I've already been trying my best to be as optimistic about the future as I possibly can, but the fear and depression in me just feel too strong. A lot of people, including many therapists have said things to me, like "these feelings will pass and that things are always guaranteed to change." I thought at the beginning of last year that everything was going to be alright after Biden became president, Democrats won back control of both chambers of Congress, expected the whole economy to recover completely back normal, and expected that COVID would end last year or earlier this year. But I have been suffering with depression and anxiety for most of my life and these negative feelings have actually only gotten worse since the end of last year.

Yeah, but what if the worse of all of these things do happen? How will we be able to live with all of that? We don't have any national heroes or any charismatic leaders out there who are able to inspire us with hope and confidence about the future of the world, like how FDR or Winston Churchill were able to during WWII or JFK was able to during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Hell, I wish that Obama was still our US president.

What's the source that says that Pfizer has killed many people?

Alex Jones is totally finished. I really hope that other dangerous conspiracy theorists out there learn from this.

Shit, well I didn't realize that. Why have most Eastern European societies like Russia always been behind Western European countries in sociocultural evolution? Like why did Russia still have a serfdom when Western European nations had already abolish serfdom in their countries so much earlier?

Why is the whole country more corrupt than most other European countries even though they have a modern society with modern level of technology?

Wait, first off, you just made a thread saying that you became convinced that inbreeding is not necessarily bad. Second, I don't think there have been many Jews who have done a lot of inbreeding. If anything, I believe that a long time ago countless Jewish people have mated with many non-jewish people in different parts of the Middle East Europe, Africa, South America, Central America, North America, Asia, Australia, etc. because of how many places Jews dispersed to throughout the entire world.

After the late 1960s, the conservative faction of the Democratic Party became more and more of a political minority, while the conservative faction of the Republican Party continuously grew until it became the mainstay of the GOP. There are now only a few conservative Democrats remaining in the US. I know that I have previously bashed conservative Democrats for acting a lot like Republicans, but I am now thinking that perhaps the Democratic Party needs to increase its conservative wing a lot in order to become a lot more electable. So, what if the Democratic Party did this by having a more socially moderate platform? For instance, and I know this may sound morally wrong, but why don't a lot more Democratic politicians tone down their rhetoric on racial equality and social justice reform in order to win a lot more conservative white voters? Or how about having a lot more Democratic politicians pretend that they are for other cultural conservative positions such as states rights, pro-life, pro-gun ownership, tougher on crime, greater restrictions on illegal immigrations, for capital punishment, harsh on crime, for smaller government, etc.? I am not saying that Democratic Party should become a mostly right-wing party. I am saying that it should still be primarily a left-wing party with a much more influential conservative faction like how it was before the 70s.

I think that only citizens with above average education and intellect should be allowed to vote. There should be some kind of law in every developed nation that requires you to have either at least some amount college education or at least some amount of managerial experience in order to be allowed to vote in any kind of elections or referendums. If you never had any kind of college level education at all or have never had any professional leadership experience at all, then you should not be allowed to ever vote for any political candidate or any proposition in any kind of election.

So, then why has he lied about the rights he allows his people to have? He said before that he believes that Russia must allow freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but in reality he doesn't allow for any real freedom of press or any political dissent?

I understand the point you're trying to make, but how do we know for sure that the reason that Putin is doing this is not because he is simply a megalomaniac? How do you know for certain that Putin truly cares at all about the well-being of his country?

After watching the show, Rome, I realized how scary it was to live in Ancient Rome.

Then, does this mean that Social Security is probably going to be doomed in the next decade? Or when we are near 2035, will Congress and a future POTUS by that time, eventually be pressured enough by the people to come up with a workable forward thinking solution for both this social security problem and the aging population issue?

Well, of course the right wing will say anything to convince enough people to believe that anything run by government doesn't work. However, this issue hasn't been brought up just from the right wing. Even centrist based news outlets have also been mentioning this as a real concern: We definitely need to raise the taxes a lot more on the rich and corporations for many reasons including providing much more funding for social security. However, that seems very likely unlikely to happen within the foreseeable future because of how many Republicans and corporate Dems we have and will continue have in Congress for at least another 2-3 decades. Unless, we have a powerful progressive or liberal movement of some kind that will be able to put enough pressure on enough politicians in the government to seriously fix the entire tax code.

Seriously?! These are the best responses you guys can come up with? Bitcoin has become one of the biggest scams ever made. How can you guarantee you'll be able to continue to work at the age of retirement?

How much harder do you think the growing economic inequality of America has made it for most people living in the US to escape wage slavery compared to the good old days of egalitarian growth that practically every American experienced during the mid 1900s or even perhaps during the 90s?

