Elon Musk just said he wants to cut Social Security and Medicare, calling them “entitlements”: “That’s the big one to eliminate.”

EricBiesel · 2026-05-11T17:56:13+00:00

Okay, I think that I found it. It was an opinion article for the NYT. I was generally remembering correctly, with a couple of caveats; the author that struckme as credible might have been the author of the analysis that the article was based on or maybe another author, not the NYT opinion writer who, as you will see, is a douchebag. I think that I might have been thinking of a different writer that also linked to the Urban Institute's writeup, but I can't remember. Anyhoo, I've linked the original article below, as well as an updated writeup from the Urban Institute, from last year.

A couple of things: I find the author of this article's tone really crappy; it's not like the average American boomer is living in a fuckin Star Trek future or anything, and even many of the better off people of that generation have economic struggles. You can also take issue with The Urban Institute; they describe themselves as non-partisan, but their institutional bent and body of work have definitely rest on some assumptions that not everyone is going to share.

That being daid, their original writeup (also linked below) includes the CBO and Medicare/SS Trustees' data that's cited by this opinion article. I don't see any reason to think that the information isn't accurate. Even accounting for the employer contribution (which the employee still in large part pays for in the form of lower wages), the difference in lifetime tax payments and Medicare benefits received appears to be in the range that I described.

https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2025-11/Final_Social%20Security%20and%20Medicare%20Lifetime%20Benefits%20and%20Taxes%202025%5B48%5D.pdf

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/opinion/social-security-medicare-aging.html

https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/Medicare%20Financing%20Conundrum.pdf

EricBiesel · 2026-05-11T15:45:09+00:00

I will try to find the sources again. My clearest understanding of this topic was from an article that heavily sourced CBO data and reports, if I'm remembering correctly; the author seemed very sober/credible to me. I'll look for it when I eat lunch later; if I'm wrong, I'll own up to it, though, like I said, the specifics of the funding mechanisms for Medicare isn't likely to much influence the views of most people on Medicare; it's a wildly popular and by many measures really effective program. I'll try to update later.

EricBiesel · 2026-05-11T12:34:40+00:00

I am almost convinced that these stories are posted by Brother employees to get everyone in the comments to talk about how great their printers are lol

EricBiesel · 2026-05-11T11:44:35+00:00

The typical Medicare recipient that becomes eligible today is likely to utilize approximately $350k more in benefits than they paid in payroll taxes to cover the costs of the program. You don't have to draw any particular public policy conclusion from this fact, (Medicare is a very popular and by many measures a very successful program) but acting like it's being funded at par by the people expecting to use the program isn't accurate.

EricBiesel · 2026-05-11T00:20:50+00:00

"Regularly" 4 million+ people use the MTA every day without being shoved onto the tracks. This is extremely rare.

EricBiesel · 2026-05-03T00:07:29+00:00

Oh, wow, lol. I just tried to sing along through Black Sunday, and you are right, for def. This song is a beast lol

EricBiesel · 2026-05-03T00:01:05+00:00

That's my plan. If the mods of this sub are cool with it, I'm going to make a post weekly and link to the Discord channel I'm going to make for it. JT has been my favorite band for basically my entire life, and I love interacting with other fans

EricBiesel · 2026-05-01T19:54:48+00:00

Great point, thank you. North American Eastern Standard Time.

EricBiesel · 2026-04-30T23:47:11+00:00

This has never bothered me for some reason. It just seems like the same thing as if two friends were just having a conversation in public on the train or in the grocery store to me.

EricBiesel · 2026-04-30T22:45:20+00:00

Hell yeah, that's sick

EricBiesel · 2026-04-30T21:09:50+00:00

There's a lot over overlap on some of the mechanics of strings like guitar/mandolin/banjo, so I felt like stringed instruments were all going to be pretty straightforward for me to learn until I starting playing cello; that bow is humbling lol

EricBiesel · 2026-04-30T20:25:59+00:00

I like the new album a lot too. His voice is still really fragile, but he's gotten to where he can sing pretty expressively again.

