volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@stopgopfox@libretooth.gr

By law the Social Security program takes money from workers, immediately hands it to other workers, and deposits the rest in the Treasury where it's immediately spent on other programs.

Assuming the workers are considered investors, that pretty clearly meets the definition of a Ponzi scheme.

@rauchway

What that statement overlooks is that the weak workforce participation rate takes the wind out of the sails of the headline unemployment rate as an indicator.

A TON of people are unemployed but not in the workforce, so they aren't being counted in that headline number.

Meanwhile, ALL inflation is bad. Calming down doesn't mean getting better, it means remaining bad. 6.5% remains bad and contributes to recession, or at least low economic performance.

@fifilamoura

That's not how inflation works.

Firstly, it's a line that doesn't make sense, no matter how much certain politicians repeat it. If corporations can simply price gouge they would have been doing it all along.

What, they just now decided to be greedy? No.

But more importantly, inflation is by definition about the money supply. Other market forces and events don't fall under that category, especially as they will come and go, but inflation is a lasting increase in the overall price level.

@darlulittledeer@universeodon.com

Oof, this comes across as creepy, with the tone of kids mindlessly echoing propaganda of an authoritarian leader.

@KinoGhoul

It seems like things changed when Biden decided to start crossing a line and repeating already debunked theories about what their membership were up to.

At that point all bets are off.

@sbaker9014

Yup!

I'm sorry, did you think that these networks were somehow above trying to profit off of sensationalistic headlines?

@Zee@social.coop it's pretty funny that that description sounds even more marketing friendly, designed by committee.

@sbaker9014

Well the headline is ridiculous, promoting the flat out misleading description of the Florida bill as don't say gay. The Florida bill absolutely had nothing to do with saying gay.

So this report doubles down on that misreporting, with incomplete quotes.

This is clickbait. It is not healthy to promote this sort of nonsensical reporting.

It's better that you link directly to the bill if you want to talk about it. These journalistic institutions have rightfully lost a whole lot of legitimacy in the public eye through misleading reporting like this.

@servelan

It's that whole separation of powers thing, though.

The design of the US government, in order to provide checks and balances, has co-equal branches, so it's pretty much unconstitutional for one branch to order another to do anything.

They can certainly request things of each other, but if one branch could order another branch to do something it would make the other branch not an equal but subservient to the first.

So this idea is just stupid.

@Zee@social.coop

Sounds like a different label on the old term designed by committee.

Sounds like a rebranding because that term rightfully is now a slur.

@jf_718

So I was specifically asking what you have experienced, not what headlines have been squawking about.

I don't know how much of that would have actually impacted you as a user, depending on who you are following and such.

@joeinwynnewood @stopgopfox@libretooth.gr

If you didn't know, the DOJ is a law enforcement agency.

@GJGreenlea

How you do politics: Make a statement that has been roundly rebuked as misleading at best, roll it up in a false dichotomy, present it as divisive rhetoric right alongside a call for coming together, and stammer out an excuse to try to save the moment as the moment collapses around you?

Biden really lost it here. I don't think people elected him to turn this moment of traditional pump and circumstance into Reality TV.

And conservatives had a field day with this ammunition.

@TwistedEagle

Nah, seems like progress, that she is apparently recognizing it as half real!

@jf_718

What specific changes have you experienced over at Twitter that keep you away?

@dsacer

Part of the complication is that we've had generation after generation of politician outright misleading, or I would say lying, to the public about what the program is and how it works. So we have this really big perception problem to deal with now.

For example, one of the really big lies is that people pay into the program to fund their own retirements. That's not how Social Security works by law. The money people put in is required by law to be spent just like any other tax revenue, so that money is already gone, even though politicians have flat out told people otherwise their whole working lives.

That makes it tricky to do something like raise the payroll taxes since a lot of people will consider that a breaking of the agreement they thought they had. They thought they had already paid to fund the program, so the increase in taxation sounds unjustified and unfair.

Anyway, it's all a huge mess now, and everyday all of the problems are being kicked farther down the road as politicians continue to be dishonest about the history and current status of the program.