Bonum Certa Men Certa

Pensions Tied to Ponzi Schemes Are Themselves Ponzi Schemes

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jun 29, 2026

Germany news: Pension overhaul may push retirement age to 70

AI bubble: five things you need to know to shield your finances from a crash

Are my pensions or investments at risk from an AI bubble? No, they force you to participate; they use your money, without consent, to inflate the bubble

Later they wonder why people who never even use or touch slop are angry and feel at risk (outside their control...)

There's the famous old joke about copyright terms being extended to satisfy Disney and others. Each x years they'll extend the term by another bunch of x or y years - such that nothing substantial ever enters the public domain, even half a century after the original creators were dead and forgotten.

Pensions are becoming more like that as well.

"Germany is weighing sweeping pension changes," says the national broadcaster, "including raising the retirement age to 70."

When France had a "reform" under "King" Macron people marched in the streets, to no avail. When the GOP in the US spoke about pension at 70 the media initially ridiculed this idea as insane. It was the same year my colleagues and I discovered that our employer had silently robbed us - it provided a fake pension that never existed. Apparently this is not so uncommon. The incentive to adopt a pension is decreasing as people are no longer sure about them and it is common knowledge that a lot of pension funds throw their money at a Ponzi scheme they call "AI", so why aren't those pensions also akin to "schemes"? An old friend of mine - a pensioner himself - warned me all about about it, even 15 years ago when I asked him about it. I should have taken his advice. "Every minute there's more people born who will grow up and fall for scams that aren't even new," Ryan said in IRC the other day. "They don't have to be new if these people haven't seen them before. Like pensions, car loans, mortgages, and other things."

"Pensions are a scheme to steal from people. They say here's a big fund you can't touch, 40 years from now you can touch it. Then Social Security crisis happens, pensions don't pay out. 401(k) wasn't funded enough because people thought there would be Social Security checks and/or a pension. The State of Illinois passes a law that automatically enrolls people in a "state managed 401(k)" if their employer doesn't offer one, calls it "Secure Choice". The state that funded some of its own pensions 10-15% says your retirement money is "Secure" with them. And you have a "Choice" even though they opted you in. As they frantically raise taxes to prevent the feds from taking over the state pension and sending the state the bill. There's a federal law that says that if state pensions can't pay out at least what those workers would have gotten in Social Security had they worked for private employers, then Social Security takes over, sends them what they would have gotten in Social Security, and bills the state."

Months ago the highest US official in the area of finance basically admitted that the US had become insolvent. There is a growing consensus that Social Security will collapse or is already collapsing. Imagine how much worse it'll get when the slop bubble bursts. █

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Intercontinental Brigading - Part VI - Racism Against Blacks
Systems don't always work as intended
Trillions of Dollars in Debt Are Not "Investment", More People Realise This Now
"Investors started offloading shares on Wednesday in response to an X post about the debt load of CoreWeave Inc..."
 