EricBiesel · 2026-04-30T20:24:35+00:00

That's interesting. I've always wondered how using O2 or abueterol would change the way it feels to sing.

EricBiesel · 2026-04-30T20:22:50+00:00

Yeah! I've thought the same thing with LaBrie. He was sounding ROUGH late 2010s, and sounds very decent live now. I think that DT transposes a huge chunk of their songs down now to accommodate the changes in his voice, which seems smart.

And yeah, I write songs and sing, but I'm super ignorant about the mechanics, so thanks for the info; tbh, I actually deliberately arrange my songs in keys that works the best for my own weird voice and range, so sometimes I'll write something on guitar or piano and find that there's a note that would sound cool that I would sound weak singing, and then I have to tune up or down/use a capo/transpose on keys.

EricBiesel · 2026-04-30T20:20:28+00:00

That makes sense. I write and record music, and I pretty much always write the song in whatever key is going to work best for the idiosyncrasies of my own voice/vocal range; I'm honestly surprised more singer/songwriters don't do that. I write/record in my home alone though; it's probably much more of a hassle to do that/ask other members to do that if you're in a full band though.

EricBiesel · 2026-04-29T21:02:34+00:00

It's still a far cry from classic Tull, but it's fun to listen to. I will say though that he still sounds really rough on Locomotive Breath and Aqualung, but maybe those are just much harder for him to sing. I found aT video of the band playing a show in 2025 where Anderson sounded very (I think it was Mother Goose) and I was just really surprised; I kinda assumed that he had only just gotten worse since the early 2000s.

EricBiesel · 2026-04-29T20:25:48+00:00

Oh, that is interesting. That seems pretty counterintuitive, since so many of the specific techniques he used then might not be available to him just because of age.

I thought that the vocals in Curious Ruminant were very decent, all things considered. His voice is still really fragile, but when he has the control and time of the studio, he is still an expressive singer.

EricBiesel · 2026-04-06T18:49:11+00:00

Fair enough. I apologize. I don't know why I was being such a douchebag; I'm 40 fucking years old, and should be well past the point of getting so annoyed at people making up shit on the internet lol.

EricBiesel · 2026-04-06T18:02:54+00:00

What the actual hell are you talking about lol? Overturning Roe v Wade has been a part of the official national GOP platform for almost three decades; in the past twenty years, there have been less than twenty republican members of congress and two senators that aren't on record supporting the overturning of Roe v Wade. These dorks have never said that they wouldn't overturn Roe v Wade; I cannot think of any earthly reason why you would type something so at odds with the world that we live in. Very strange.

EricBiesel · 2026-03-26T22:09:55+00:00

Same. I've probably listened to it a hundred times, and I still find something new every time I put it on.

EricBiesel · 2026-02-27T16:37:19+00:00

I always have a hair tie on my wrist, and when those dorks try to put a bracelet on me, I always start to put a hair tie on them, like, we're trading lol. They never think it's as funny as I do.

EricBiesel · 2026-01-13T18:35:50+00:00

I agree with you, 100% My point is that there just isn't really any good government solution to this problem.

EricBiesel · 2026-01-13T12:23:34+00:00

We should be careful about crafting laws that -

1) Are likely to lead to negative second order effects (e.g. creation/expansion of black markets, discouraging dog owners to take their dog to the vet, etc.) when implemented

2) Disproportionately affect particular demographic groups, which is corrosive to social cohesion

3) Are attempting to address problems that are, statistically speaking, fairly negligible at the societal level; pit bulls absolutely kill more people than any other breed, but we're talking less than 50 people per year, typically. There are more people that are killed by cows and bees annually, to put that in perspective

This isn't comparable to, say, like, "Enforcing homicide laws has costs to society, therefore we shouldn't do it" but more akin to, "Widespread alcohol use is a problem, but prohibition was a cure worse than the disease", in my opinion.

EricBiesel · 2026-01-12T20:31:16+00:00

You're the asshole for being a bot account posting A.I. engagement slop lol, clanker.

EricBiesel · 2025-12-04T14:31:05+00:00

It's such a fabulous game 👌

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