I know this is going to sound like a lot like what a right-winger would say, but I've recently been pondering more about how I would ever be able to become successful at something like creating a thriving business, being some kind of popular social media figure, or accomplishing something that would really help change the world for the better. Many successful people out there who have given all kinds of advice on how succeed at something have made statements like: "If you want to become truly successful at something, then it's up to you to make that happen." "you gotta take full ownership of everything you do. Stop playing the victim and feeling sorry for yourself. You are responsible for your own happiness and your own success." "It doesn't matter what your race/ethnicity, gender, or background is. There are tons examples of men and women of different races/ethnicities from all kinds of different backgrounds who were able to pull themselves up from their own bootstraps and do what many people thought was impossible." "If you don't have a job, then blame yourself." "Stop waiting for the President of the United States or some other politician to come and save you or give you any success." "You gotta face adversity on your own if you want to become strong and independent." "No one is going to hand anything you want on a silver platter." Obviously, a society needs a government, especially in this day and age, in order to: maintain law and order (including the enforcement of all kinds of regulations), provide a military that can protect it's citizens from foreign enemies, provide firefighters, provide skilled statesmen and diplomats, departments for defense, provide intelligence agencies, provide criminal justice departments, provide central banks and departments for treasury, collect taxes, provide teams of highly qualified economists and administrators of businesses, provide departments for commerce, provide departments for labor, provide Interior departments, provide an agency that protects and conserves the environment, provide an agency that regulates workplace safety and health, provide numerous other kinds of government officials, help save an economy during a recession or financial crisis, manage inflation, provide funding for all kinds of government operations and public/private infrastructure projects, provide public education, provide basic social security and healthcare insurance for the elderly and children, provide aide for all military veterans, provide necessary aide for all kinds of agriculture around the country around the provide aide for those who are mentally ill or traumatized, provide aid for people who are homeless and starving, provide health and human service departments, provide energy departments, etc. But do working and middle class people who are not homeless and are functional enough need any more subsidies or any more welfare of any kind from the government?

I agree. That's why I actually did include all of those things in my edit of my OP. But could for instance any normal individual who currently doesn't have any healthcare insurance eventually get one without the government providing it, if that person worked hard enough to achieve it on their own?

Okay, I just edited my post on this thread. I now added a lot more to the list of reasons as to why any government is essential including giving much needed financial support, healthcare subsidies, and other kinds of needed insurance for those who are really in need of it . Also, I really do believe that the US government still has a lot more work to do to reduce the amount of corruption and the unjust growing economic inequality that's still going on in America. Though, I am wondering if it is truly possible for any working or middle class person who is not homeless and has a normal functioning mind to get whatever they need or want without any help from the government.

If Brett Favre really committed that crime or really was complicit in that situation in some way then he really has turned out to be another right-wing jerk. Btw, he does support Trump.

I did make a thread a while back about how skeptical I was about anybody being able to escape wage slavery. I honestly am still doubtful about that being the case considering the non-stop increase in economic inequality that has been occuring even in first world countries, particularly in America since neoliberalism began in the late 70s to early 80s. Also, I could be wrong about this, but I fear that if another authoritarian become the next president of the United States sometime in the near future then escape will get even harder for most Americans. That could further set a precedent for other first world countries to follow. Actually, the new British PM is a right winger who considers herself as an heir to UK PM Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher in the 80s carried out the same kind of neoliberal economic policies that Reagan in the US did.

President Biden and Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh prevented a major railroad strike from happening today in America. According to Reuters: "Walsh told Reuters it was a 'very nice contract, good contract for workers" and for employers. It had provisions that 'have never been in contracts before' for rail workers. Workers have gone three years without a raise amid the contract dispute, with talks stalling over attendance, sick time and scheduling issues. Only two of 12 unions - representing less than 10% of the workforce - are known to have ratified new contracts with freight railways. The unions, including two large groups representing around 60,000 workers, will need to persuade their members to vote for Thursday's deal. That might be a tough sell, labor experts warned. read more Walsh said unions will get the deal over the next month or two and then hold votes. 'There's a lot of anger among the members of these two unions because they feel, after being essential workers during the COVID pandemic, they were getting screwed on the attendance policy and getting punished for taking sick leave,' said Seth Harris, a professor of Northeastern University and former Biden administration official focused on labor and the economy.... A rail shutdown could have frozen almost 30% of U.S. cargo shipments by weight, stoked inflation, cost the American economy as much as $2 billion per day and unleashed a cascade of transport woes affecting U.S. energy, agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare and retail sectors......the impact of a shutdown would have stretched beyond U.S. borders because trains link the United States to Canada and Mexico and provide vital connections to massive ships that ferry goods from around the globe." https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-reaches-tentative-agreement-with-rail-workers-strike-2022-09-15/ The deal the Biden administration reached with the railroad union leaders was win not only for the administration and America as a whole. It was also a win for the labor unions.