43 Comments

$86 billion bailout to corrupt unions. Competent people don't need unions. Subsidize incompetence and you get more of it.

Expand full comment

They are doing this because they are losing the working class vote. Of course, the joke is on them. Not many people in the working class have "pensions" anymore. They rely on social security, 401Ks, and IRAs along with savings. Relatively speaking this move helps no one in the group they need to swing toward them and, at least for me, creates feelings of ill will for two reasons: (1) It reminds me of a time when private employers were good to their employees and offered pensions and didn't send our factory jobs wholesale overseas, and (2) it once again penalizes and ignores the bulk of the middle and working classes, the ones who depend on social security and their own savings and took an active role in making sure they had money during retirement.

Expand full comment

Plebs and proles don't need pensions anyway. The Big Guy gets his 10% and the dregs and drones should just work and shop 'til they drop anyway - it's not like they're real people, like the Bidens, the Bushes, the Bezos or the Kochs.

Expand full comment

Wonderful the Butch-Lewis bill assists unions cover pension obligations that the Pension Guarantee Fund can't finance via government loans. So where does the money come from to pay those obligations? From the same place we are using to fund Social Security benefits - the taxpayer, except we already spend all those funds. So as companies go bankrupt and can't pay retirement benefits, Butch-Lewis will fix that. Rest assured that we will need to increase taxes well beyond the inflation tax. I suspect benefits will get reduced along the way as well.

We have been spending money we don't have at an unsustainable rate for a long time placing a debt on the future that is certain to arrive soon. Some of us will be badly hurt.

Expand full comment

Enough to cause a breakdown in society?

Expand full comment

Hard to say. Given the amount of the budget outlay on transfer payments to individuals is getting to ~ 60% of those outlays and interest soon to consume the next highest share, keeping the military and the rest of government working means we need to borrow more and more. Surging inflation coupled with a recession limiting treasury inflow makes it worse. We were able to play a decent balance game until 2008 when the boomer time bomb exploded with many of them having literally zero savings.

Congress and the administration seem oblivious to these issues as it dabbles in green and J6 preoccupation along with staying in office. Meanwhile income inequality exploded via the pandemic. In the past that has led to considerable social change.

Expand full comment

Nice summary of the current situation.

Expand full comment

Not so. We chose to not care. Since Gatsby - They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Expand full comment

No one in that administration has any understanding of even basic economics.

Expand full comment

Sure they do! You've seen the reports of their insider trading, haven't you? Imagine how much more of it isn't reported.

Expand full comment

Except for the true believers. And I think we on the right have under-estimated just how many there are of that type of close-minded collectivist safe-spotter.

Expand full comment

Printing money, putting down dissent, and making onerous regulations were not want founders wanted. You are an abomination

Edit: adding Biden.

Bad at editing

Expand full comment

Wait...who is "you"?

Expand full comment

I edited it...

Biden is...

Expand full comment

Certainly wasn't you Simulation Comm...

You're *almost * as cool as me.

I moved up on the 😎 list... passed Neil Young, now Santana, and several hundred soccer stars

Expand full comment

Addition by subtraction!

Expand full comment

Ha,ha,ah! I'm laughing at you, M. John, for something i would do!!!

Expand full comment

Timothy, you have no idea...

I have made many very angry, because I just think people outta read my mind, stream of consciousness....

Expand full comment

Let’s see...have the US taxpayers (through 2051!) bailout a system that failed for a multitude of reasons, but most importantly, don’t make any effort or put in place any requirement(s) to fix the structural issues that caused this problem in the first place! Bravo Brandon - keep those brilliant plans coming! #whydidntithinkofthat #genius #lgb

Expand full comment

A pension bailout preserves lasting legacy for our children in the form of crippling taxes and evaporation of the social programs that will necessarily disappear as interest payments on debt exceed our revenue. The good news is this is reason for depopulationists to back off. Otherwise who is going to be around to pay those taxes?

