I don’t really know what a 401k is, but for my context I’ll say this: The financialisation and privatisation of everyones pensions gives us all a personal material reliance on the success of capitalism. There’s a decent chance that the state pension won’t exist by the time I retire (or the qualifying age will be pushed well into the 80s), so we have save the money ourselves - and as I’m not paid enough to ever afford retirement, I have to put the money into investments to cover the shortfall, actively propping up & growing the capitalist system.
Basically it’s a project to link our lives to the eternal expansion of the market
401k is just a program that locks your retirement money into the stock market in exchange for some tax breaks. You can contribute up to 18k/yr into an account. Since this is ore-tax you lower your tax burden. Then you get taxed on the money when you take it out in retirement, but with more tax breaks again. It’s a rich persons retirement plan.
That’s what we get instead of pensions. A really shitty savings program that most people can’t afford to use. They use this farce to justify equating the stock market with the economy.
Ah, ok sounds like the same thing as a personal pension. It’s basically the only type that exists here anymore - The old style has been mostly replaced. It’s going to be such a disaster when my generation reaches retirement age
Yea it's honestly fucked up how swaths of people's "jobs" are to pick and choose what gambles to take with the money set aside to care for a person so they can enjoy life rather than work. It's too communist to just ensure that people can stop working and live
I don’t really know what a 401k is, but for my context I’ll say this: The financialisation and privatisation of everyones pensions gives us all a personal material reliance on the success of capitalism. There’s a decent chance that the state pension won’t exist by the time I retire (or the qualifying age will be pushed well into the 80s), so we have save the money ourselves - and as I’m not paid enough to ever afford retirement, I have to put the money into investments to cover the shortfall, actively propping up & growing the capitalist system.
Basically it’s a project to link our lives to the eternal expansion of the market
401k is just a program that locks your retirement money into the stock market in exchange for some tax breaks. You can contribute up to 18k/yr into an account. Since this is ore-tax you lower your tax burden. Then you get taxed on the money when you take it out in retirement, but with more tax breaks again. It’s a rich persons retirement plan.
That’s what we get instead of pensions. A really shitty savings program that most people can’t afford to use. They use this farce to justify equating the stock market with the economy.
Ah, ok sounds like the same thing as a personal pension. It’s basically the only type that exists here anymore - The old style has been mostly replaced. It’s going to be such a disaster when my generation reaches retirement age
Oh yeah, it's just going great. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/17/ideal-retirement-age-for-millennials.html
Yea it's honestly fucked up how swaths of people's "jobs" are to pick and choose what gambles to take with the money set aside to care for a person so they can enjoy life rather than work. It's too communist to just ensure that people can stop working and live