The whole concept of retirement makes me so angry because it's only available to a very select a group of people who have a very select set of variables available to them. I'm working until I die without any doubt. and I hope I die relatively young because of that. I also haven't had health insurance aside from a total sham masquerading as health insurance since sometime in the mid-90s. And the total sham only lasted about six months. people acting like they get to retire and thinking it's some kind of normal thing that everyone has a right to just makes me so angry. I work incredibly hard and I'm going to work incredibly hard until I die.

Can't you just, y'know, get some shares and use that as a pension. Even poorer people have shares!

did you read already the story about the Fox news anchor calling a Dutch journalist an idiot?
A Historian Dismantled Tucker Carlson, But Fox News Didn’t Broadcast It

^That guy was being a prick though.



Tucker Carlson seems like an okay guy, but he's got some weird socialist tendencies.

I've only seen "park and ride" on trains that use the Euro-Tunnel.

Re my village, it's on an alresdy existing line that connects two relatively busy stations so it's only a matter of the train stopping at my station. It'snot like it needs its own train and track.

Genius

i dont know your numbers and don’t wanna pry or know but a roth IRA lets you sock away up to 5500 a year that grows tax-free(more when youre over 50), but you can deposit less.... for the self employed there’s also the SEP IRA and others options... yes it’s not a pension (what a dream) but would cover you over social security and you can stat withdrawing at 59.5. yes it’s not magic but it’s savings and anything helps.

i know for a small business owner it can be feast or famine (o i know well ha ha haaaaa... for me it was mostly famine) but doesn’t have to be a huge mess, there are times when money comes.

eta: this book helped me a lot back then. yes it won’t make you rich but helps to organize things: https://www.amazon.com/Money-Book-Fr.../dp/0307453669
might be a bit old now...

curious about health insurance though. did obamacare get too expensive? did your state not expand medicaid? what happens if you don’t make enough? are there not local options? can you insure just for catastrophic with high deductibles? (the catastrophic option went away in my state when obamacare kicked in). this worries me...

but he’s a business owner who works for profit! he’s therefore greedy and... must be punished! his profits should pay for everything and everyone. because profit! greedy! and.... the means of production belong to the people!

fucker, with all the burdens that are placed on a business no wonder he can’t save.

people who resent business and think businesses should be taxed more “because capitalism” should try making a living off one. IT IS VERY FUCKING HARD.

there are no limits on the hours. there is no guaranteed paychek. there are no sick days or paid vacation. no overtime. nothing.

everyone wants a piece of you: the customer who thinks you’re their personal minion. the employee who wants to play candy crush at work but still gets paid. the government who wants you to collect taxes for them. the accountants lawyers and insurance people you have to pay because of all the reporting, licenses, permits and other burdens that are placed on your activity. the notion that suddenly because you need some labor you need to become mother and father and health insurance provider and old age caretaker to the seller of said labor.

“but greed...”

“but excess profits...”

motherfucker... if you knew how hard it is to squeeze a profit and how far from guaranteed it is...

Where have I said I'm anti business? Not once have I said that or even implied it cos trust I'm not. I respect the guy who can go out and start a business and make a success out of it. What I am against is corporations doing every single thing to save a dollar, screw over as many people as possible and all just to appease the shareholders for a few extra pennies. You can actually be ethical and own business, you get that right? Or do the rules go out the window when you're Amazon or Apple?

Besides my comment was more a dig at how completely blinkered you are to people who are struggling and living wage to wage. "Just save your money! Put it in a pension!" Good advice. Might as well tell them to pull a million quid out their ass next.

And funny you should say I should start my business because I did as a decorator. But y'know, why let the facts get in the way of a good rant. The more you talk the more I'm baffled at how you can be so anti-Trump when the fact is everything he's done in business is right up your alley.

Some companies could do with paying taxes first. Or is ok that they get away with pay next to nothing?

a business to survive must do anything to save a dollar. because everyone else is trying to syphon those dollars away from them. shoplifters, content pirates, abusiver workers, “the community...” and every ignorant asshole who thinks “they make too much” without ever having tried their hand at it. and then ther is the competition who is trying to do things better, cheaper, faster than you. it’s not a friendly, paternalistic environment. for every success there are a dozen failures.


demonyo was talking about “millionaires and billionaires” owning shares to the railroad.

“poorer” is a comparative adjective.

a middle class person is “poorer” than a millionaire but can afford to save and invest.

the self employed dont get pensions

the mandatory texas retirement savings whatever owns shares. stop trolling.


everything he’s done in business what????

i never scammed anyone and always paid my contractors and suppliers in full and on time. i had no debt (but maybe i should have). i’ve never been i the casino business. im not a celebrity pretending to be rich. i don’t even know what the fuck is the sense you’re trying to make.

i did shop for a good deal and sought to work with people i trusted. it’s very hard to find good trustworthy people. customers and employees are greedier than anyone. CORPORATIONS ALWAYS PAID ME IN FULL AND ON TIME. governments were the worst fucking customers. it is a slow and bureucratic process to sell and to get paid for them and my checks took forever. i ended up exhausted.

being an employee everything is handed to you on a plate. here’s your paycheck, every friday. your taxes are done for you, half of your payroll taxes are paid for you, you’re guaranteed a paycheck as long as you work. if you’re in busienss good luck collecting.

i admire a business that can provide a good service to the customer and make a profit. the profit is what allows them to continue providing that service.

walmart was open 24h when i needed an emergency supply in the middle of a project, or when i was on the road, and yes i was up at 2am trying to fix shit. apple has always been reliable, did not crash in the middle of the night, cost me money but freed up time. i am glad to buy from them. i was also glad to buy from my local expert because his advice was well worth the extra prices, we had a good relationship, he provided a good value.

a corporation is just a type of business structure. it can be owned by one person or a million. ignorant hippy talk leads to disaster.