Expand full comment

probably too late for that. they've already taken the shots

Expand full comment

"...this is reason for depopulationists to back off."

NOT!

It's part of the Great Reset Plan A.

Expand full comment

Anytime you get Congress involved it is going to be a problem!

This is just one part of stealth legislation to seize pension funds and roll them into UBI.

Didn't Andrew Yang propose something like this? I may be mistaken.

Expand full comment

Here's a summary of the bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/547?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22butch+lewis+act%22%2C%22butch%22%2C%22lewis%22%2C%22act%22%5D%7D&s=1&r=1

It actually only "provides funding for a plan to reach a projected funded ratio of 80% over a 30-year period."

Expand full comment

As with all future promises, you might get the dollar amount you're supposed to get, but it won't be worth nearly what it 'should' be.

Expand full comment

TRIPLE BRAVO!

Commander, "I like the way you think."

Expand full comment

The definition of decades has changed too!

Expand full comment

very good!!!

Expand full comment

OMG. He's really off script. The last time I checked, if the "globalists" have their way, it's all over by 2030. 😅.

Expand full comment

"I want to have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames"

Jim Morrison

Expand full comment

I'm on vacation this week, snd, unfortunately my vacation didn't grow by 10% in the last year, but the way things are going, I'll have to work until I die.

Thanks Joe!!!

Expand full comment

heres the catch, you gotta take the jab...betcha ya...

Expand full comment

we pulled out our retirement money and put it into self directed IRAs. mine was pretty protected anyway, but my boyfriend's was losing value everyday. we used the IRAs to invest in some farmland with an income producing house on it. i'm pretty sure my BF will buy silver dimes with whatever he has left.

this way we avoided the tax consequences. obviously, he has to take a RMD and i will too in a year but those are smaller amounts and we won't get killed with taxes.

we can't live there but we bought the property with a younger friend who lives there with his family and manages it. he's getting some cows for the back pasture and sheep to keep the front lawn trim. our friend is vaccinated (he resentfully complied for his last job) so if it comes to a vaxx requirement, we're covered

Expand full comment

Ah, a good plan, but I have no IRA so I guess I have to try and make where I live (do have a house, not all paid for tho) be where I have to produce food as well. I have kept ducks before and would do that again, would also have a goat or invest in others goats. I also live near an island farming community so getting to know a farmer within 10 miles is possible but i do have to make that move....thanks for the inspriation carolyn kosopoulous, an ounce of prevention....best from ORegon

Expand full comment

meet those farmers and their families! go out to their farms. start buying stuff from them. the grocery store crap is so $$$ now, you might as well buy better quality from a local farmer who will be there for you when the SHTF.

and absolutely grow some vegetables and herbs, in pots on a window sill if you have to. ducks! yes!

here's a wonderful book: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-resilient-gardener/

she tried all kinds of protein sources and finally found a high omega 3 breed of duck that laid a goodly amount of eggs and would also be good meat. when she eats those eggs, her asthma stays under control without medication, thus reducing her dependency on the medical system. a win/win!

right now i've got a massive squash plant that started life in my compost bin. i have no idea what kind of squash it is even! nothing i ever planted.

we've also got a big pile of dirt in the backyard left over from grading (we just had a pool put in). my boyfriend used that dirt to transplant some things and lo and behold, 4 more squash plants appeared! i'm tending them and we'll see what they are when they grow up. nature gives incredible gifts

Expand full comment

Yes, I do buy only organic and just eat less of good quality foods...Duck eggs do rule, yes they are like eating 2 eggs and so custardy...problem, have a dog now, so I will have to redivide the yard to keep ducks again, but ok..; big pile of dirt, probably covered in plants on its own soon...volunteer squashes are funny, gardeneres tell me squashes tend to cross breed most easily so one has to plant originals from seed or you might get less viable/edible squashes....maybe a trip to Sauvies Island today, tomorrow...have been gathering foods for about 4 months, as finances allow....best

Expand full comment