Many of you may have heard the annoying KiwiSaver advertisement that plays on the radio, that sounds like a happy song, but is in effect a song of doom. It basically repeats with, I'm going to work till I die, over and over again.
I actually don't know how it finishes anymore, because the ad offends me so much that I turn off the radio every time I hear it now. So, whatever advertisements are after it, I don't hear them, because the radio is off and sometimes doesn't even get turned on again. You hear that, NewsTalkZB!!!
It offends me on multiple levels. The first, the implication that working until you die is not good. But working is good. People who retire and have nothing to do tend to die faster than if they just kept working. Retirement can be a death sentence.
Then there's my dad, who died at age 65/66* of cancer. He got the diagnosis, retired and then died six months later. He effectively worked until he died.
Finally, there's all the money I lost in compulsory superannuation payments in Australia. I don't believe that there will be any super money there for me when I'm old enough for retirement in just over twenty years, because chances are the super companies would have gone bust by then, but in the meantime they make a killing for all their investors and keep many people employed. So, I do not want superannuation. Period.
So, yes, that ad makes me turn off the radio. Congratulations, KiwiSaver, your ad is one of the very few that I do that with. The others have generally been disgusting, advertising "adult toys".
*I can't remember how old he was. I keep getting confused between his official age and his probable actual age.
I actually don't know how it finishes anymore, because the ad offends me so much that I turn off the radio every time I hear it now. So, whatever advertisements are after it, I don't hear them, because the radio is off and sometimes doesn't even get turned on again. You hear that, NewsTalkZB!!!
It offends me on multiple levels. The first, the implication that working until you die is not good. But working is good. People who retire and have nothing to do tend to die faster than if they just kept working. Retirement can be a death sentence.
Then there's my dad, who died at age 65/66* of cancer. He got the diagnosis, retired and then died six months later. He effectively worked until he died.
Finally, there's all the money I lost in compulsory superannuation payments in Australia. I don't believe that there will be any super money there for me when I'm old enough for retirement in just over twenty years, because chances are the super companies would have gone bust by then, but in the meantime they make a killing for all their investors and keep many people employed. So, I do not want superannuation. Period.
So, yes, that ad makes me turn off the radio. Congratulations, KiwiSaver, your ad is one of the very few that I do that with. The others have generally been disgusting, advertising "adult toys".
*I can't remember how old he was. I keep getting confused between his official age and his probable actual age.
That's the Liberal outlook - that working is bad and soul destroying, according to author Evan Sayet. He discusses this and Springsteen's songs in a free-to-read-chapter of his book HERE
ReplyDeleteSince the Right-Thinker’s goal in life is to better himself and in turn, the world, having a job offers him the chance to fulfill his purpose. He produces, manufactures and fixes things that fight disease and keep hunger, poverty and physical pain at bay. Having a job – and bettering himself at that job – then, is filled with great and profound rewards for the men and women of God and science.
The Modern Liberal on the other hand, not believing in the existence of the better, can see no upside to toil. To the Modern Liberal, having a job is nothing other than unmitigated hardship. In fact, here’s how Bruce Springsteen - dubbed “the working man’s troubadour” by the folks in the Rhetoric Industries who have the power to dub such things – describes the last Springsteen man to have ever worked for a living, his father Douglas:
Daddy worked his whole life
for nothing but the pain…
With “nothing but the pain” as the wages of toil, things get even worse. Since the Modern Liberal’s purpose in life is to just “be himself” and to do only that which “feels good” to him at any moment, having a job is the one and only thing that constrains him from fulfilling his life’s purpose. This makes having a job not just “hard work,” but nothing less than soul stealing.
Thus, despite my extensive knowledge of Springsteen’s thirty-plus-year canon, I am hard pressed to name even a single song from this supposed champion of the working man in which someone with a job isn’t going through a living hell because he had to stop playing long enough to do a day’s work.
[...]
Is Springsteen right? Is having a job really this horrific? Not according to Mike Rowe – someone who, unlike Springsteen, didn’t just talk about work but actually went out and did some on his hit TV show, "Dirty Jobs."
In fact, Rowe reports that even those who do some of the most difficult and seemingly disagreeable of jobs were “Some of the happiest people I’ve ever met.” In other words Springsteen is – as the Modern Liberal always is - not just wrong; he’s as wrong as wrong can be.
I didn't even understand what it was about at first. Then I saw the link on my BNZ page and clicked on it. Since it is selling Kiwisaver, I looked at the categories. No category for 65+ - and I am 70 (and still working) :-)
ReplyDeleteI have no intentions of not working so long as I can. Even if I couldn't do my present job, I would, surely, try to do some volunteer stuff. Why would anyone want to retire?
jj
I saw this ad whilst surfing youTube, and it didn't contain any text or anything - so I didn't realize it was an ad for kiwisaver until now (after seeing an ad on facebook).
ReplyDeleteI was quite excited about this video in the first place, as I had hoped if people were seeing it they would realize their doom in working in the society we currently live.
I thought perhaps it would open peoples minds to the idea of 'another way' of life besides the endless grind which only seems to be making the rich richer.
But it seems 'another way' is offered to the people - kiwisaver.
So now I'm a little sad that this is indeed just another commercial endeavor by a bank.
But perhaps this idea will still resonate through some people and they will wake up to the cruel world around them and instead of accepting it, realize that they can do something about it.
peace and love brothers and sisters.