No more retirement savings preferential treatment.

For those topics that don't have a place in any of the other forums.

Moderator: Aitrus

apachejim
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2017 10:43 pm

Re: No more retirement savings preferential treatment.

Post by apachejim »

Aitrus wrote:I lean Libertarian. I agree that equal opportunity is important, but I don't think that you can determine if opportunity is equal by measuring outcomes. Measuring outcomes assumes that everybody is putting forth equal effort, and that's just ignoring the reality of human nature. You can make all water troughs equal for all horses. Whether or not the horses drink is another matter, and using whether or not they drink as a basis for judging whether the water troughs are equal isn't logically sound. That's how socialism, and Leftism in general, effectively measure success - by how many horses drink water. They measure outcomes - wages earned, college attendance, etc. That's not a sound basis for measuring opportunity.

When it comes to education, the problem with having government involved is that the government starts telling everybody what to learn and how. This opens up opportunities for biased instruction and topic choices and standardized testing that becomes a systemic problem, which is what we're seeing. If all funding and control is left at the local level, including the possibility for parents to have the choice to send their kids to private or charter schools, then this is a good thing. More choice and liberty is always a good thing. The Puritans had a 100% literacy rate and their kids were comparatively very well educated in their day all because they focused all education at the locally controlled level. Modern systems that follow a similar path, such as the Amish and other homeschooling or locally focused systems have similarly high education levels. If you want to see how much a community cares about their kids, just look at their schools. Good communities will have good schools. Bad communities won't. It's all in the hands of the parents. Government gets in the way of that because it's horribly inept at managing education. It's not the government's job to make up for bad parents or communities that don't care.

The youth do have equal opportunity. Any American child can go to college if they want to and put in the work to get there. The difference is how hard they have to work for it, and some are just plain lazy or see themselves as victims. Some kids benefit from their ancestor's good choices and hard work, while some don't and end up having to work their way through college. So some kids have to work their way through college. So what? They'll build some character by doing so. College is not a guarantee of success, and not having a degree isn't a barrier to success either. I'm proof of the latter, and a lot of college grads are proof of the former. And giving a free ride to kids whose ancestors didn't make good choices is unfair to those families whose ancestors did make good choices.

But that's not the real issue. The issue is that a lot of people, including kids in schools, are brainwashed by society to believe that they are victims, that they need help from the government. It's the basis of all forms of socialism to create a victim class by convincing them that they have been wronged in some way, and that only the government can provide relief. That creates dependency on the government, and gives more power to the politicians. That's what I'm against.

We don't really have a two party system. Both parties are authoritarian in nature, meaning, more government is better. Both parties are the same in that regard. One party wants to control your money, but not your morals. The other wants to control your morals but not your money. Both want to control your opinions and what you think, and they both believe that whatever the majority wants must be correct. I want a system that doesn't control either my money, my morals or my thoughts, and that supports the rights of the individual over the will of the mob. That's the definition of liberty. The system we have now rotates between two parties that have different stances on what government control looks like, and fight over the best regulations which guide that control. I want the opposite - less control.

I didn't think you were being brash, MJ. It was a good conversation. We just disagree on the philosophies and what history has taught us. We've drawn different conclusions, and that drives our opinions and worldview. Nothing wrong with disagreeing on how to interpret the facts.


Well said.

Viper
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2017 9:47 pm

Re: No more retirement savings preferential treatment.

Post by Viper »

Agree.

Locked

Fund Prices2024-03-27

FundPriceDayYTD
G $18.14 0.01% 1.00%
F $19.09 0.26% -0.68%
C $82.11 0.87% 10.42%
S $82.19 1.48% 6.61%
I $42.68 0.56% 6.21%
L2065 $16.38 0.84% 8.36%
L2060 $16.38 0.84% 8.36%
L2055 $16.39 0.84% 8.36%
L2050 $32.73 0.71% 6.94%
L2045 $14.91 0.67% 6.56%
L2040 $54.37 0.63% 6.20%
L2035 $14.34 0.58% 5.77%
L2030 $47.66 0.53% 5.35%
L2025 $13.14 0.31% 3.40%
Linc $25.60 0.24% 2.79%

Live Charts

Pending Allocations

Under development. For now, you may view Pending Allocations by going to "fantasy TSP" and selecting "Leaderboard sort" of "Pending Allocations".