I knew a person that made a lot of money. And I mean a lot of money.
Left home at six in the morning, 5 days of the week, returned home after nine in the evening. Tons of benefits. Company car. Monthly and travel expenses. Cellphone. Computer. Tools and equipment. Uniform and safety gear for required context.
Divorced three times. Wasn’t around to be a parent for 3 children. Lost family and friends to favor work and career. One day, woke up old, alone and miserable but on any way used to measure it, very rich.
Spent the last decade of life spending money in an atempt to fill the void of not having a person of significance in the world.
Money didn’t bought or even rented happiness. It bought cars, cruises, hookers and enough alcohol to fill an olympic swimming pool. But happiness? Out of stock.
Black soldier flies are prolific and when proper conditions to reproduce are met, the females do not wander far from the place they are born and because of this are already used in organic waste disposal.
Using a complex organism to treate waste, even if only plastic, requires specialized infrastructure, designed to contain any event possible to pose a threat to the environment; this is not something we want or can do at home. Specialized infrastructure would make possible ideal conditions for the flies.
Black soldier flies also have the advantage that adults do not live for very long, do not feed, do not pose threat to human beings and the larvas die quickly if no food is available.
These flies also are vulnerable to cold and extreme heat conditions.
Regardless every person being different from the next, spending days on end watching brainrot television is not a good way to spend your life.
Even with reduced mobility, a person can enjoy other things. Reading, writing, listen to music, solve puzzles, etc. There are numerous activities to persue.
Speaking for myself, I plan to remain active for as long as I can manage because I’ve seen what retirement causes to people. Vegetating on a sofa in front of a TV is not a good way to spend your last stretch on this planet. But neither is working.
And even when I no longer have interest in working for a salary, I want to remain active. Hopefully I’ll have grandchildren to help with, my dogs to train and a garden to tend. But I do want to retire and expect everyone to do the same.
The way the system is being “overhauled” is bonkers. I was listening to a podcast the other day where it was calculated that for the EU, by 2050, pensions would be around 45% of the final salary earned, with some exceptions reaching 95%.
I don’t expect for my (hopefully) pension to cover for luxuries but I do expect it to aid me maintaining a decent, even if frugal, standard of living. I do not want a millionaire pension, like many paid today, over tens of thousands of Euros.
Be brave and set maximum values for pensions. I’ve known people with pensions over €5000; minimum wage in my country is €765x14: that’s €10.710, yearly, before taxes. Do rest of the math in your head. A few years back, it was outed the highest pension paid in the country was around €120.000, per month. That is insane. Meanwhile, many receive pensions below €200.
That is not a lie and I am very much aware of that reality, as a member of my household is in serious risk to lose mobility due to health issues. Yet, vertical space is always a good thing to have.
We’re not exactly packed like sardines where I live but building up, unless health issues are a concern, is always the first thing considered, exactly to save clear ground area for other uses, regardless if building on 100m2 or 10 hectares.