similar surveys say
"Of non-retired adults with savings, 54% say they have money in a 401(k) or 403(b) plan, 33% have an individual retirement account and 22% have a pension.
Retirement preparedness, of course, varies by age. Young workers aged 18 to 29 are less likely to have savings, with 42% saying they have nothing stashed away, while 17% of those aged 45 to 59 say the same thing."
That’s odd. I have always heard that young people are more likely to to save for retirement.
But that statistic is why so many companies and financial advisors are pushing for auto enrollment or QACA (safe harbor plans with auto enrollment).
magnet
4040
Right, I’m just quibbling with the argument that climate change action is stymied by human inability to make long term plans. It’s fundamentally a different sort of failure, as you point out.
Well, I see way too many pickup trucks and SUVs driving around to believe that a decent sized chunk of the failure to save for retirement is simply failure to limit spending and save.
Yes, there are plenty of people who are just getting by and have no choice. But I stand by the fact that humans in general tend to put off taking care of things that are coming down the road in favor of fun today.
And I do not think that climate change is merely a collective action problem. We like our SUVs. There’s nothing stopping individuals from reducing their carbon footprint. They just choose not to. See, also, SUVs and large trucks. They’re not the only thing you can find anymore because consumers don’t like them. It’s what they buy, even though they don’t need them, and even though they are much more damaging to the environment. People don’t care, because they want theirs now.
And tying it back in to this upcoming election - if a candidate wants to run with a climate change agenda, he’s going to have to convince Joe Sixpack why he needs to metaphorically put down the fork and step away from the table for the sake of his children and grandchildren.
We’ve built a society where cars are an absolute need. If people are going to borrow a year’s salary or more because they have to have a car, they’re probably going to try to buy one they like. Sure it costs a little more, but the difference in their monthly payments will seem small to them in comparison with the overall bill.
There’s certainly truth to that, and it is a factor in dealing with climate change because any real policy will involve giving up some of the things we take for granted. If people can’t giving up e.g. plastic straws, of course they won’t want to give up SUVs. But even if the majority wanted to do that, that would not translate into collective government action to force everyone else to do it and to force businesses out of production, because democracies aren’t good at that.
If the people who now work as Republican political operatives worked for us, they would be factoring this into their strategy.
Something like this, I would guess:
Oh, well, our base believes strongly in minority rights, but based on these numbers maybe we better be careful about political rhetoric that emphasizes this too much, because that is not where the electoral votes are.
Like if the opposition president puts out a message that minority members of Congress who criticize actually “hate” the US and ought to go back to where they came from, maybe our response ought to emphasize how un-American it is to stifle free political expression. Mentioning Republicans, well liked in their own states, who were mistreated and stifled by Dump. Wonderful, patriotic people they were… And from now on, any time this president stifles any non-liberal, refer to it baldly as telling them to go back where they came from.
(Back in 2016, those same operatives would have been all over the guy for the subtext of “Make American Great Again” being that America is not great.)
Republicans are, in truth, all about tax reduction and power for the wealthiest… but they are masters at turning the public conversation to other things, such that they never have to look at the electoral map and say, “Gee, doesn’t look as though there are enough states dominated by the super-wealthy for us to win the election.” They save the tax reductions for after the elections. Might be a lesson there for us.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/07/20/743248732/radical-or-incremental-whats-really-in-joe-bidens-health-plan?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news
Good summary article on Biden’s health care position (for now, anyway). I would prefer single payer myself, but this kind of expanded ACA is a darn sight better than status quo or any kind of Republican undermine plan.
You, too, can suck on Trump’s straw.
“Now you can finally be free from liberal paper straws that fall apart within minutes and ruin your drink.”
Yes, Biden’s plan is certainly not terrible. The problem at the moment is his basic dishonesty about the MFA / single payer alternatives.
I’ve said it before but… The details of improved healthcare will have less to do with the distinctions among the various candidates programs, and more to do with who the 51st vote in the Senate is.
Our chances of ousting Dump are noticeably better than they are of obtaining a 51st Senate vote who will support strong improvements in this area. An overwhelming presidential win would help somewhat, a presidential with strong coattails would help even more. But the main thing we can do to affect the outcome will be donations to Senatorial candidates. Both for the tangible cash, and for the message that national Dems can send serious money to counter the special interest cash that will certainly appear against them.
imho, the debate among Dems concerning the best reform that can be gotten with the elected officials in place… would better wait til after the election. For one thing, it will be much more honest at that point. Right now, the plans have more to do with readings of political tea leaves than with actual belief as to what can be accomplished.
Well, they have to differentiate themselves from the other candidates somehow. If not with their aspirations, then how?
Of course they do. It’s just that we don’t have to take their policy proposals overly seriously, particularly the details. In this case, I think we have a long bit of experience with Joe Biden, so if I were going to predict what a Joe Biden would actually prioritize as president, I would go more on that than I would on the document he and his advisors put together to counter Harris, Warren, and Sanders.
I guess it’s kind of like computer games. Months ahead of release, if I have to make predictions what a game is going to be like, I would pay more attention to the other games put out by this outfit, than I would to their trailer or their advertising copy, even though I understand their need to differentiate themselves from the competition,
Wasserman and Cohn have been working on this project jointly, and I’m not sure it’s worth a hundredth of the amount of time they’ve put into it, frankly. Nate Silver and Harry Enten have both pointed out that their models are based on static projections that don’t even account enough for 2018.
There are reasons enough to be worried about 2020. If you jump at everything, you’re going to put yourself into a state.
‘We should ignore what they say they stand for’ seems like genuinely strange advice. Yes, we can use what we know of them to evaluate their statements, but the statements of intent have to be part of the calculus, don’t they?
The news cycle over the last few days seems to be worried hand wringing. I personally think they’re attributing way too much polling weight to policy positions, reflecting their own fears of the electorate they need to win over.
There’s not a single pundit that would dare breathe a word like this to anyone but I imagine there are many, many people praying for a recession before the election.
Sure, that makes sense, but it’s not what will make news in the campaign. For instance, Biden’s plan (and most others) include repeal of the Hyde amendment. That will get talked to death in the campaign fights, but when it comes to getting the votes from the south and Midwest senators, I bet it’s one of the first things to go.
Suppose it’s really 51st vote? Or will it be 60th? Guess it depends if that reconciliation stuff will be around to hide behind like it was in 2017.
IF this nightmare scenario happens, I expect secession talk to become real loud.
Timex
4057
How do you secede from the center of your country?
