Akka
Moody old mage.
"humans and animals"
Just a bit of French sliping in.
So socialism
- Thread starter Lohrenswald
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Just a bit of French sliping in.
Dolphins have a long history of helping and saving humans they do not know.
Narz
keeping it real
This video came up in my feed
Data about violence @ around the 22 or 23min mark.
Tldw, his estimate that 12% of deaths in hunter gatherer societies were via violence (likely higher for men as is always the case altho he did not mention sex differences) which interestingly went up to about double during early agricultural revolution but down to 1% during the 20th century of countless wars (most notably ww1 & 2) and probably down further in beginning of 21st century (maybe up last few years as iirc crime up significantly @ least in us)
So my earlier estimate was off but death by violence down tremendously in modern era
Tangentially (tangent of a tangent) the segment on sexual relations interesting too. He debunked a popular book called sex @ dawn which I remember reading in early 2010s
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Narz
keeping it real
To bring this somewhat on topic the thing I like about the hunter gatherer spirit is the general resistance to authority and domination. This is a problem w all forms of government (often leveled against left wing governments by pundits, 'they want to control you, tell you what you can and can't do/think, spend $ on' altho right wing governments tend to be even more authoritarian imo)
From the WSJ today. Do any of you know enough about the Swedish system to comment?
How Sweden Saved Social Security
By Johan Norberg
Stockholm
‘There are few issues on which Sweden and the United States are not in perfect sync,” then-Vice President Joe Biden said here in 2016. Here’s one: Social Security. President Biden refuses to consider any reforms, and so do many Republicans. But that won’t save the program; it’ll doom it. In a little over a decade, the trust fund will be exhausted.
Sweden faced the same problem in the early 1990s. The old pay-as-you go pension system had promised too much. With fewer births and longer lives, projections showed the system would be insolvent a decade later. As Mr. Biden has said in another context, Sweden has “an ethic of decency.” Its politicians chose not to deceive the voters. The center-left Social Democrats acknowledged that the system “would not withstand the stresses that can be foreseen.” In 1994 the Social Democrats agreed with the four center-right parties to create an entirely new system based on the principle that pensions should correspond to what the beneficiary pays into the system— a system in which the contribution, not the benefits, is defined.
The reforms were designed to make it impossible to run a deficit and pass the costs to future generations. Crucially, the agreement introduced a balancing mechanism nicknamed “the brake.” When the economy is doing worse than expected, pension benefits are automatically reduced, and when the economy picks up again, the brake is released.
Sweden introduced partial privatization of the kind the American left derides as a Republican plot to gamble our money away on the stock market. The Swedish government withholds roughly 2.3% of wages and puts it into individual pension accounts. Workers are allowed to choose up to five different funds in which to invest this money, according to their own risk preference, and can change them at any time free. Commentators claim partial privatization would mean that pensions could be lost in a financial crash. That ignores that the money isn’t all invested or withdrawn at the same time, meaning that the performance in a single year isn’t crucial. The returns from the normal income pension is around 2% per year, but from the private accounts the average Swede has made an impressive average return of roughly 10% a year since its inception in 1995, despite the dot-com crash, the financial crisis and the pandemic.
Swedish social security isn’t perfect and doesn’t satisfy everyone, but it has the obvious advantage that it actually works and is sustainable in the long run. Far from being a cautionary tale, Sweden’s pension system was recently described as the world’s best by the insurance group Allianz, based on a combination of sustainability and adequacy.
Centrist parties of the left and right came together 30 years ago to save pensions from insolvency.
The Swedish far left and far right never accepted the reform and have demanded and sometimes won higher payouts. But most of the system remains intact after almost 30 years. No doubt, part of the explanation is that Swedish politicians prepared their citizens with an adult conversation about costs, benefits and what was possible, instead of merely rehearsing slogans and ignoring the inevitable crash.
Mr. Norberg is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of “Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future.”
How Sweden Saved Social Security
By Johan Norberg
Stockholm
‘There are few issues on which Sweden and the United States are not in perfect sync,” then-Vice President Joe Biden said here in 2016. Here’s one: Social Security. President Biden refuses to consider any reforms, and so do many Republicans. But that won’t save the program; it’ll doom it. In a little over a decade, the trust fund will be exhausted.
Sweden faced the same problem in the early 1990s. The old pay-as-you go pension system had promised too much. With fewer births and longer lives, projections showed the system would be insolvent a decade later. As Mr. Biden has said in another context, Sweden has “an ethic of decency.” Its politicians chose not to deceive the voters. The center-left Social Democrats acknowledged that the system “would not withstand the stresses that can be foreseen.” In 1994 the Social Democrats agreed with the four center-right parties to create an entirely new system based on the principle that pensions should correspond to what the beneficiary pays into the system— a system in which the contribution, not the benefits, is defined.
The reforms were designed to make it impossible to run a deficit and pass the costs to future generations. Crucially, the agreement introduced a balancing mechanism nicknamed “the brake.” When the economy is doing worse than expected, pension benefits are automatically reduced, and when the economy picks up again, the brake is released.
