Montana Republican: Why do Americans need retirement?

[Baffalo]

Montana Republican: Noah Was 600 Years Old When He Built the Ark, So Why Do Americans Need Retirement?

Greg Gianforte, aspiring Republican governor of Montana, urges college students to reject policy that favors savings plans and retirement options because, like Noah, Christians have “an obligation to work” until they are hundreds of years old, the Huffington Post reports.

Speaking at the Montana Bible College in February, Gianforte told students, “There’s nothing in the Bible that talks about retirement. And yet it’s been an accepted concept in our culture today. Nowhere does it say, ‘Well, he was a good and faithful servant, so he went to the beach.’ It doesn’t say that anywhere.”

“The example I think of is Noah,” Gianforte continued. “How old was Noah when he built the Ark? 600. He wasn’t like, cashing Social Security checks. He wasn’t hanging out; he was working. So, I think we have an obligation to work. The role we have in work may change over time, but the concept of retirement is not biblical.”

Gianforte is a tech millionaire. He founded RightNow Technologies, and assumed a senior leadership position at Oracle in 2012 after the software giant bought him out. Lately, Gianforte has been touring the state promoting his “Bring Our Families Back” initiative, which aims to lure ex-pats back to Montana with the modern miracle of telecommuting.

Raw Story has documented Gianforte’s history of providing financial support to conservative organizations, including Focus on the Family, the Heritage Foundation, and the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum, “which claims that, in other museums, ‘the wonders of God’s creation are prostituted for evolutionism.'”

Gianforte and his wife Susan also helm their own philanthropic outfit, the Gianforte Family Foundation. The entity officially “[focuses] on improving education, lifting people out of poverty, protecting the unborn, and Christian outreach, as well as enhancing the family’s hometown community of Bozeman, Montana.” The couple founded the charity “in response to God’s great goodness to them.”

Link to Article

So... everyone who's died before the age of 500 was just incredibly lazy?

[Lord Revan]

the real question here is not what this does or does not think (and I'm sure he wouldn't refuse his own retirement) but rather is anyone truly taking him seriously, here in Finland we get crackpot parties during every single parlamental elections and often crackpot candidates during presidental elections too.

however there's no point for me to loose sleep over those as there's no chance in hell they'll ever get elected (not even a single seat out of 200 in a multi party system during parlamental elections). Now we need to consider if this is a similar crackpot candidate looking for free press from people who like to overreact or is there an actual support for this person.

[Baffalo]

He has 2 things working towards any election campaign he might wind up running:
1) Money, both personal and supporters, and
2) The incumbent, Steve Bullock, is a Democrat.

So far there's been no official nomination from him towards running, but then again the race hasn't kicked off very hard yet. However, even the Republicans know that someone with such crackpot ideas might not be a good idea, and settle instead for their front man so far, Mark Perea. So far, however, predictions are that the incumbent is going to win, so they might just let him toss out his crazy ideas in favor of putting on a show and moving on.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't think anyone's taking him seriously, except a handful of similar crackpots.

However, the reason such a crackpot even gets a public hearing is because there is a strong reluctance within the Republican Party to do anything other than engage in one-upsmanship on the "more fundamentalist than thou, more biblical than thou, more opposed to sinister commie-librul socialisms than thou" front.

My perception is that there seems to be a de facto "no enemies to the right" policy that essentially makes it difficult for Republicans to directly point to this guy and say "he's a lunatic." The logical endpoint of this is that people who would just be that one amazingly horrible person you regret inviting to your dinner party are now running for major public offices. Because denouncing various random stuff as "un-biblical" is the strategy that always worked before, for getting them credibility with others. So they keep doing it repetitively until they say something SO absurd it makes national news.

The heck of it is, these guys are so loony that even the Bible isn't really supporting them very well. I suspect that if I actually read the Bible through looking for them, I will find plenty of references to the idea of old men and women being entitled to relax and refrain from exhausting physical labors in their old age. Sure, they might retain a role as patriarch of a large family or whatever, but 'patriarch' doesn't mean you do much of anything.

