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  • 53 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: July 1st, 2023
  • CritFail@lemmy.worldtoUnited Kingdom@feddit.uk•Two in five not saving enough in pension for even basic retirementEnglish
    9·
    2 months ago

    Over 1 million people are on zero hour contracts (1 in 33 UK working age people), which does not mandate employers to auto-enroll. Another 4 million are self-employed, and the majority of them are not saving towards retirement.

    That means a potential of 3 million of working age zero and self-employed have nothing saved, a further 2 million from that same pool will likely have less than recommended amount saved.

    In the company employed pool, 9% have opted out of the enrollment, so that’s 2.5 million opted out.

    In total, about 20% of working age people are not actively saving into pensions (although may save elsewhere). A potential bombshell if that many people become officially destitute in a relatively short space of time.

    While the UK has made some steps to try and rectify things (as chancellor, Gordon Brown funded the 2-year commission that recommended auto-enrollment and it has worked well), 14 years of Conservative rule have let some very nasty employment practices seep in and poison over a decade of pension funding opportunity. Companies are underpaying employees, Government is overtaxing employees. Only companies coming out on top and seeing record profits while the country wastes away.

    Fingers crossed, intervening on this is high on Kier’s priorities because our current unfettered capitalist model is a complete mess.

  • CritFail@lemmy.worldtoUK Politics@lemmy.world•A little rantEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    Agree with all of your points, the systems that have been put in place are to preserve the wealth of the wealthy and take power away from those that don’t have access to wealth.

    Capitalism has reached an end-game state. The rich under the status quo have won, and won’t accept less than they already have. It requires infinite growth like cancer, and if this isn’t stopped, most of society will continue to suffer more each year. People need to be shown to understand that we need a new model, that focuses on fulfilling basic societal needs over individualistic pursuits, and that this way of life can be better than what capitalism brings. Shorter work weeks - we only work the same number of hours to fuel infinite growth, eliminate jobs that serve no societal purpose, all corporate decisions are only driven by what is legal, and that the cost of being caught is low enough for them not to care. If that is legislated and enforced effectively (ideally in all developed countries), the people who hold capital will have nowhere to run.

    Proportionate representation would be a first step towards regaining agency in the political process. People wouldn’t be forced to vote for one or other of the two only parties that can win in this structure (Tory or Tory-lite), they could vote for parties that actually advocate for policies that help those with less, those in need, and those who have been ignored by the past Governments. Get them to pass progressive laws that constrain those with power and tie it to corporate responsibility for societal good (a liveable minimum wage, restrict what jobs can be offshored or at least make societal mitigations, tie board wages to a certain multiplier of the company, or a median), enforceable criminal sanctions for white collar offences like corruption, and punitive disincentives to taking advantage of positions of power.

    All this is possible, but it requires motivated people to be in the right places at the right times to make the right decisions happen.

    Millennials and Gen Z have pretty good heads on their shoulders. In this election you can see the Tories sweating because the FPTP system is being weaponised against them to plan a wipe-out on polling day - well-deserved hubris. I have hope that the generations that have received nothing from consecutive self-serving Governments will make concerted efforts to change the system. Unions were unanimous in telling Labour they wanted PR. Next election, maybe that will make it into their manifesto.

    It’s hard to be optimistic because thing have been getting worse for so long, but this decline is also not sustainable. If the change won’t come peacefully, it is inevitable that non-peaceful interventions will follow. They know that, and they know what the ultimate consequences would be.

    At the same time, the encroaching climate crisis, climate refugees, the gulf stream stopping causing European temperatures to drop, and everything else that goes along with it is only likely to distract from this aim, embolden and elect populist fascists like Farage, and take us down darker paths. But if PR can be brought in before this happens, the future could be better for the masses, at least a bit better than they are now.

  • CritFail@lemmy.worldtoWorld News@lemmy.world•Pro-Palestine demonstrators in Portugal assaulted by Israeli touristsEnglish
    3·
    4 months ago

    The two question zionists need to be explicitly asked are:

    1. Hypothetically, do they even believe it would ever be possible for Israel to commit genocide?
    2. If so, what characteristics would it need to have in order to qualify as genocide?

    If they answer no to the first one, they expose their complete bias and therefore unable to even argue their position effectively.

    If they answer yes, then they have to explain why the genocidal traits of what Israel are doing are not genocide, which might hopefully make them more introspective.