Nearly 40 Percent of U.S. Gen Zs Identify as LGBTQ, Poll Shows

#76
#76
05_never_again said:
You also have to remember that many kids buy the stuff they hear in the broader culture because nobody they know - parents, educators, coaches, people from church or other groups, friends, etc., have given them something else to "buy." The propaganda they hear is ultra-effective if they are getting nothing at home. Kids are impressionable. If parents don't give them any structure and guidance, kids will seek it out elsewhere. It isn't like parents have no influence, but parents sure as hell have no influence if they abdicate their responsibilities.

Your absolutes of "sheltering them from the world" and "send them to government indoctrination camps" are not the only two options that exist.
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Fair enough. My brother bought in, he’s moderately progressive. Not completely off the wall, but only comparatively. My dad and him weren’t very close, he didn’t have the same interests as my dad. He liked video games and Star Wars. Dad couldn’t relate, so he was a mamas boy.

I gravitated towards my dad, loved sports and hair metal and everything he showed me growing up. Valued his opinion a lot (granted this weaned from 14-17 like it does with every teenager), but I wanted to be the smartass kid who thought he was smarter than his old man. if he thought I was being sold ******** then I’d start googling more about it to argue with him and try to get one over on him.. more often than not he was wiser than I.

Weirdly, though, he wouldn’t just deny my opinions having merit. When I was younger I flirted with leftism and Obama, Bernie as that election happened when I was 19. He’d listen to what I had to say, argue back, but wouldn’t force what he thought on me. Somehow ended up just like him anyways.
 
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#77
#77
NorthDallas40 said:
Nah you’re right I don’t blame you. I’m 10 years from planned start of benefits and I expect a 20% haircut. That’s what I’ve got in my model right now. But you’re gonna get royally screwed with no reach around. We are about to be way upside down on payouts vs revenue with our old boomer asses retiring and not dying fast enough. They are gonna increase the individual percentage, the maximum taxable income, and without increasing benefits for you. You guys should act now and get the death panels added to the ACA and Medicare to off our worn out old asses.
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Is that due to reduced/scaled back nominal payments or is that due to inflation?
 
#78
#78
utvolpj said:
At the expense of your own country and mountains of debt that others would have to pay back. Not to mention the strain put on the country when that gen retired and had never planned on how that would be funded. But hey, as long as you think you did a good job. Here's your trophy
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How much do you control what .gov does? What makes you think we or even our parents had more opportunity to set policy? Remember 81M people allegedly elected an unfit clown to the WH - how much did your voice and vote do to change that?
 
#79
#79
Rasputin_Vol said:
Is that due to reduced/scaled back nominal payments or is that due to inflation?
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20% is 20% but as it is now SS uses CPI to add a raise to benefits. It if course never keeps up but there is a CoL yearly adjustment.

I expect it to be a straight up haircut on the first years payout. I’ve got a spreadsheet that models mine and the wife’s SS benefits and I get the same answer within 5 bucks.
 
#80
#80
LouderVol said:
Havent you seen the projections? At best this model of SS lasts till 2035. I wont be retirement age until 2055 at the earliest. This is pretty much what is already going to happen. But I guess it's ok because you boomers got yours.

Real great example you gave us youngsters. Just go ahead and take, with no plans for what happens to people in the future, as long as you stay comfortable it's fine.
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You're an F'n crybaby. You can see what is in front of you, just like I did. Plan for the worst and hope for the best. Nobody handed me a silver spoon and said here, eat caviar and lavish in the riches of being a boomer. I worked for what I have, and I'll be damned if some snot like you is going to admonish me for working hard and doing well for myself. You get what you work for.
 
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#81
#81
Christian Lowe said:
Fair enough. My brother bought in, he’s moderately progressive. Not completely off the wall, but only comparatively. My dad and him weren’t very close, he didn’t have the same interests as my dad. He liked video games and Star Wars. Dad couldn’t relate, so he was a mamas boy.

I gravitated towards my dad, loved sports and hair metal and everything he showed me growing up. Valued his opinion a lot (granted this weaned from 14-17 like it does with every teenager), but I wanted to be the smartass kid who thought he was smarter than his old man. if he thought I was being sold ******** then I’d start googling more about it to argue with him and try to get one over on him.. more often than not he was wiser than I.