[Alyeska]

He's a fucking idiot. People retire to Montana. And Retirees are overwhelming Republican and vote in large percentages compared to younger voters. He just insulted his fucking voting base.

[Steve]

There's also the fact that once you get out of Genesis, Human life spans return to normal IIRC. No more multi-centenarians and the occasional millenarian.

And there are so many stupid parts of this argument I don't even want to have to start checking them all....

[Grumman]

This sounds a lot like communism to me. A red-blooded American should work long enough and hard enough to support himself and his loved ones; what he does after that is his business.

[Ralin]

I wonder how he would react if someone pointed out that Noah wasn't Christian?

[blowfish]

Gianforte is a tech millionaire.

Because of course he is
One gets the impression that many tech millionaires are buying their own bullshit over how everyone, without exceptions, can bootstrap themselves to riches without having experienced failure due to outside circumstances or being less able to work due to old age.

I wonder how he would react if someone pointed out that Noah wasn't Christian?

Honorary christian, since he's in the book, I guess.

[Broomstick]

He's an American aristocrat who wants to extract as much from the peasantry as possible.

[Zaune]

Simon hit the nail on the head, I think. (Not that it's a problem exclusive to the right, mind you...) If the GOP keep this Fanatacism Top Trumps routine up then I give it two more terms before they make a manifesto pledge to give the South their "peculiar institution" back.

[Irbis]

The heck of it is, these guys are so loony that even the Bible isn't really supporting them very well.

Loony? You could call them loony if that was fringe position, but with US/UK money, it had been forced on whole world, most visibly by Reagan and Thatcher but destroying any sort of 'red' policies elsewhere had been US policy for over a century now.

Hell, right here in Poland, so called "catholic" country, you can ignore direct teaching of last three popes and become celebrity superstar priest by claiming poor are lazy and greed is really good if you use it to multiply your personal belongings while not giving to anyone else. Oh, and below minimum wage pay is showing the workers god's love. I shit you not. And this becomes even funnier when you notice priests in this country are parasities tearing huge handouts from national (and local) budgets each year, even this guys "business" is just giving feel-good motivational speeches to the rich...

*sigh* And people claim democracy is about voting, not making informed choice in your best interest...

[Simon_Jester]

Gianforte is a tech millionaire.

Because of course he is
One gets the impression that many tech millionaires are buying their own bullshit over how everyone, without exceptions, can bootstrap themselves to riches without having experienced failure due to outside circumstances or being less able to work due to old age.

I am tempted to propose that all successful entrepreneurs who were making potloads of money in their twenties and thirties should be strapped to a chair with their eyelids propped open and lectured on the weak anthropic principle until they get it.

More precisely, the problem is this. The weak anthropic principle states that the reason the universe seems so conveniently suited to human life is that, if the universe weren't capable of supporting human life, there would be no humans around to notice. We are in the position of apples lying on the ground, marveling at the unlikeliness that of all the places on Earth we could appear on the ground, we just happened to appear under an apple tree.

The apple might speculate that it possesses some unique virtue, or is blessed by God, or that just any inanimate object can end up under an apple tree if it tries hard enough. Or that being under an apple tree is the normal part of the human condition, and that anyone who claims not to be under an apple tree is delusional. But all those things would be foolish. It's reversing causation.

Apples appear under apple trees not because of any special virtue about apples, but because the tree produces the apples.

Likewise, tech millionaires who make piles of money in their early years appear under unusual conditions, brought about by a combination of luck, special resources, and special opportunities. They look around themselves and observe "with determination and a bit of cunning, I made enough money in 15 years to support myself and a family in comfort for the rest of my life!" And they assume this is somehow caused by some general principle they can apply to the entire rest of the world. When in fact it applies to them personally only because they are the product of unusual circumstances, with an unusual combination of opportunities to seize the day.

The heck of it is, these guys are so loony that even the Bible isn't really supporting them very well.

