Young American adults are losing faith in America and free markets.  And there have been many articles about the surge in support for Turning Point USA and all it stands for after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.  But Turning Point has never (as far as I know) dared to discuss what I consider the real reason many working Americans (including myself) have lost faith in America’s future.

China’s working youth are also losing faith in their future

And for good reason.  Starting this month, working Chinese have to pay social security taxes.  If you search online about this in English, you’ll probably get a politically correct blurb about how China is expanding its “safety net.”  The details are complicated, but the real reason for the new tax is quite simple.  Land sales are not bringing in enough tax revenue to pay for (among other things) exorbitant government pensions for those “in the system.”  Chinese bloggers whom I follow have said that the average worker making 3,000 RMB a month ($420) now has to effectively pay 1,500 RMB ($210) in social security taxes.  What’s different from social security taxes in the USA is that this new tax appeared suddenly and is not hidden with sophisticated smoke and mirrors.

How are the working young reacting?  Not only have they lost faith in the future, but many are even “lying flat.”   

Certain categories of Chinese retirees are doing quite well

My grandfather often told me that his generation (and my baby boomer father’s generation) would get far more out of Social Security than they ever paid in, and that there would be nothing left for my generation.  Likewise, my favorite Chinese blogger talks about how China’s “Baby Boomer” generation made out like bandits during the years of China’s opening up (a generation or two ago).  They bought cheap housing that skyrocketed in value.  But China’s young workers today don’t have such opportunities.  To add insult to injury, they must now pay the new social security tax.

Where’s the money going?  Just like in America, the scheme is that workers pay the tax for 40 years.  The payments are transferred to existing retirees.  After 40 years of paying in, the new retiree is on the receiving end.  But Chinese workers have no faith is this scheme.  A Chinese blogger recently talked about how his father (now in his 80s) gets a $25-a-month pension.  His father, a very short man, was a farmer who paid social security taxes by sharing his grain harvests until around 2005.  They get nothing now for all those years of grain expropriation and hunger.

Are the new social security taxes going to help these farmers?  Not a chance.  My favorite blogger talks about “pensioners who dance happily” (their equivalent of snowbirds).  These are retirees “in the system” (government employees) who do quite well after retirement.  Some of them get as much as $3,000 a month (100x what a farmer gets).  And, as in America, they get all kinds of freebies and discounts.

He refers to this situation as “social injustice.”  I guess he is not as enlightened as Americans, who are always quick to say retirees are “getting what they paid in” (adjusted substantially for inflation, of course).  The Chinese system has none of the smoke and mirrors of the American pyramid, so the Chinese aren’t fooled by the propaganda.  The video later shows how the young are learning to live on food scraps.  He talks about a delivery driver who hanged himself out of economic desperation and about those “in the system” enjoying the fruits of the labor of others (a radical interpretation of transfer payments for brainwashed Americans).

The result is that young people are not getting married or starting families.  It’s the slow death of a nation.

The solution is simple (and impossible to implement)

Cut American entitlements in half, and the budget would be balanced.  Even with such cuts, retirees would not starve or be homeless (cut more from those with assets and those who get a big Social Security check).  But this will never happen.  The entitled class will insist on getting every penny plus COLA (cost of living adjustments).  But there will never be COLA for the savings of the working class!  All they get is inflation that steals what little they have.  But entitled voters don’t care, because it won’t affect them.

The youth want Mamdani?  Why not?

I see nothing strange about Zohran Mamdani’s popularity in New York.  The working class in NYC realize they will never be able to afford a decent home and start a family.  Mamdani is the only one who talks about their problems.  Sure, he will make things worse, but at least this Robin Hood will perhaps help them get in on the action.  That’s why middle- and upper-class New Yorkers support him.  They all know that the stealing will never stop.

Deplorable Chinese youth don’t have the option of following a Mamdani or getting government handouts.  So many of them are just “lying flat.”

In America, there are far more options (LGBT, radical left, etc., etc.).  I am sure many if not most of these lost souls would choose a more respectable lifestyle if they could get a regular job that supported a respectable living standard (that allows them to at least keep up with previous generation and procreate the next generation).  But this is not possible, even with the vast increases in economic productivity thanks to high tech (inevitably devoured by the insatiable appetite of the entitled and the ever-expanding Deep State).

“Prove me wrong” means nothing

The “prove me wrong” rallies never interested me, because the truth does not matter to leftists.  Or to the army of government employees (with few private-sector skills) who stand to lose much more than the ragtag leftists.  Charlie’s death will not cause these people to change their goals or their politics.  They have everything to lose, just like those spending their golden years in China dancing the evenings away.

Are those on the right at all different?  Many professionals in organizations like Turning Point USA depend on their employer to pay their mortgage, send the kids to college, etc.  And that means avoiding anything that’s bad for business — especially the elephant at the rally, which is the wealth-transfer state that is destroying America’s future.

Two hundred thousand dollars of national debt and $25,000 a year in transfer payments per private-sector employee — and yet, a year ago, there was this crazy idea of eliminating the income tax.  We are facing catastrophe.

I don’t see any way out unless we start talking honestly about the problem, as many do in China.  We must drastically reduce entitlements (and government employment).  This is the true source of the leftist wave of evil.

Image via Pixabay. Pixabay License.