• LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Yeah, if we saw something like an unavoidable 25% tax on all wealth over $300 million, we would see around $2.5 trillion in taxes that could be distributed as a universal base income that would place $17,857 per average household (2.5) in the U.S.

    If we actually combated housing prices, that could potentially cover housing everyone in the U.S. from that alone, then retirements would only need to cover food costs. There are a lot of changes that would need to be made, they just won’t come until the last second when people are dying in large enough numbers to make people do something.

    • turdas@suppo.fi
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      2 days ago

      I see you’re talking about US numbers, but the US doesn’t really have a state pension system in the same way that many other countries doo. Maybe that’s the confusion here.

      • buttnugget@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        You’re the only one who’s confused here. You’re talking about boomers like that is a meaningful category of person rather than people who just so happened to be born in a certain period. It’s like saying “Most parents are adults”.

        • turdas@suppo.fi
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          13 hours ago

          You’re saying that as if it makes any difference whether I talk about boomers or pensioners. The two are currently synonymous and we live in the present, not in the future. In the future when boomers are dead, if this problem still exists I will be using some other word.

          • buttnugget@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            Even though it’s irrelevant, I will try one more time. Boomers and pensioners are not synonymous. Boomers are just people who were born in a certain period, not a class. There are people older and younger than boomers collecting state and private pensions.

            • turdas@suppo.fi
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              2 hours ago

              Them being born in a certain period is actually very relevant here, because the state pension system as it works in many EU states (and, to my understanding, many other countries like Japan too) allowed boomers specifically to pay in way less than they are getting out. This was then conveniently adjusted so that millenials and the younger half of gen Xers pay in more than they will get out, because their payments are used to finance the pensions of those above them on the ladder.

              In most/all of these countries boomers are a massive voting bloc and politicians are consistently either doing nothing about the issue or making it worse. While there are populistic aspects to it, young Europeans have a plenty of valid reasons to hate boomers.