Loony? You could call them loony if that was fringe position, but with US/UK money, it had been forced on whole world, most visibly by Reagan and Thatcher but destroying any sort of 'red' policies elsewhere had been US policy for over a century now.

Hell, right here in Poland, so called "catholic" country, you can ignore direct teaching of last three popes and become celebrity superstar priest by claiming poor are lazy and greed is really good if you use it to multiply your personal belongings while not giving to anyone else.

People have been accusing the underclass of being lazy, shiftless, irresponsible, criminal, and generally lacking in virtue for a LONG time. This is not an invention of American or British culture.

The US and British may be guilty of slightly tipping the balance and promoting these ideas a bit harder than they otherwise would be, though.

[Broomstick]

Right.

But speaking as someone on the bottom in my own society (globally, of course, there are millions worse off than I am), a little tipping from the top translates to a lot of pressure on the bottom. Some sort of leverage at work, I suppose.

[Steve]

Also forgets one of the points of retirement and social security was to clear elderly out of jobs and create openings for younger workers, thus alleviating unemployment and putting people more likely to be healthy and productive in positions.

[biostem]

Wait... does this guy actually think people live to be 600+ years old?

[Baffalo]

Also forgets one of the points of retirement and social security was to clear elderly out of jobs and create openings for younger workers, thus alleviating unemployment and putting people more likely to be healthy and productive in positions.

The original intent was there, yeah, but the problem is that social security simply isn't enough for most people not because they're greedy, but simply because it's just not enough to live on. Those who do take social security and make it work face a huge hurdle if they don't have retirement to fall back on, leading to these people staying in the work force longer and tying up more jobs. That's a double edged sword, since if they take a minimum wage job, they're collecting 7.25/hr, or right around $15k a year if they make full time (hint: most won't). These part time jobs taken up by people to supplement their income mean that someone younger, say working through college, can't get that same job. The difference here, however, is that the older person gets a check regardless of whether they work or not, while the younger person doesn't (barring unusual circumstances).

Now, this leads to a problem in that most of the people desperate for work right now are the people young and needing money the most to start their lives, mostly millennials. They're hitting the job market faster than the older generations are moving out, and they're hitting with college degrees. Normally that would be a good thing, but the problem isn't just limited to the minimum wage jobs, but all the way to the top. For example, I personally know several dozen people who are past the age that social security kicks in, yet they continue to work. Most of them have jobs at the very top of their companies, and don't plan to relinquish them anytime soon. Because of their experience in the position, the only way they'll ever be replaced is if they screw up so badly they get fired (unlikely to happen after 30 to 40 years), or retire. And like I said, they have no intention of doing that.

So we have a situation where the population is growing older and drawing on social security and medicare, programs that are paid for by the tax paying public. However, because they aren't required to actually be retired when they receive these benefits, they're getting paid a regular paycheck plus income that would otherwise be going to a younger person. This ties up jobs, which means unemployment goes up. But because this is also the age bracket most likely to vote, no one in the government would dare make them mad, so they're told "These young people are just lazy and won't get out and get a job. Just think of your grandson or granddaughter, sitting around watching TV or playing those super violent video games instead of looking for work. Why, I bet the last time you saw them that was what was going on." And they eat that up because they've been working for 40+ years. They got a house and an education and a car when they were available and cheap. Why can't they just pull themselves up by the boot straps and start a company or buy a cheap car to get to a good factory job? That's what we used to do, you know!

So lucky lucky us. We have an older population used to a vastly different economy drawing money left and right who have the ear of their politicians to encourage practices that benefit them but not those lazy kids that they are hanging onto jobs that prevent them from getting out and working.

Excuse me while I go get a drink. I think I need one now.

Wait... does this guy actually think people live to be 600+ years old?

Honestly, there's no telling. He's more concerned with preaching his twisted version of the bible than anything.

[Simon_Jester]

It doesn't help that relatively few of the 70-ish people drawing social security can count on being able to move in with 40-ish and 50-ish children prepared to support the rest of the financial burden of taking care of them.

