I hate the whole publicly traded model of companies. I hate capitalism. But have to engage in trading stocks (I mostly do Mutual Funds and a small quantity of direct stocks) so that my money doesn't lose value by sitting in a bank or cash.
Same thing with credit cards, don't like taking loans and getting marked on a centralised list for that but it's a safer option than using your own money.
Fortunately I don't do crypto so that's a plus.
I would at least sympathize with the idea that in a worthwhile society someone who has served the country their entire life deserves a dignified retirement funded by people of working age. Insofar as that goes, the money in a 401k doesn't grow on trees, but it's still a reasonable way to appropriate the funds theoretically.
The government can always create the money for retirement funds out of thin air.
The fact that retirement is tied to 401k is an explicit instrument in financializing the entire economy i.e. turning America into one giant casino where a very small proportion of the people always win big while the rest of the people lose.
You're describing social security entitlements, which are badass
Social security is not sufficient to provide for a retiree on its own, and assuming the bourgeois vampires in Congress won't kill it completely is a huge gamble.
They're destroying social security because it's good and it works, yes. I'm not telling anyone to gamble on it being around.
You literally said people should feel dirty for having a 401k.
What's that have to do with social security?
You should feel dirty if you have a 401k that's invested in stocks
Love to pretend not to understand the context of my conversations so I can score debate points or something.
For working class Americans, there are 3 options:
Just want to be sure, you think everyone who isn't independently wealthy should just do 3), because doing 1) is immoral? Do you feel I'm misrepresenting your position here? It's easy to get misinterpreted in text so I want to be 100% sure that you're not saying something else.
If the only two options for investing are "become a ghoulish rent seeker" or "don't do that" then yeah that's where it would come down
You didn't mention "become a landlord" as an option. Why not? That's a perfectly viable path for many working class Americans to retire into.
So you do think people should just work until they die.