If the government mandates it under threat of violence, it’s called a tax.
It could also be classified as an insurance premium, but a government mandating it is the key characteristic of a tax.
But the fact that the government reduces the annuity amount by increasing retirement age and benefit purchasing power means it is not insurance either. It is wealth redistribution from the working to the non working.
Yeah, that's how insurance works: it is wealth distribution from those who have not become (yet) an insurance case to those who have not.
If you have a car, you need to pay car insurance. Is that also a tax?
The concept of insurance is independent of mandatory or not. That should be obvious, I wonder why it isn't to you. Maybe your ideology prohibits clear thinking and makes you vote Trump?
>Yeah, that's how insurance works: it is wealth distribution from those who have not become (yet) an insurance case to those who have not.
In the context of differentiating between wealth redistribution and insurance, insurance does not redistribute wealth, insurance redistributes risk since underwriting in a competitive marketplace ensures you only a premium commensurate to your risks.
For example, the government mandates only liability insurance up to $x, for which the premium for the same coverage can be vastly different depending on each person's driving history. While this can be considered a tax because the government mandates it, one can see how this is not wealth redistribution since the "tax" being paid is at least partly dependent on one's risk profile.
Contrast this with a government mandated defined benefit pension contribution equal to a percentage of one's earned income, with a known fact that one's contributions will reflect their benefit less and less as the years go on. That is far more "wealth redistribution" than "insurance".
Another example is in the US, health insurance premiums are more tax than an actuarially calculated premium based on health risk. This is because health insurers are not allowed to price health insurance based on health risks. It is explicitly a redistribution of wealth from the young and healthy to the old and sick, due to the maximum age rating factor and inability to underwrite based on pre-existing health conditions.
The rational thing is to analyze the opportunity cost of the investment, which is dependent on the always fluctuating prices.
Some businesses can grow, some cannot grow, some grow at different rates. The risk adjusted (subjective) prices determine whether or not an investor should walk away.
At some point, barring him getting beaten to death in jail, this was always going to get in front of a judge who'd go "uh what the fuck?!" It's about as slam-dunk of a situation as you could come up with.
I could say that about a litany of court cases in the previous decade, yet here we are, our president winning immunity for all tax evasion, in the past and future, for his whole family, and getting seditious white supremacists paid while doing it.
Given what we know about the origins of Harry Potter, you basically proved ryandrake’s point. Just because you put time into something does not make it worthy of attention.
Religions’ primary purpose is to facilitate tribal bonds, not experimentally seek truths and evaluate data for consistency. That is why almost all start with a set of tenets or immutable “facts”, such as the existence of an immortal component of a person (usually called a soul).
No vasco is saying if Harry Potter fans put a lot of study into astronomy, would you immediately discount their expertise in astronomy because of their devotion to Potterdom?
> It’s pretty wild to see just how far they’ve progressed while the west mostly does nothing.
The “west” came up with Tesla and Rivian, and their cars are on the road. And the US tariffed chinese EVs. What else can be done to combat China’s lower priced labor and possibly more lax environmental regulations?
The west needs to combat it by using subsidies and regulations to “spray and pray,” to a large degree. Just as China has… The problem with the occident, at the moment, is that corporations use the incentives to raise margins and not to innovate.
In the US at least we’re gearing
up for massive failure in the automotive industry solely because we’re avoiding competition. Yes, there will be margin compression, but without it domestic businesses become inefficient. It’s going to be “80s/90s Detroit” all over again with bigger bailouts because at some point it’ll be too politically popular to reduce prices. When that happens the public will be the ones footing the bill.
And all that says nothing of the fact cheap labor alone doesn’t make a better car. But the fact China can both make a better car (EV) and with lower labor costs really shows how dependent US automakers are on market inefficiencies. The US, and Europe, were massively ahead in quality but that lead been destroyed.
I’m not a fan of capitalism, but if the US is going to sell it and preach it— we might as fucking well embrace it. Otherwise we’re just subsidizing the rich without rhyme or reason (other than blatant corruption and exploitation). The cost of those subsidies will be stagnation, and the outright capitulation of quality long term.
> And all that says nothing of the fact cheap labor alone doesn’t make a better car. But the fact China can both make a better car (EV) and with lower labor costs really shows how dependent US automakers are on market inefficiencies.
I don’t understand this. Why would COGS impact quality? Are Chinese people inherently inferior “Western” people?
The market inefficiency is partly the difference in price of labor, which is being made more efficient by Chinese manufacturers succeeding.
I looked it up, and the key thing in favour of companies like BYD over the US companies - isn't (just) cheap labour - it's vertical integration.
BYD owns the mines, the batteries, the cars, the USA doesn't have that available, and are having to force other countries to provide their lithium/rare earth deposits to US companies in order to try and become competitive.
> The west needs to combat it by using subsidies and regulations
> In the US at least we’re gearing up for massive failure in the automotive industry solely because we’re avoiding competition
Uhhh - you want to prevent competition by using subsidies and regulations, but then complain the US companies are not competitive because they avoid competition?
The US vehicle manufacturers have been here multiple times - VW, Japanese "compacts", and now Chinese EVs
The Germans were competing on quality and fuel consumption.
The Japanese were competing on quality and price, they started out naff, and became gold standard, whilst US manufacturers were stuck delivering low rate products.
The Koreans followed the same playbook.
And, now, the Chinese are doing it again, following the Japanese playbook - offering better and better quality at a lower price.
For the previous 10 years, dividends reinvested, GME returned 14.59% per year, SP500 did 15.376% per year. Considering the much, much higher risk of owning a single stock, the risk adjusted return of SP500 is much higher than GME.
Because money is just a proxy for power, and the goal is not to have cash, it is to have power. Perhaps via being able to make decisions at various businesses, or being able to travel to a different planet, or being able to influence other people, etc.
Could also partly be a curiosity to see what one is capable of, or maybe wanting to be known for helming an organization that accomplishes xyz.
10% annual returns over previous 30 year returns for a fully liquid investment, 15% annual returns over previous 10 years.
Glorious for the beneficiaries of the retirement funds.
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