Pensioners and BP: Why we should not care about their plight.

[grahamhgreen]

First off, England has a generous welfare and retirement system, ie, "The Dole", so that no pensioners will go hungry. I'm sure the working class does not have a lot invested in BP.

Secondly, there is a reason I don't invest in oil (or war profiteering). It is irresponsible and has disastrous outcomes. The rest of us should not be forced to pay for these individuals irresponsible investment decisions.

Thirdly, investing in stocks is a gamble and a foolish way to set up retirement accounts for a country. Since the markets are rigged, the only sensible solution is to set up larger social security INSURANCE funds which do not rely on the idiocy and lawless theft of corrupt CEO's and rigged markets for peoples retirement.

Insurance works for retirement - losing your money in some lunatics plan to haphazardly drill deep in the ocean against the will of the smart environmentalists and scientists worldwide leaves me no choice but to say 'go on the dole' when you find you've been had.

[dionysus]

1. gotta love the compassion of the self proclaimed True Liberals (tm)

:rofl:

[grahamhgreen]

2. When you defoul the entire Gulf of Mexico, you have to pay the price. No one will starve, but you

may have to give up your second home and your yacht.

You can live on the dole like everyone else who's lost their jobs to the idiots in charge of outsourcing and wars for oil.

[nenagh]

4. Oh, I thought you were joking....

:(

There is a vast difference between the yachting classes and the 'let them eat cat food' pensioners..

[dionysus]

14. you really think average pensioners have multiple homes and yachts? jesus christ.

[truedelphi]

27. Your sentiment on this issue would be admirable if it were not for the fact

That over the last two decades, investing has become so very difficult that many people have financial advisers and what not to help them invest. (even if they are merely affluent and not rich.)

Often, if you work for a large company, your pension fund is in the hands of people who are only interested in how well the stock of a firm is doing.

So most middle incomed people have little to say about the situation of where the money for their retirement ends up.

[grahamhgreen]

28. Socially Responsible Investing Links

http://www.xmarks.com/topic/sri?sid=gamx1rcw&product=xmarks&featured=11574086&xplat=SearchBoost001:C&cid=serp.shmear.rating&mid=fdl70kjg

There are hundreds of these sites and investment opportunities. (I am not endorsing any of them!)

It's really why we need to double down on our social security. Investing - even ethically - is a gamble, SS is guaranteed retirement income. If I could have them take out twice as much in SS instead of having a 401K, I would in a heartbeat.

[truedelphi]

31. But again, most people who are working are so near the breaking point, in terms of

Not getting a raise, in terms of rumors that their job may be cut, that the last thing they are thinking about is where the retirement money is.

I mean, when you think of people on this board who last year were against having Unviersal Single Payer Health Care because, as they were proud to boast, they kept themselves healthy and active, ate right and are not ever sick (Since they are only 29, or 31` or 33 years old!) you can imagine how little they think about retirement!

[Fumesucker]

5. Who deserves compassion more..

People who invested unwisely (and do have a backup) or those who have lost their livelihood and indeed their entire lifestyle through no fault whatsoever of their own?

[dionysus]

13. there should be enough compassion to go around. it's not mutually exclusive.

[Fumesucker]

19. In an ideal world you are correct..

But this is far from an ideal world and someone is going to come out on the short end of this particular stick.

I wish it was not so but greed and shortsightedness have combined to create this unfortunate situation.

[dionysus]

21. point taken.

[Bluerthanblue]

23. refusing to act as YOU believe we should in that "ideal world" will

keep it forever out of reach.

Having compassion for those who are most affected by the gulf disaster shouldn't have any limits.

We MUST 'the change we wish to see in the world,' otherwise how are we not equally responsible for it's flaws?

[Fumesucker]

26. The point being that someone is going to get hurt here

It's not possible for everyone to come out a winner in this situation, indeed a great many people are going to be losers, the real question is who is going to lose the most and who bears the most responsibility.

Investors in a company must accept their losses if the company does something really untoward and the stock price plummets, that is simply a fact of life, no investment is without some sort of risk, even putting your money in the mattress has a risk to it.

[Bluerthanblue]

30. sadly, the citizens of the Gulf Coast also must accept

the reality that the beauty and bounty of their surroundings are precious, vulnerable AND fragile.

The cries of those who want the moratorium on deep-water drilling to resume asap are understandable, they rely on the work- and beyond that many businesses rely on those who work in the industry to keep the economy going- should we not have "compassion" for those who made their living working offshore and who now face losing their livelihood indefinitely?

