Tuesday, October 22, 2024

What if We Declined the Decline?

 


Generation X people have never taken Social Security for granted, actually I think a lot of us came up thinking the rug would be pulled out from under us because that was how our generation experienced everything--as a recession. I mean, I definitely feel like at some point, someone in my lifetime said out loud with their whole chest that Social Security was the third rail of politics, but I never equally also felt it applied to me, because it felt like someone, somewhere else, was going to wind up the ladder I was supposed to retire on. 

Like, they were going to move up the age I could even get Social Security to an age where I wouldn't even be competent to apply, Like, I would have worked to my late seventies and be trying to sort out how Medicare Part D shit was going down. And just have new technocrat hoops my elderly ass would have to jump through. And a canyon my elderly ass might fall through. 

I'm in my 50's still wondering about that rug pull. Kamala Harris is eight years older than me and wants to save the thing Trump's economic plan would destroy--I guess none of his friends are counting on SS. They count on his tax cuts, though.  


Look, one of my employees in civil service, a Gen z-er, is skeptical of our pension and wants to decline (not allowed by our union) and just do his Roth IRA because we've all gotten inured to the idea no one is taking care of our asses but ourselves. 

I don't think a good society is where we all have to feel like little islands living hard-by one another gaining no special benefit. I really want to think we have one another's backs. Like good union brothers and sisters. 

I long for the idea of my senior years living under my fig tree and vine, with none to make me afraid. I will support whatever government can get me there, and Trumpism sure the hell won't. 

I reject American Carnage, I reject expecting less, I reject Trump's unique image of hellscape. We can do and expect more. 

I decline the decline. I support success over failure. Give me Harris/Walz all day everyday--because they get where I'm coming from and where we all go. 


1 comment:

Glen Tomkins said...

The person who is going to rely on their 401k actually does trust the govt. The stock market would, if not backed up by govt bailouts, sooner or later implode leaving any retirement based on stock holdings high and dry, but, of course the govt would back that up under any conceivable circumstance. Social Security? Not so much. Holding up the stock market has become a core govt function, while just providing a social safety net directly without letting middlemen extract their cut, however cheaper and more efficient, is socialism, dammit.

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