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# Why No One Touched This Post on Economic Insecurity in Aging America

I just read a sobering TIME article about America's aging workers who can't afford to retire. It profiles 69-year-old Walter Carpenter, working physical jobs despite peripheral neuropathy, bad knees and hips - one of the growing percentage of Americans 65+ still in the workforce (19% today vs 10% forty years ago).

Here's what's interesting: This shouldn't be partisan. The systematic dismantling of retirement security (shifting from pensions to 401(k)s, stagnant wages, rising costs) has created a reality where people work 55 years and still can't stop. As someone who's 59 and facing this reality myself, it's deeply personal.

The most telling quote: "What will happen when, as a friend so aptly put it, I become 'too frail to work and too poor to live?'"

I suspect this post got no traction because:

1. It's uncomfortable - forces us to confront the human cost of our economic system 2. Doesn't fit neatly into tech-optimism or "just learn to code" narratives 3. Reveals the failure of the meritocracy myth many in tech believe in 4. Lacks an easy solution (auto-IRAs are mentioned but too late for current older workers) 5. Hits too close to home for many in their 40s/50s who fear the same fate

The discussion we're avoiding is: what happens when a lifetime of work doesn't guarantee basic security in old age? And what does that say about the system we've built?

This is OUTRAGEOUS! If China treated Uyghurs this way, we'd be howling about human rights abuses and demanding UN intervention! Windowless cells, denial of legal counsel, forced isolation, strip searches, suicide attempts - we'd call it exactly what it is: TORTURE. But when it happens on American soil? Suddenly the outrage disappears. The hypocrisy is absolutely SICKENING. How DARE we lecture other countries while locking migrants in cages until they're driven to swallow screws just to escape their misery? This isn't just wrong - it's a betrayal of everything America claims to stand for!

The Theranos Startup Model is just the capitalist equivalent of SSFP: Instead of making useless shoes, they make useless software or fake hardware. Instead of meeting state quotas, they hit VC funding goals. Instead of the government propping them up, investors keep them afloat.

2. Theranos as a “Startup Shoe Factory”

Theranos is the perfect capitalist version of the Soviet Shoe Factory:

Soviet Model == Theranos Model (Capitalist Equivalent) Shoe factories produced small sizes to meet quotas. Theranos faked blood test results to meet investor expectations. Factories cut material costs and quality to meet output goals. Theranos lied about its technology because real innovation was too slow. Central planners rewarded metrics over reality. VC investors rewarded hype over real products. Factories looked productive on paper, even if they made useless products. Theranos looked like a billion-dollar startup, even though it had no working product. The economy was distorted by planned quotas. The startup world is distorted by fake valuations and exit-driven funding.

This article is harmful and flawed in multiple critical ways: Data and Analysis Problems:

Cherry-picks economic indicators while ignoring wealth inequality, racial disparities, and class divides Uses averages instead of medians, masking extreme inequality Overlooks crushing student/medical debt Makes unsupported claims about Gen Z homeownership despite record unaffordability Ignores gig economy instability and job insecurity Misrepresents political behavior through oversimplified economic determinism

Healthcare Crisis Omissions:

US life expectancy declined while European peers improved Ignores mental health crisis among American youth Overlooks devastating impact of medical debt Fails to acknowledge value of European universal healthcare Disregards social determinants of health

Quality of Life Disparities:

Neglects European work-life balance benefits (paid leave, vacation) Overlooks value of social safety nets Ignores public transportation and urban planning benefits Dismisses environmental health impacts Fails to consider housing stability programs

Harmful Impact:

Perpetuates false narrative of American exceptionalism while ignoring systemic problems Minimizes serious challenges facing young Americans Discourages necessary policy reforms by suggesting everything is fine Promotes dangerous misunderstanding of generational economic trends Undermines push for better healthcare, worker protections, and social programs Uses selective data to dismiss valid concerns about inequality and economic instability Creates false division between European and American youth experiences Distracts from urgent need to address climate change, healthcare access, and wealth concentration

The article's rosy portrayal of American Gen Z success does active harm by providing cover for continued inaction on critical social and economic problems while dismissing very real struggles facing young people today.

The US is succumbing its deep desire to be a fascist state with trappings of deep south slave culture.

The Wall Street Journal's framing exemplifies how establishment media obscures systematic dismantling of public goods while blaming individuals. Their narrative of "outsized expectations" conveniently ignores that their editorial page championed policies creating this crisis: deregulation, union-busting, and tax cuts that gutted public investment.

The "conventional path to adulthood" they reference required massive public investment - the GI Bill, FHA loans, strong labor protections - which WSJ consistently opposed. Now they blame millennials for failing to thrive in the hostile economic environment their ideology created.

The article's focus on individual choices ("high expectations," "choosing less traditional paths") deflects from the core issue: the deliberate dismantling of public goods and social safety nets that made the postwar prosperity possible. When 30-somethings say "instructions don't work anymore," they're describing the collapse of institutional supports, not personal failure.

The WSJ's perspective represents the interests that profited from privatizing public goods while downloading risk onto individuals. Their "tough economic luck" framing obscures how these outcomes were policy choices, not accidents.

How about not watching tv

This is something ive seen at three defense companies ive worked for. They will toss the new hires in bad times but hang onto the old timers and let them do as the please. The rto never applies to them and they horde like smaug. The best job in defense is to be one of these. Boeing made lip service to passing on knowledge but when it came to true core ppl they were never part of the process.

That us how i feel as well the US will finally get what it deserves.

I am currently working for Boeing and its a disaster. I get constant hell from my manager because i stop at 40.

If you took the same amount of money spent on the starliner and spent it on education poverty eradication and just universal income Americans would howl.

Doesn’t keep us from buying their crap.

I wish the same were true here in the US

Ethnic cleansing or genocide.

Bull thats the same argument “if you dont like American just leave”

While living Boston the walkup replaced the keyed doors with electronic locks. They never worked. I kept my key to the cellar and would come through the laundry room and occasionally fall in snow and pee myself. That is dystopia. Dick understood what the future would be lots of dangerous gadgets. The gestaltmacher in the novel the penultimate truth.

Texas energy problems are not from technology but from poor governance.

He was still Leonardo.

Malnutrition can be treated by paying enough and having a progressive tax structure universal healthcare and universal post secondary education

The root of rich countries problems is the rich.

The economist can always find time say something negative about Pickety

What ive learned about the elite is they are not taxed enough

See my previous comments

What fucking sinful country i live in

Aren’t they already ?

Jeff will be harvesting the cerebrospinal fluid of his interns

Hence propaganda

I dont like working with others or rather when I sought out others help I was seen as an impediment to the 10 percent performer. Most organizations reward and the individual scale not group when you tried to work communally you were chastised or all the way punished.

I read the magazine through high school as part of UIL competition. I loved it and it continued to be great through the 90s. Its a shadow of its former self.

You should by a coal mine and close it. Is equivalent to saying „you should buy the freedom of every slave“. Somethings have to be done at the National level and collectively.