The old and conservative make too powerful a voting block, and it perpetuates every corporate, oligarchic, xenophobic greed cycle one could point to as a rot in our system. I don't think old people are bad because they're just taking government money and have big fancy houses, but largely they do vote the same way and that way they are voting is causing problems.
> First of all, you don't freaking need your own new house to start a family. In most countries most people never buy a new house.
It's important to understand the similarities and differences between "need" and "precipitates conditions that massively increase the chance of", when it comes to demographic trends.
I see this suggestion a lot, but I struggle to understand what problem it's expected to solve. It certainly wouldn't help voter turn-out. Most service sector jobs (the kind where it's hard to get a couple of hours off to vote) require you to work more on national holidays, not less. It's mostly the relatively voting friendly office jobs that give the day off for a national holiday.
If you actually want to improve turnout, enact compulsory voting. That is much better, but still no silver bullet to electing sane competent and not corrupt politicians.
You must have missed the part where they referred to human beings who they disagree with as "a rot in our system". The fact that you're apparently blind to such toxic rhetoric isn't surprising--it is increasingly common among progressives.
It’s not the voting humans who are labeled as the rot, it’s the cycles that result from the exercise of that bloc’s outsized voting power—as said in the second part of your quoted excerpt: “… that way they are voting is causing problems.”
I’m not suggesting the original wording was great and non-toxic, but I don’t think the poster said what you interpreted them as saying.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
>The old and conservative make too powerful a voting block, and it perpetuates every corporate, oligarchic, xenophobic greed cycle one could point to as a rot in our system. I don't think old people are bad because they're just taking government money and have big fancy houses, but largely they do vote the same way and that way they are voting is causing problems.
Please refrain from toxic Othering.
Land is zero sum. The easy (partial) solution to that is just to build more housing on the same land, except older homeowners spend their time blocking new housing, which has essentially turned housing into a zero sum market as well.
> greed of corporations who are not increasing wages
Increasing wages will do nothing if those wages end up chasing the same fixed amount of housing/land.
Now, people are going to point out that the US is a big country and there's lots of land and so on. And that's true, but a lot of the economic growth and opportunity is concentrated in the cities where housing growth is being blocked. The same problem occurs in Canada (and a few other Western developed countries too).
Having a nation of renters renting from rich old oligarchs is not efficient. some redistribution may be necessary.
The fact is, their money is not stored in Scrooge McDuck cash vaults. It's all invested in the economy.
Another example of socially irresponsible investing is in any company that hires minimum wage employees for 39.5 hours a week, just under what's needed to qualify for company-sponsored health insurance. The market's slowly changing, but you're deluded if you think that's not still happening and that corporations are just happen to make small accidental practices that result in wage theft from employees, especially those at the bottom rungs.
There are bourgeoisie who pride themselves on their philanthropic work, and socially responsible investing, but greed's a more reliable driver for investments.
This occurred in the Great Depression where inequality rose and in turn debt loads. The fed has papered over this problem by simply printing more money. However historically, the US faired better following the massive federal wealth redistribution that was ww2.
The US government can’t afford ww2 style spending programs, and increasing evidence shows that money printing isn’t helping the economy.
Which it is. All of it, except for the reserve requirement. The idea that wealthy people hoard money is simply not true. The money is put back to work in the economy.
Second, wealth is not zero-sum, there isn't a magic pot of gold redistributed between people. As value and demand are added to the economy, so is wealth because the new young people with demands can provide skills or time to be used in value creation and then they also (and older folks that are not creating value because they are not working) can consume and create demand which defines the amount of wealth they create. Poor old people are a net negative but rich old people create demand and thus wealth for value creating youth, unless of course they have everything they need and live in the woods or something. But even poor old people need to eat and have health care demands that young people provide.
The forest you are missing for the trees here is the greed of corporations who are not increasing wages to keep up with not just inflation but the value young people are creating. Things like labor unions are a joke in the US and politicians need corporations like fish need water. So the profit margins of companies and the wealth of shareholders is increasing as a result of the young people who are creating that wealth and giving it away to them because they can't collectively bargain and say they want fair pay. as individuals they can be replaced easily if they don't like the compensation.
So this whole old people vs young people and millenials destroying things and boomers hoarding wealth and all that is bullshit.
The education in the US is shit, you can't compete in a global economy and keep up with wealth creation as a result (still at the top but getting closer to stagnation). And the US is essentially and oligarchy at this point. The richest country in the world and it is the rich share holding class that only care about amassing enough wealth that their descendants will make it through whatever shit the country goes through, so they don't care how much americans suffer or get robbed in day light.
This comes down to democracy being a game of information. Whoever controls information controls democracy and this means two things, education and media. You have so many idiots even young ones fall for the trump bullshit because of education and media/social media bubbles and it isn't an accident that education is shit either, it isn't an accident that racism and xenophobia and other hateful things are the tools the ruling class uses to manange democracy.
America embraced greed as a way of life and the greedy rule and we are finding out why greed is evil in all forms as If we are part of a fable people will tell their children ages from now to teach them to avoid greed and pride.
But not all hope is lost, information and disinformation are education and self education are still popular thanks to the internet. Americans need to pursue truth and justice and fight evil because nothing built on lies and evil lasts.
Democracy can still work, but if the voters embrace greed, the the result is what you see. Ask most americans what they think of basic welfare and they'll tell you it's just black people being lazy and taking from the government (in reality it is mostly not black people but why does race matter at all?). We all know greed and hated are wrong, we can't blame corporations and politicians when we choose hatred and greed, these things must be adressed before you can change the way things are done and have fair wages and a stable democracy and solve so many other major issues in the US.
Forgive the long post, let me know if you disagree.