Sweden introduced partial privatization of the kind the American left derides as a Republican plot to gamble our money away on the stock market. The Swedish government withholds roughly 2.3% of wages and puts it into individual pension accounts. Workers are allowed to choose up to five different funds in which to invest this money, according to their own risk preference, and can change them at any time free. Commentators claim partial privatization would mean that pensions could be lost in a financial crash. That ignores that the money isn’t all invested or withdrawn at the same time, meaning that the performance in a single year isn’t crucial. The returns from the normal income pension is around 2% per year, but from the private accounts the average Swede has made an impressive average return of roughly 10% a year since its inception in 1995, despite the dot-com crash, the financial crisis and the pandemic.
Swedish social security isn’t perfect and doesn’t satisfy everyone, but it has the obvious advantage that it actually works and is sustainable in the long run. Far from being a cautionary tale, Sweden’s pension system was recently described as the world’s best by the insurance group Allianz, based on a combination of sustainability and adequacy.
Centrist parties of the left and right came together 30 years ago to save pensions from insolvency.
The Swedish far left and far right never accepted the reform and have demanded and sometimes won higher payouts. But most of the system remains intact after almost 30 years. No doubt, part of the explanation is that Swedish politicians prepared their citizens with an adult conversation about costs, benefits and what was possible, instead of merely rehearsing slogans and ignoring the inevitable crash.
Mr. Norberg is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of “Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future.”
Lexicus
Deity
Says everything that needs saying really. This guy is an ******* well-paid by the rich to argue that the rich should be able to steal everything rather than just most things.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I reiterate my objection: any such "fundamental working processes" shared between all social animals are going to be so broad as to provide very little specific information about human beings. Doubtless there are some common mechanisms in the social organisation of cows and baboons, but they're going to be so high-level that it's hard to see how they would tell us anything about humans that isn't just staggeringly obvious.
But what do the Swedes think of their system?
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I imagine the US will have to go to partial-privatization of Social Security too; they'll be forced to. The US simply cannot replace the aging with more younger workers paying for their retirement. They can't.
George Bush got absolutely chewed out over suggesting that though; by both sides, IIRC; I think history will prove him right.
me, I don't even look at 15 percent of my paycheck, it's immediately saved because I know I won't survive on SS.
George Bush got absolutely chewed out over suggesting that though; by both sides, IIRC; I think history will prove him right.
me, I don't even look at 15 percent of my paycheck, it's immediately saved because I know I won't survive on SS.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Well, Gramsci said "The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters". I think this is where we stand, because I think Gramsci was mistaken in assuming that the old world which was tumbling to its death in 1918 was capitalism in its entirety, when in fact it was the specific form of capitalism, dominated by old European empires, which was dying. New forms of capitalism, Soviet and American, emerged to replace it. Those have now died or are in their protracted death rattle, respectively, and we're waiting for something new to replace them. Possibly this will be a new form of capitalism, "with Chinese characteristics", perhaps it will be something post-capitalist. It's hard to say, and I don't think it's pre-determined. (I do believe that socialism could have replaced the old European capitalism.)
I think the reason that we're so anxious is that we all know things can't go on as they are, but we don't know what comes next. This isn't like the 1960s, when you could argue the merits of keeping the current system versus some hypothetical replacement; the current order has no merits, nobody believes in it, least of all the people running the show, and something is going to replace it sooner or later. What comes next might be worse, or it might just be different- but it might be better, and I think we have something very much like a duty to imagine it can be better, even if we can't quite see how.
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bernie14
Filter Manipulator
Isn't this just repackaged Malthus?
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
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No, but it could benefit from reading more 120 year old political cartoons, since it assumes some sort of golden period of faith and functionality as an implication of what has been lost. Hell, it's never been there in the first place.
Lexicus
Deity
Not even remotely close lol
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
similar things in denmark.
here's the thing. it's true that the economic designs were highly dependent on an assumption of future pop growth due to baby boomers being baby boomers. that's true, and it's understandable that the system ends up insolvent.
however, the logic of part privatization is still exceptionally strange, since the nordics are, in the end, more materially wealthy than ever.
there's a strangeness here, specifically in regards to the changes in western culture since the fall of the sovjets and 80s conservatism (not only the us and uk were the subject of that). due to the "end of history" and victory of capitalism and such, certain areas of wealth are currently sanctified and kept out of conversation when discussing redistribution. a part reason is the prisoner's dilemma of businesses changing states to avoid taxes, but the businesses that do that are doing that anyways. there was a big debacle in denmark somewhat recently, lasting like 5 years, as suddenly a big part of our meat industry just up and left, leaving thousands unemployed. regardless of the nature of this sanctification, the amount of wealth that can be ridistributed is still being kept artificially low. it's true that government services rely mostly on common/poor/middle class wealth to function these days, but the degree of that is a choice.
Akka
Moody old mage.
"low-level", on the contrary, the commonalities comes from common roots and differs in higher-level. And I would agree about the "staggeringly-obvious", because that's the whole point, save for the fact that some people actually deny this obviousness - just see how it's disputed that humans are territorial animals.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
they like it in general, but it's the same zeitgeist as in denmark. the encroaching cuts have been happening since the 80s and people don't like it.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
It's not implicit in the text each change of economic organization first requires a collapse of all productivity gains back to a Malthusian level before starting afresh from that point. So I would say no, it’s not repackaged Malthus.
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
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Interesting video. Thank you for the link.
Narz
keeping it real
Sure thing
If I hear or read something 10 or 20 years ago but I'm not sure where it's good to refresh my knowledge
If I hear or read something 10 or 20 years ago but I'm not sure where it's good to refresh my knowledge
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