Weirdly, though, he wouldn’t just deny my opinions having merit. When I was younger I flirted with leftism and Obama, Bernie as that election happened when I was 19. He’d listen to what I had to say, argue back, but wouldn’t force what he thought on me. Somehow ended up just like him anyways.
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You had a wise dad, and you did listen. I had lots of discussions with our two boys - far more successful with the younger one. They took different paths, and both are doing pretty well professionally. The older one is trying to buck the system and finding it's hard, and he's not as satisfied with life, but both will ask for input.
 
#83
#83
utvolpj said:
At the expense of your own country and mountains of debt that others would have to pay back. Not to mention the strain put on the country when that gen retired and had never planned on how that would be funded. But hey, as long as you think you did a good job. Here's your trophy
Click to expand...

Region matters. I have been around a lot of young people who think very differently from the hive mind as well. If you are in a more rural or suburban area, the young people probably think different.
 
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#85
#85
VolStrom said:
You're an F'n crybaby. You can see what is in front of you, just like I did. Plan for the worst and hope for the best. Nobody handed me a silver spoon and said here, eat caviar and lavish in the riches of being a boomer. I worked for what I have, and I'll be damned if some snot like you is going to admonish me for working hard and doing well for myself. You get what you work for.
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No one is trying to tell you that you didn’t earn your lifestyle. We’re trying to tell you that social security was never meant to be permanent, but it was made permanent anyways. You never get what you pay in with social security. It’s a scam. If you got what you paid in, then theyd just make everyone get a 401k or IRA.
 
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#86
#86
LouderVol said:
16 years for me. I am ready and willing to cut my losses. They can give all my contributions to Volstrom.

Thankfully my CPA dad taught me to not count on it at all for my retirement.
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Every year I look at my forecasted benefit at retirement age.

Every year it goes up.

Every year I just laugh and shake my head.
 
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#88
#88
Christian Lowe said:
No one is trying to tell you that you didn’t earn your lifestyle. We’re trying to tell you that social security was never meant to be permanent, but it was made permanent anyways. You never get what you pay in with social security. It’s a scam. If you got what you paid in, then theyd just make everyone get a 401k or IRA.
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Actually FDR absolutely meant for it to be permanent and knew it would be his legacy. The Machiavellian MF-er correctly knew once people got on the government teat they wouldn’t let go and he’s right.
 
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#89
#89
AM64 said:
You had a wise dad, and you did listen. I had lots of discussions with our two boys - far more successful with the younger one. They took different paths, and both are doing pretty well professionally. The older one is trying to buck the system and finding it's hard, and he's not as satisfied with life, but both will ask for input.
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I don’t know who my dad would answer was the better child overall. My brother was a straight A, no nonsense partying, kind of guy. Graduated college in 4 years and got a career immediately. I took 6 years and dabbled in drugs and still am not really satisfied with my job.

I think he’d say my brother was a lot more traditional and didn’t question much. Kind of his problem now with his political leanings.

He’d say I was too smart for my own good and questioned everything too much to the point of being stupid. “Drugs are bad? But they make you feel good! It won’t happen to me, I’m just having fun.” But I made more mistakes and had more life experience to formulate who I am, my brother will go through some tribulations eventually and probably not be as equipped to handle it.

There’s pros and cons to everything that you do. He’s certainly better off now, but I don’t regret much. I just keep working harder to get to where I should be had I shaped up sooner.


Not to make this a therapy session, just being honest with myself. My brother isn’t any lesser than I. He’s probably better than I, but I wouldn’t give up the relationship I had with my dad for anything and my own decisions disappointed him to a point that I knew I had to change. That relationship saved my life.
 
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#91
#91
Christian Lowe said:
No one is trying to tell you that you didn’t earn your lifestyle. We’re trying to tell you that social security was never meant to be permanent, but it was made permanent anyways. You never get what you pay in with social security. It’s a scam. If you got what you paid in, then theyd just make everyone get a 401k or IRA.
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The government has racked up 20 Trillion dollars in debt over the last 12 years or so. Are you telling me that they can't add another 2 or 3 to keep paying social security? The fact that they don't even talk about it should tell you something, they're not going to cut it ever.
 
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#92
#92
VolStrom said:
The government has racked up 20 Trillion dollars in debt over the last 12 years or so. Are you telling me that they can't add another 2 or 3 to keep paying social security? The fact that they don't even talk about it should tell you something, they're not going to cut it ever.
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I don’t doubt the government will do every thing they can to keep the people dependent.
 
