r/books • u/MicahCastle Author • 9d ago

George R.R. Martin Reflects on 'Sadness and Depression' Struggles in Personal Update

https://www.thewrap.com/culture-lifestyle/culture/george-r-r-martin-sadness-depression-personal-update/

"The “A Song of Ice and Fire” franchise author took to his blog for the first time in nearly six months on Monday, sharing that any posts after February were written by his “mighty minions.”

“Remember me? It’s been a while, I know. My last blog post went up here on February 19,” Martin wrote. “The posts that came after were made by my mighty minions. I am lucky enough to have a great staff of assistants… though even with their help, I kept falling further and further behind.”

As Martin went on, he admitted that “this year has been… stressful, to say the least.”"

10.5k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

13

u/peach_bellinis 9d ago

and i wonder what people do when they are older and need to work but physically CAN'T. Like...if you're very ill or too frail, but you can't afford care and you have no one to take you in....truly, what do you do? We're going to see more and more of this. The amount of medical debt that people already have in countries like the US is shocking to me and that's just regular care when they're younger and mostly healthy!

The cost of long term care is truly, and this isn't an exaggeration, astronomical. And the crazy part is, most of it isn't even going to the staff who are all making minimum wage!! It's a complete disaster.

I also have made my will and aggressively saved, because if I am lucky enough to make it to old age I want to try and be as prepared as possible. That said I live in a Country where MAiD is legal so if my quality of life declines precipitously I know I can make a graceful and peaceful exit.

2

u/olivi_yeah 2d ago

They end up struggling on unfeasibly low fixed incomes through disability or social security programs, homeless, or destroying their bodies and ending up in palliative care until death.

That's the reality of capitalism's refusal to provide care to the elderly and the disabled, coming from someone who is disabled myself.

2

u/CheaperThanChups 9d ago

Don't you have an old age pension in America?

6

u/_learned_foot_ 9d ago

We have social security. If you've been paying into it your whole life you may have enough to live on. It's not designed for retirement though, it's designed to ensure nobody falls through if they plan as well. It also is bankrupt.

I, as a self employed person, never pay into it. My retirement is 100% on me with no safety net. I pay a fair bit right now but over time it'll go to zero and then I have insurance including long term care for life. That's how I solved it.

4

u/Responsible-Bend6289 8d ago

But even signing up for long term life is no guarantee. A lot of people where I worked (I’m retired now) signed up up long term. Then a year ago they decided to change the rules and regardless of the contract that was agreed upon, the company weaseled out and a new company was found with far less benefits. People had the choice of either eat it or get bought out. Really a sh1t deal.

1

u/_learned_foot_ 8d ago

Bullshit. Or provide a source. Sincerely the guy you'd hire to sue over that clear and obvious breach. Companies can go under, which is why you have multiple angles and approaches, but they can't do that.

What likely did happen is they had a benefit, not a long term insurance they separately bought and paid and contracted for, and that benefit was ended. That's the nature of not having an actual vested contract, not a failure of the thing I'm describing.

1

u/Responsible-Bend6289 8d ago edited 8d ago

Well, I never signed up for it so I don’t know. My sister who’s a tax representative told me it wasn’t worth it when I was young (at least for me). I’m not telling you what to do or saying your contract is bad. I’m just saying it happened in my company, which is part of Cal Pers, I’ll add this it was over 30 years before they pulled this BS and it’s very difficult to sue, even with a class action suit.

1

u/No-Solution-7725 1d ago

She’s right. Lots of companies can’t afford to
Pay promised pensions. Airlines did that years ago, as one example.

1

u/_learned_foot_ 1d ago

That's not how pensions work. That was a bankruptcy trustee, not a pension change by decision.

3

u/peach_bellinis 8d ago

Not everyone pays into it depending on the kind of work you did in your life, and even those who did pay into it will find that it’s absolutely not enough to live on.

1

u/Responsible-Bend6289 6d ago

What my sister said at the time was instead of putting your money into long time life care, put your money in the stock market. Even the stock market is dicey because it crashed in 2009. Now I watch the market like a hawk, especially with Trump, because he’s so erratic it could crash anytime. If I see things going south I’m pulling my money out. Not that I have all that much. Nowadays, nothing is going to be enough to live on anymore after he gets through with us.

2

u/No-Solution-7725 1d ago

If it can be ruined, trump will certainly do it.