Two generations ago that was a lot more common, as I understand it... and three generations ago it was totally normative that Grandma would move in with her children when she got too old to live by herself, or that Grandpa would do so when he got too old to hold down a profitable job.

[Joun_Lord]

It doesn't help that relatively few of the 70-ish people drawing social security can count on being able to move in with 40-ish and 50-ish children prepared to support the rest of the financial burden of taking care of them.

Two generations ago that was a lot more common, as I understand it... and three generations ago it was totally normative that Grandma would move in with her children when she got too old to live by herself, or that Grandpa would do so when he got too old to hold down a profitable job.

Ain't it alot more common nowadays in this here time of the iPad babies and Walkmans for people in their 20s and 30s to still be living with their parents? Not because they are lazy but because the job market is so shit they can't afford to move out or had to move back in to their parents place.

Anyway, this doesn't surprise me one iota that this idiot would spout this nonsense. As others have said, long has it been that the rich have accused the poor of being lazy, that if they would get off their caviar fed asses and go do work they wouldn't be poor. Its their fault for being poor either because they are just bad people or because they buy "luxury items" like a near to falling apart car, a washer and dryer, a computer, or a TV, because apparently poor people aren't supposed to have any fun and are supposed to be punished for being poor by making them go to laundromats and ride the bus.

They get pissed if they see poor people buying anything but gruel, try to ban them from buying seafood and steak. Think all people on the public dole are just lazy asses who can't be arsed to work because living on some government pittance is the high life. The elderly and the disabled are the same. The elderly they think are just lazy, they will trot out stories of biblical figures or their grandaddies who worked well past retirement age, the only reason why modern elderly do not is because they are lazy fucks.

The disabled are all people faking it or are just whiners, again trot out bullshit ass stories about people who worked with broken legs or severe injuries. I remember one Republicunt leaning message board pointing to the example of the Highway to Heaven dude on Little House on the Prairie working despite fucking up his back or something because he needed to pay some dude off. Now that they say is what a "real" American worker would do, injure themselves more to pay their masters.

These rich cunts believe their rich asses are the hardest of hard workers. They should be allowed to retire because they worked sooooooooo hard to make all their monies. They shouldn't have to pay taxes because they are such hard workers and why should they be paying for parasites (also known as their employees they don't pay anywhere near enough to live on, also known as fucking everyone). They earned their free time and relaxation and luxuries and massive fucking tax breaks, poor people didn't or else they wouldn't be poor.

Its pretty fucking easy to see the sheer rage people like the Occupy Wall Street hippies had at rich fucks. I may not share their dreadlocked hair or hippy drums (fucking goddamn hippie drums, motherfuckering ear rape) or their love of iPads but I certainly agree with their anger at the 1%.

[Baffalo]

>>> This is a rant. If you want to skip it, I don't really blame you. >>>

I turn 28 in 7 days. I live with my parents, in one of the poorest areas of the country, working a job that actually pays below minimum wage doing hard work with a bad foot that leaves me in agony most days. I survive only because I have my parents, and when someone calls me lazy like that, I take personal offense to that. Because I'm back there busting my ass at the only work I was able to get after searching for over a year. I have a college degree, and I'm being paid peanuts to bust my ass every day.

The only reason I can go to the doctor is because I get Medicaid, and I get that because, get this, I'm poor. I pay $500 of the little money I get each month paying off student loans, which are excessive to the point of being ridiculous. I worked hard and I deal with lots of bullshit, only for entitled, self-important fuckwits to turn around and tell me "You just need to work harder" or "There's a job out there for you if you'd just look." Hey asshole, I've been looking since November of 2012, and I'm still poor.

I don't want to live off the public dole. I want to earn a living and buy a house and have a decent job where the education I worked hard to get, one they swore up and down was worth a fortune because it's so in demand, I can put to use without having to bend over a 20 year old press in 120 degree weather trying to hold it together because my boss is too cheap to buy a new one. I want a job where I am asked my opinion and someone actually listens, rather than be told "That's just not how we do things" when I suggest something practical. Like, say, actually letting someone who knows what they're doing fix it rather than hire a high school drop out you happen to be friends with who costs you 200 just to walk in the fucking door.