Yet, in the same way that you argue that those who invested in BP either individually or as part of a public pension plan should have understood how vulnerable that was, it could be argued that those suffering the most from the effects of this disaster should have understood the risk that deep-water drilling could present to themself and the environment.

I feel compassion for everyone hurt by this disaster. Most especially the non-human victims, and the earth itself. There is no amount of compensation that will restore the wildlife, or bring the area back to the state it was in before we humans made the decision to drill into the earth's crust. Should we not care about this as well, because "it's not possible for everyone to come out a winner"?

We will all come out the lesser as a result of this- and we humans all bear our part of the responsibility.

[grahamhgreen]

29. I am for guaranteeing EVERYONE: Food, Shelter, Medical care, regardless of class.

But if you invest in harming others for your own gain - you gotta pay the price.

[stray cat]

3. As progressives we should never care for workers

survial of the fittest. And US pensions of any sort should never be guaranteed if a state or corp goes bankrupt why should anyone else honor their responsibilties. You take your chances - sounds like the tea parties....

[nashville_brook]

22. the investment class are not "workers"

[izquierdista]

6. What's even better than insurance

Just calling them "transfer payments" without the pretense that there is some actuary involved calculating risks and payouts. There is no actuary. You pay in when you are working, and when you are too old to work, you receive back.

[jgraz]

7. Adjustment to this catastrophe is going to require large societal changes

Britain may have to consider (gasp) raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to make up for the losses incurred through BP's recklessness.

[Bluerthanblue]

8. we should never 'not care' about the plight of others-

when we do, we've sacrificed anything worthwhile about ourselves imo.

"the quality of mercy is not strained"-

[gateley]

9. I feel bad for them, as I did for those who lost their retirement to Enron. These

are people, not corporations.

[Bluerthanblue]

12. +1

:hug:

[bluestateguy]

10. The end goal of the policy should be the bankrupting and liquidation of BP

So that that company will go the way of Pan-Am and Circuit City.

[Festivito]

11. They bet their better-than-minimum-retirement on a bad bet and it goes away.

They made the trade, they go back to the low level of Britain's equivalent of Social Security.

Lesson goes to others. Get a portfolio and don't be so greedy as to expect only one good horse to come in.

[TreasonousBastard]

15. Threads like this make me very sad...

when they don't just piss me off with this kind of sanctimonious horseshit.

[grahamhgreen]

16. For goodness sake - these people invested in destroying the Gulf of Mexico and you

want me to feel sorry for them?

I don't.

It's the exact reason why we should not rely on stock investing for retirement.

[dionysus]

17. if you can't seperate retirees' investment in a mutual fund with the criminal negligence of BP, then

no one can help you.

:puke:

[Bluerthanblue]

20. me too, but they also encourage me,

when others who feel as I do, speak out to counter the selfishness.

:grouphug:

Sometimes empathy and compassion have to be learned through great suffering, I feel for those who have this lesson ahead.

[Gecko6400]

18. Wonder what

the OP thinks that insurance companies do with the money you "invest" in them? Put it in a mattress or what????

[Igel]

24. Here are some interesting tidbits.

State pension funds put their money someplace. Typically in stocks and bonds. So that rich pension fund is counting on income from places like BP--to some small extent, possibly BP itself.

And it's not just state pension funds. Those auto workers you have no regard for? Teachers? Nearly any large corporation with a unionized workforce. In fact, dings to pension funds hit union workers much harder than working-class workers without union. Enjoy your intraclass struggle! "Workers unite! Death to the workers!" Great sloganeering, that.

Pensioners are seldom rich. Those who aren't rich spend their income. Reducing their income reduces demand. Reduced demand. . . You know the drill. It applies as much here as elsewhere.

Insurance companies invest their money in stocks and bonds. When they go south, investment income needed to cover future projected outlays to cover the insured is reduced. They have to make this shortfall up someplace, and will reduce dividends (go back to paragraph 1 and 2), make it harder to collect, or raise fees.

Life is complex. Things are interconnected.

[starroute]

25. The real issue is that this is a "think of the children" style argument

There are certain arguments that get trotted out as a smokescreen whenever something happens that might actually impinge on the lives of the wealthy and powerful. This is one of them. Another is the claim that boycotting BP will only hurt the local gas station owners, or that shutting down offshore drilling will put a lot of oil riggers out of work.

Those arguments are technically true on the level of "If A then B" logic. But they're being deployed as propaganda by people who normally don't give a crap about British pensioners or American gas station owners -- and they can't be used to distract from doing the right thing.