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#94
#94
VolStrom said:
You're an F'n crybaby. You can see what is in front of you, just like I did. Plan for the worst and hope for the best. Nobody handed me a silver spoon and said here, eat caviar and lavish in the riches of being a boomer. I worked for what I have, and I'll be damned if some snot like you is going to admonish me for working hard and doing well for myself. You get what you work for.
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Except for SS. Where you get what someone else worked for.

I am not the cry baby. I am for ripping off the bandaid. I would rather take the hit than it continue onto the next generation so that I minimize my losses. Ending it is the ONLY way we dont screw the next generations worsr than they already are. End it with me, make me take that hit. I am willing and able, unlike the previous generations.
 
#95
#95
LouderVol said:
Havent you seen the projections? At best this model of SS lasts till 2035. I wont be retirement age until 2055 at the earliest. This is pretty much what is already going to happen. But I guess it's ok because you boomers got yours.

Real great example you gave us youngsters. Just go ahead and take, with no plans for what happens to people in the future, as long as you stay comfortable it's fine.
Click to expand...

Consider this. Boomers didn't start social security. Boomers were paying into social security when some receiving benefits had never paid SS taxes because SS came into effect later. Early SS recipients never paid a dime into the system. There are people receiving Medicare who didn't pay the Medicare tax during their working lives - getting much smaller now. Consider all the SS addons - Medicare, Aid for Dependent Children (or whatever the term), disability bumps, etc. Don't forget that a lot of boomers like me pay income tax on our SS ... because we have too much other income, and we pay a Medicare premium that others don't. That also means we were the ones who paid right up to the SS limit every year - and there was no Medicare limit as I recall.

If you consider SS a Ponzi scheme - go right ahead, but boomers didn't start it. As I pointed out, before you blame boomers for policy consider how much clout you have at setting policy. Another thing. I was one of the early boomers - born in 1946, and we are often different from people born much later but still considered boomers. Parents of kids my age faced the Depression and WW2 - not all boomer parents fell into that category - rather they were of a more prosperous generation.
 
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#97
#97
Christian Lowe said:
I don’t know who my dad would answer was the better child overall. My brother was a straight A, no nonsense partying, kind of guy. Graduated college in 4 years and got a career immediately. I took 6 years and dabbled in drugs and still am not really satisfied with my job.

I think he’d say my brother was a lot more traditional and didn’t question much. Kind of his problem now with his political leanings.

He’d say I was too smart for my own good and questioned everything too much to the point of being stupid. “Drugs are bad? But they make you feel good! It won’t happen to me, I’m just having fun.” But I made more mistakes and had more life experience to formulate who I am, my brother will go through some tribulations eventually and probably not be as equipped to handle it.

There’s pros and cons to everything that you do. He’s certainly better off now, but I don’t regret much. I just keep working harder to get to where I should be had I shaped up sooner.


Not to make this a therapy session, just being honest with myself. My brother isn’t any lesser than I. He’s probably better than I, but I wouldn’t give up the relationship I had with my dad for anything and my own decisions disappointed him to a point that I knew I had to change. That relationship saved my life.
Click to expand...

Don't sell yourself short. A lot of wisdom is born of mistakes. If you learn from them you become wiser for the experience.
 
#98
#98
AM64 said:
Consider this. Boomers didn't start social security. Boomers were paying into social security when some receiving benefits had never paid SS taxes because SS came into effect later. Early SS recipients never paid a dime into the system. There are people receiving Medicare who didn't pay the Medicare tax during their working lives - getting much smaller now. Consider all the SS addons - Medicare, Aid for Dependent Children (or whatever the term), disability bumps, etc. Don't forget that a lot of boomers like me pay income tax on our SS ... because we have too much other income, and we pay a Medicare premium that others don't. That also means we were the ones who paid right up to the SS limit every year - and there was no Medicare limit as I recall.

If you consider SS a Ponzi scheme - go right ahead, but boomers didn't start it. As I pointed out, before you blame boomers for policy consider how much clout you have at setting policy. Another thing. I was one of the early boomers - born in 1946, and we are often different from people born much later but still considered boomers. Parents of kids my age faced the Depression and WW2 - not all boomer parents fell into that category - rather they were of a more prosperous generation.
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I dont care who started it. I care about who hasnt ended it when it became obvious it wasnt working. Ponzi scheme or no.
 
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