>>> Rant over >>>

The economy went to shit because of the very people like this, who earned a fortune and then decided they'd rather keep their fortune and export the labor overseas to cheaper foreign markets where there aren't any air pollution standards or OSHA or anything those pesky poor people kept pushing through because they want to stay alive. Remember the good old days? When you could lock workers into a shirt factory so they can't take breaks? So what a few burned alive because we didn't bother to give the foreman the key. Who cares, right? They were poor.

I find it absolutely hilarious that these people will praise the Chinese for producing cheap goods, but still condemn them because they're not up to the standards they assume Americans are capable of producing. Wow, you're surprised that because you spent less money buying from overseas that they might not give a damn about quality and instead worry about quantity instead? Tell me more about how you can't have your cake and eat it too, but still whine about it?

Plus, let's not even consider the places in this country that are little more than small towns dotted around, whose only income is extremely limited (mostly farming) and so the majority of people are unable to ever escape? Where I live, you literally cannot sell a house because everyone's moving away in droves. If they have the money, they're running for it because this town is dying a slow, pitiful death. Those who are left are the ones who can't flee, and so the poor become poorer, what money there is gets tied up in the hands of a few who are hoarding it for their own ends (mostly so they can further oppress the poor), and the only money that comes in is from the government and that flows right into the pockets of Walmart or other big chains.

Isn't it fun when someone has all the power and leaves you unable to do a damned thing about it?

[Broomstick]

Also forgets one of the points of retirement and social security was to clear elderly out of jobs and create openings for younger workers, thus alleviating unemployment and putting people more likely to be healthy and productive in positions.

The original intent was there, yeah, but the problem is that social security simply isn't enough for most people not because they're greedy, but simply because it's just not enough to live on. Those who do take social security and make it work face a huge hurdle if they don't have retirement to fall back on, leading to these people staying in the work force longer and tying up more jobs. That's a double edged sword, since if they take a minimum wage job, they're collecting 7.25/hr, or right around $15k a year if they make full time (hint: most won't). These part time jobs taken up by people to supplement their income mean that someone younger, say working through college, can't get that same job. The difference here, however, is that the older person gets a check regardless of whether they work or not, while the younger person doesn't (barring unusual circumstances).

Now, this leads to a problem in that most of the people desperate for work right now are the people young and needing money the most to start their lives, mostly millennials. They're hitting the job market faster than the older generations are moving out, and they're hitting with college degrees. Normally that would be a good thing, but the problem isn't just limited to the minimum wage jobs, but all the way to the top. For example, I personally know several dozen people who are past the age that social security kicks in, yet they continue to work. Most of them have jobs at the very top of their companies, and don't plan to relinquish them anytime soon. Because of their experience in the position, the only way they'll ever be replaced is if they screw up so badly they get fired (unlikely to happen after 30 to 40 years), or retire. And like I said, they have no intention of doing that.

I think you're conflating executives who are 70+ (the age at which you can collect SS regardless of other income) with the impoverished 70+ who are working because SS isn't enough and that's how they're making ends meet. Like some of my co-workers, who are near or at 80, debilitated by various infirmities and would love to really retire, yet still trying to drag themselves to work because otherwise they'd be homeless.

At least the wealthy elderly do still pay taxes (for now), which help keep the system running, but some of the creaky old people still working are doing so because they have to. SS isn't a flat rate, it's based on your income while working so if you were working poor all your life it's just not going to be enough to live on. I sympathize with the struggling young, but the struggling old need shouldn't be thrown under the bus, either.

It doesn't help that relatively few of the 70-ish people drawing social security can count on being able to move in with 40-ish and 50-ish children prepared to support the rest of the financial burden of taking care of them.

Two generations ago that was a lot more common, as I understand it... and three generations ago it was totally normative that Grandma would move in with her children when she got too old to live by herself, or that Grandpa would do so when he got too old to hold down a profitable job.