Someone's getting upset. Next you'll be calling me a lefty luvvie.

Anyway, I'll reply back later cos I gotta head on out.

yeah i am pissed off

everyone wants to leech from a business concern

especially the lying politicians and the unproductive

gets my blood boiling, lol

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/all-th...ust-pay-399045

I'd say most people here have a healthy suspicion towards corporations and the world of big finance - especially if they've run or worked for a small business, because they'll have more likely come into direct contact with their ruthlessness. Maybe you never ran into any problems when dealing with these big firms while running your business but I worked for one that went under as a direct consequence of their ruthless practices. It's possible to find corporate business practices deeply problematic without buying into the whole anti-capitalist thing.

:fuckyou:

I've already said what I mean by poor. People living month to month with no ability to having a savings. We also know how the middle class is rapidly getting smaller and smaller.



That's generally what a pension fund does, right? The individual doesn't get to make a choice where the company puts the money though. No trolling going on here. Fact is that shares is something that only the upper classes have to quote from somewhere else "about one-third of families in the lower half of the income scale had stock holdings. In the next 40 percent of the income scale, about 70 percent of households held stocks, while households in the top 10 percent of the income scale had stock ownership rates above 90 percent.". For most people it's a daunting task directly owning their own shares and if they don't have an advisor giving them the right advice. This is why it always baffled me when Trump would go on about how well the stocks were doing. That's nice but for most it doesn't affect them.





Very good and well done on doing what businesses should be doing.
However, my problem here is that whilst you state about how you made sure you paid contractors on time etc In pretty much the same breath defend the practices of previously said corporations. You defend Walmart and their ilk even though their practices are the shittiest of the lot. They may have paid you on time but you've got them paying milk farmers less and less, driving farmers (businesses) to bankruptcy just so you can say "hey honey, look how cheap I got this milk! God I wish I could guzzle the cum of everyone at Walmart and their super cheap prices just to show how much I love them". But hey, "I'm alright jack" right?
This also relates back to Trump who consistently fucked over contractors. He was just doing what he could to make a profit so that's ok, right? Or because it's Trump it's NOT ok? I forget where you stand on it.




So? If you're an employer you gotta do that shit for employees. Cry me a river.


Miracle how people managed to cope before 24/7 opening times isn't it? But you're detracting from the argument here.


So does putting the economy into the hands of ignorant free marketeers.

what is “ruthless” though?

i have friends who used to work at video stores. a bunch of them, actually, due to my predilections ha ha hahaha.

when netflix came around, they were pissed off! netflix was eating their lunch.

did netflix offer the same amount of expertise and deep knowledge of cinema as your local tarantino?

hell the fuck no.

but overall, netflix’s near infinite selection, easy mail delivery, lack of late fees and other conveniences had, overall, the better offer for the general public.

so the video stores went under.

the ones who did this part-time were sad but understood the market had changed.

the ones who did it full time were incensed! and swore off “predatory ruthless” netflix forever. they took it personally. to this day. they’d go to a redbox but refuse netflix.

me, i’ve had to adjust my business model several times because of changing market conditions. just like i wear different clothes in different weather. can’t expect sunny days always. ruthless weather.

speaking of ruthless—one of the stores that closed noticed that their clerks giving away too many freebies/discounts to their friends had greatly accelerated their demise! that was cold...

as in delaying the payment of outstanding invoices to a small supplier but giving them the opportunity to accept a smaller settlement, knowing they couldn't afford to wait for the full agreed amount.

well then we’re talking about 3 different things so STOP TROLLING.

also i disagree hugely about “the shrinking middle class”. the middle class is growing all around the world and billions of people have been lifted from misery, hunger, famine, thanks to the expansion of trade and markets.

this is something inept governments promised they’d do and never did and created poverty instead.

yesterday on reddit i read the story of some chinese woman who in the days of communism received monthly meat rations of 77 grams.

nowadays the average chinese citizen eats 136 grams per day

i’d rather be served by the market than by some idiotic central planner


this is a jumble of concepts.

yes a pension fund manages investments so that it can pay its contributors.

a lot of working class people are participants in said pension funds

therefore they have a stake in the stock and bond and securities market

why is that so difficult to comprehend and why does it to be conflated with “trump”? what a crock of shit. jeezus fucking christ.

—

now pardon me, i have to go stand at the bread line to receive my rations from local party chairman