Slop is "just a hobby, won't be big and professional like GNU."
What Torvalds says about "hey hi" ("AI") does not prove he is in charge
Gemini Links 18/10/2026: Movies, Greenland, and Detectors of Slop Plagiarism
Links for the day
Links 18/10/2026: TikTok Censors Criticism of MElon, "Trump’s Latest Attempt to Be the King", and "Big Tech Oligarchs Have a Terrible Plan for Humanity"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 17, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, October 17, 2026
Gemini Links 17/10/2026: Big Glowing Advertising Screens, Busy October, and Art
Links for the day
The First Casualty: The Reputation of Linux Developers (and of Linux)
The last thing you can take from a person is pride
Links 17/10/2026: Europe Divorcing US President Putin (Kompromat), MElon and Kapo-berg ("Meta") Buying US Elections Again
Links for the day
GAFAM LLMs Seem to be Causing Veteran, Experienced Linux Developers to Quit, Only to be Replaced With GAFAM Bots and Unaudited Slopfest 'Code'
Better than 'pulling a SCO'?
30 Years of KDE and "Project Banana"
KDE recently turned 30 (many blog posts about it this past week)
Inevitable Things
"Bitbucket was Inevitable"
Andy's Passing Thoughts on Media Dying, Not Reporting News (Even Critical News About Itself)
No more news
Stallman Was Right About Torvalds
The crowd/audience Linus Torvalds panders to is paid by GAFAM to go attend and dominate (speak at) LF events. They're people whose employer forces them to use slop, it's inorganic.
Links 17/10/2026: "Why Math Dumped OpenAI", US Third Circuit Has Confirmed LLMs and Other Slop Constitute Plagiarism or Copyright Infringement
Links for the day
GPL Was Right (About Hoarding, Now Automated With Plagiarism Blenders)
Some time next year the UK's High Court might listen to arguments related to this
Microsoft Allegedly Asks Many Workers to Leave at the End of This Year (or Get the Boot), It's Called Voluntary Exit Program a.k.a. Voluntary Early Retirement Program (or VEP) Even for People Far Too Young to Retire
"Everyone at Microsoft knows what those acronyms mean."
The Torvalds-led Slopfest as a Reminder to Pursue Software Freedom, Not Plagiarism Endorsed (for Money) by 'Linux' Foundation
What's happening this month moreover proves that he is not in control of important decisions in his project
Why We Never Got Back to IPFS
Practically speaking, we could get back to IPFS any time
Red Hat Silent Layoffs: October 1 Bluewashing, Then Leaving IBM Altogether
It's said that weeks from now there will be another "round" (of "RAs")
Gemini Links 16/10/2026: Metrovision, Smartwatches, and Rekindled Love for Geminispace
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 16, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, October 16, 2026
Intercontinental Brigading - Part V - Keeping Linux Under Users' Control, Not Microsoft's (NSA) Control, Leads to Weaponisation of Cops (Killing the Messengers)
Transatlantic lawfare
TeamBlind Accused of Censorship, Maybe Surveillance in the Future
It's expensive to protect whistleblowers and to resist censorship of what whistleblowers try to expose
Another Friday 'Litter' of IBM Workers, Discarded and Sometimes Replaced to Cut Costs
The little that IBM earns is spent buying companies to pretend there's "growth" and headcount stability
Gemini Links 16/10/2026: Carrie, Games, and Slop
Links for the day
Links 16/10/2026: Election Interference by Slop; White House Backs Russia, Not Ukraine
Links for the day
The Register MS Has New 'Article' That Has "AI" 20 Times. "SPONSORED POST" As Usual.
At the end, both the media and the pyramid scheme will collapse
UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) Says Microsoft is Still Abusive
Today, ahead of the latest fake 'results' [...] Microsoft cheats the system everywhere it can
Links 16/10/2026: "Data Centers Are Driving Conservative Rural Voters to The Democratic Party En Masse" and Slop Bros Bribe Candidates "for Congress"
Links for the day
Deplatforming People You Disagree With Is a Losing Strategy
Trying to deplatform people you don't agree with is oppressive and petty
Microsoft Cannot Pay Salaries
Microsoft is deep in debt
IBM "support that is USA based will migrate over 4 years to Indian based just because it lowers costs substantially."
IBM is not capable of growing, so it tries to find ways to shave off costs
Gemini Links 16/10/2026: Publishing and Licensing, Going to Movies, and Nature/Seasons Change
Links for the day
Microsoft's OSI Calling Slop "Open Source AI" (Microsoft Paid OSI to Do This) Has Helped Associate "Open Source" With Pedophilia
Microsoft deflecting?
Fridges Do Not Need an Internet Connection
Keep it simple, stupid (KISS)
Wikileaks Still Matters
The world needs more sites like these
'Cocaine King' Campinos Should 'Get the Message', Pack Up His Things and Go Already
His staff is constantly on strike and engaged in various industrial actions
We Don't Do Slop
People tend to appreciate genuine work, not fakes
On Lying With Confidence
LLMs are hype
Market Share of Windows in the United Kingdom is Shockingly Low
Microsoft's losses are very profound
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 15, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, October 15, 2026
Microsoft Can Barely Afford to Colonise Africa Any Longer (Too Much Debt)
"Before the announcement, former Microsoft employees publicly described staff being placed on performance improvement plans or offered “voluntary” exits."
Intercontinental Brigading - Part IV - Harassment Registered With the Police Before Projection Attempts Made From America
The thing one gets subjected to for opposing back doors in Linux
Gemini Links 16/10/2026: Dogs, Slop, and Blogging
Links for the day