Ain't it alot more common nowadays in this here time of the iPad babies and Walkmans for people in their 20s and 30s to still be living with their parents? Not because they are lazy but because the job market is so shit they can't afford to move out or had to move back in to their parents place.

Yes, that's why my generation is called the “sandwich generation” - we're caught between our elderly parents and our millennial children. Everyone wants to move back in with us, assuming we're the ones with the house and some sort of income.

It was about four generations ago that grandma and grandpa lived with their adult kids in the US... because SS didn't exist. It's happening again because SS isn't enough to live on.

Its their fault for being poor either because they are just bad people or because they buy "luxury items" like a near to falling apart car, a washer and dryer, a computer, or a TV, because apparently poor people aren't supposed to have any fun and are supposed to be punished for being poor by making them go to laundromats and ride the bus.

Er... not quite. If you can't afford the bus you can fucking walk to work (there was recently a much repeated news feature about a poor guy whose car broke down and he kept his job by walking something like 20 miles each way to and from work every day and it was presented as “oh, what a dedicated worker!” rather than how fucking sad he's forced to do that) and you can well wash your clothes in the kitchen sink, why are you wasting money on a laundromat?

[Irbis]

People have been accusing the underclass of being lazy, shiftless, irresponsible, criminal, and generally lacking in virtue for a LONG time. This is not an invention of American or British culture.

The US and British may be guilty of slightly tipping the balance and promoting these ideas a bit harder than they otherwise would be, though.

Yes, they were calling it so. So what? With the advent of the labour unions, you had poor people fight back, then the sceptre of The Internationale and Soviet Union aligned parties gaining influence loomed over every right winger who ever thought about pushing back. Hell, in Germany, front country of ideological combat, you had religious right wing people enact a lot of worker rights laws to prove West Germany (exploitation of slave labour notwithstanding) is more worker-friendly. The exact same people who called poor lazy scum some decades before. Thinkers even started predicting things like three hour work day, as with rising productivity that would be enough for anyone to have nice life, right?

But then, came counter-reformation, knee jerk movement born with "better dead than red" and "one nation under god" inventions, that culminated in 80s. You had Reagan worming his idealogical poison everywhere, from Iran–Contras to fucking forcing International Labour Organization to drop such unimportant stuff like human rights and instead support Washington Consensus:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... ld_War_era

That is about as idiotic and illogical like having PETA become member of World Fur Producers and protesting these inane strict animal cruelty regulations. Combine that with fall of Warsaw Pact and every right winger everywhere condemning and tearing anything that had to do with poor protection (it was de facto bad, because side preaching it lost, right?) unopposed, add a pile of deregulation, and well, we're starting to see how it ended.

***

Imagine every school has two doctor cabinets, with real actual dentist and first contact doctor, there just to monitor body and teeth disorders, administer vaccines and provide first aid when needed. For free, of course. That on top of cheap, subsidized canteen for kids with busy parents (of long school day). Not processed food, no, handmade from fresh stuff. Then library, laboratory, gym and small movie theater (later computer lab), also free. In every school, from elementary to university. I still remember all of this, and back then hated monthly doctor visits. Heh.

It might not look like much in western countries, but that was built in country where in 30s you were lucky if (singular) schools had separate rooms and masonry walls, never mind the whole WW2 destruction business. It was, of course, all torn down by insane rightwingers in 90s. Just as I was graduating, in incredibly short-sighted decision leaving something that could barely be called public school system. They had to reanimate that corpse with 3 or 4 more education reforms.

Anyway, the point is, PRL might have been a dictature, but when you look back at institutions that clearly were designed to help common people - and worked - then when your first serious life experience is insane right winger demolishing all of this, supposedly in the name of "freedom" then you start asking yourself what is wrong with you (or, more likely, said "freedom").

I wouldn't want to go back, but I can see why both old and young people despise political system in Poland - literally only people who were entering work market in 1991 benefited in last 25 years, leaving scraps and no vacant jobs for either. Problem being even worse than "working retired" in the west as someone who was 20 in 1990 is just 45 now, with solid 25-35 years before retirement