we're also a fresh eight months into there not being a nuclear arms treaty between the two largest nuclear powers for the first time in half a century so who knows what might happen
If the odds of all-out nuclear war are, say, one in a million per year, that's pretty good. Seems very likely nuclear weapons would stop being an issue first. Worth it for the era of relative peace they ushered in.
If the odds are one in a hundred per year, then that's awful. We traded periodic bad wars for a nearly inevitable catastrophic war, and people talking about how they haven't been used in warfare since that one time are akin to people talking about how well everything is going while sailing through the air after jumping off a cliff. So far so good!
I don't know what the right number is, but from what I know about how nuclear weapons are managed and what has happened in the past, I bet it's a lot closer to one in a hundred.
Didn't we already mostly move to that system, and don't a lot of people already argue that it's true?
Most companies don't offer pensions anymore. Some companies don't even offer 401ks at all, and a significant portion of the ones that do don't do any employer contribution matching.
They have pensions in the US, it is called social security. But it is not self-sustainable and not good enough for medium-and-above income earners. It is basically a way to ensure seniors don't live in abject poverty.
What they moved away from was private pensions owned by your company. Now you own your private pension through the 401k thing they keep talking about. This IS a better and more sustainable system, but at the same time this was rolled out most companies also cut company-pensions but didn't give you more compensation that you can put on your 401k.
European companies are not forced to pay into your private pension either, it is usually part of union negotiations. Check how much basic pension pays out in Sweden (the almighty socialist country), last I checked it is ~900 euro per month. My parents in law make that much per month in retirement because they never put any money towards a private pension and never held a unionized job.
European pension systems have multiple components. There is usually a minimum guaranteed pension based on residency alone, which is paid if you don't have enough income from other sources. That can be supplemented by a separate housing benefit.
The main component is usually something similar to US Social Security, except that contribution rates are higher (16% in Sweden). Benefit rate (at any given retirement age) is usually close to a linear function of total contributions, adjusted for inflation. Most people expect to get most of their retirement income from that component.
Then there are supplementary components, such as voluntary or union negotiated private pensions. Some of them are a bit weird, such as the Swedish defined contribution plan with a mandatory 2.5% contribution.
The big thing is that the public Swedish pension is based on earned tax income, so it adjusts based on the workforce contributions. Meaning your pension goes down if the country is doing badly.
Sucks for the elderly, but it prevents the catastrophe that is France and that the US is heading into.
It's legal in some EU countries as well.
Companies outside collective bargaining agreements are under no obligation to provide you with any pension plan here.
> But it is not self-sustainable and not good enough for medium-and-above income earners.
It seems good enough for median earners. After taxes and health insurance, it's basically even.
Perhaps not self-sustainable you mean that unless something changes, it's not going to be able to keep paying out at current rates.
Well, I got news for you - that's what is happening for almost all government-run pension programs across the world on this model. Pay as you go does't work when you keep the same payment, and have 10x a higher ratio of recipients to payees.
This isn't unique to Social Security or the US. It's just a mathematical fact of the system.
You cannot have 99% of people contribute `x` and 1% of people receive `y`, and then switch that to 70% contribute and 30% receive, without either increasing `x` or reducing `y`.
You could have planned ahead for this long ago, and seen that the ratio was going to change and increased `x` over time accordingly or planned to reduce `y` over time accordingly. But we didn't, and mostly no one else has either.
GP was confused probably. In EU when we hear a "pension plan" we usually think "social security", since we* pay a significant part of our earnings for this, so this is something we definitely count on and, at least in theory, it should be enough for good retirement (in practice it really varies). Many countries also have mandatory private plans that companies have to pay for, but I think people* think of them as "something extra on top" instead of the main retirement source.
*Asterisk because EU is big and diverse, and I don't know every country rules.
Not only are we not all in a race to the bottom, in European countries we've got full on gerontocracy (e.g. triple lock in UK or pensioners having larger income compared to median worker in France). You know, we could actually think about younger people and stop subsidising boomer luxury communism.
Listen, I love a good chance to call the US undeveloped as much as the next ideologically motivated POS but the reason the US got off of pensions and onto 401ks is because of how many pension funds had serious issues with mismanagement and inability to provide payouts over the years. And this change happened during the arguable peak of the US public's support for regulatory solutions so it's not like they said "oh we can fix this we a few rules but we're not going to because reasons", they legitimately didn't think they could fix it. So far the 401ks and IRAs that replaced pensions have been decent. And as the other guy says, you can argue that Social Security is basically a public pension.
The downvoters must have missed Airplane!! For a second I thought about how to escape the ! to make it clear it’s part of the title… but I haven’t had any coffee.
A huge portion of the US is covered by purely volunteer fire departments. Communities pay for equipment and training and that is it. Response times are slow but it is really the only viable option in rural areas.
Not always slow. I had a kitchen fire at 4am from a microwave spontaneously combusting. Had the local deputy fire chief and local fire truck there within 15 minutes plus trucks from two other local towns.
At the federal level, FEMA and USDA offer extensive grants and low interest loans to fund fire districts in rural communities with a small tax base. I think basically every state offers similar funding assistance on top of that.
You suggested the journalist use drone footage as part of their piece. They may have been aware of the restriction. Either way they would likely end up with at least a fine if and when the NPS caught wind of it.
“Who is going to stop you?” is such a great exercise in entitlement. One of the worst and most visible bits of American culture in my opinion (Who knows if you are American, I am. And the National Parks are a beloved and shared resource). Toxic individualism.
If you do not have a garage and live in a cold weather climate they are fantastic. Heat up almost instantly when the engine might not warm up entirely to get the heat going for a good 15 min.
I kind of like the idea of this for a home phone replacement and a good way for our family to communicate as we get more comfortable with leaving the kids home alone. But it won’t be able to call 911 and I do not trust it.
Makes me even happier I just installed a red wall phone with an armored cable and signed up for ooma’s cheap plan. 911 access and we have no need for whitelisting. Always have outgoing and default to ringer off. Can turn it on (satisfying slider) if we are leaving the kids for a bit and they can have fun hanging up on any spam while we are out.
I am assuming but as far as I am aware that would be some separate app/service. You need a number that is locally registered so it routes to the correct dispatcher.
I think any HomePod can call 911, so I assume this one will be able to as well, but yeah, it requires an iPhone within connection range. So not for kids left alone unless they have a phone.
Even iPads with a cellular modem only have data enabled. Calling anyone, including 911, from an iPad requires some setup of Wi-Fi Calling ahead of time with a paired iPhone on the same Apple account: https://support.apple.com/en-us/108066
About 10 years ago somebody found an unexploded shell/cannon ball from the war of 1812 in Boston Harbor while poking around during an astronomically low tide. The bomb squad detonated it on the beach in my neighborhood (most likely a training exercise hard to know how dangerous it was). Still upset I missed it. At the time I lived in an apartment where I could see the detonation site.
How relevant. Sounds oddly like a “gotcha” of sorts; still, I can’t help but wonder how happily married you really are considering you felt the need to bring it up entirely unprompted in an otherwise entirely unrelated note.
I'm fairly involved with such communities and I've never seen a poly relationship that lasts long. All power to the people that can do it, but it's anecdotally rare and it's not for me.
The intended reaction was to discuss vibration patterns and morse code. I honestly didn’t even realize that would sound weird because we’re so used to it that we don’t realize when we say things like that, I apologize. I don’t see a way to delete my parent comment or I would
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_close_calls
reply