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French workers protest plan to increase retirement age
- lm28469 4y agoThat's what you get when 60%+ of the wealth generated in the last two years went to the top 1% and you ask the bottom 80% to work two years longer to cover for an imaginary deficit fyi taxing the 40 richest people in France 2% more would cover the same amount of money as having the entire active population work 2 more years. edit: since it's not clear, I'm talking about pension related debt (the main argument of the french government for raising the retirement age), obviously not the national debt/deficit edit2: ah and 25% of the poorest workers are already dead by 62 https://www.liberation.fr/resizer/J5W0vs_DrAdsjx5xHUxhhC_otnc=/arc-photo-liberation/eu-central-1-prod/public/FAT33WUA5FGOVAS6NAASRWUNSU.png https://www.liberation.fr/resizer/J5W0vs_DrAdsjx5xHUxhhC_otn... and 30% of people above 60 are unemployed because nobody hire seniors https://lemagdusenior.ouest-france.fr/article-78-combien-francais-vivent-sans-emploi-ni-retraite-50-ans.html https://lemagdusenior.ouest-france.fr/article-78-combien-fra...
- earlyam 4y agoI don't doubt you, but do you have a source? I don't know anything about the economics of France and I'm kind of interested now.
- lm28469 4y agohttps://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-bag-nearly-twice-much-wealth-rest-world-put-together-over-past-two-years https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-bag-nearly... https://www.tf1info.fr/economie/reforme-des-retraites-2023-y-a-t-il-urgence-a-combler-le-deficit-selon-le-cor-2246516.html https://www.tf1info.fr/economie/reforme-des-retraites-2023-y... https://www.cor-retraites.fr/node/595 https://www.cor-retraites.fr/node/595 https://linsoumission.fr/2023/01/16/retraites-milliardaires-deficit/ https://linsoumission.fr/2023/01/16/retraites-milliardaires-...
- HideousKojima 4y agoThe total net worth of all of French billionaires is ~half a trillion dollars, so it could only cover the 30 billion per year pension deficit for about 15 to 20 years if you seized 100% of their wealth (and somehow didn't cause disastrous economic side effects in the process). Not seeing anything in your first two links to support your claim, not going to bother with the other two links. I just really wish the "eat the rich" UBI crowd wasn't so innumerate.
- lm28469 4y ago> 30 billion per year pension deficit > I just really wish the "eat the rich" UBI crowd wasn't so innumerate. It was +3.2b in 2022, + 0.9m in 2021, with a slight deficit predicted in the short term and equilibrium from 2030s (average scenario) tl;dr : it's not a big deal, and certainly not the real reason of the change in retirement age
- earlyam 4y agoThanks
- compiler-guy 4y agoFrance's deficit is not imaginary. Yes, taxing the right people the right amounts (and successfully getting them to pay) would solve the problem, but the hole that needs to be plugged is 100% real.
- lm28469 4y ago> France's deficit is not imaginary The deficit due to the pension system*, even the governmental agency in charge of it said so
- throwaway5959 4y agoSo there is a hole?
- lm28469 4y agoAccording to Macron, yes. According to the people in charge of determining if there is one, no
- rcMgD2BwE72F 4y agoThere is no hole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsL1wT8jxVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsL1wT8jxVU. The French government based their diagnostic on a report by the COR (their advisory board) but that report had only one (among many other) scenarios where they might be a hole. The President of that board said it very clearly in his Senate hearing (above)
- HideousKojima 4y agoNo, this is what happens when you make almost the entire population dependent on the state for retirement, it makes changes and cuts difficult and limits the options the country has to adapt to changing economic, demographic, and other circumstances. Kind of like how at the start of COVID in the US there were arguments like "We can't close down schools because poor kids won't be able to get their free school lunches." Edit: I looked it up and the net worth of all of France's billionaires is ~half a trillion dollars, so even if you seized it all it would basically cover the French government's budget deficits for a grand total of two years, assuming they were actually able to seize it all and it didn't have disastrous economic side effects. That's France's total deficit, not sure how much of that is directly attributable to the pension system.
- yoyohello13 4y agoYes, much better to leave them to their own devices. Then the state is free to just let those inconvenient poor people die.
- fvdessen 4y agoThe guy you replied to didn't advocate to leave people to their own devices but to have a retirement system that is a healthy mix of different sources of revenue / investments rather than 100% from the state.
- HideousKojima 4y agoAnd similarly I wasn't saying to not feed poor kids, I was saying that by making it dependent of physical schools it limits the ability of the country to adapt and make changes like remote learning, responding to a pandemic (though I'm doubtful school closures accomplished much if anything in that regard), etc. Flexible ways to accomplish the same or similar goals are preferable to enshrining one specific way of doing so in law.
- throwaway5959 4y agoDon’t worry, those free school lunches won’t last for much longer at the rate things are going.
- kwere 4y agoOr maybe the poorer parts of society should stop trying to be overeliant on the tax levied on a minority of skilled earners (so no trust fund kids) creating welfarism/populism, breaking the fabric of society (as in ancient Rome),incentivizing emigration/delocalization of taxbase; and try to be more selfsufficient from a budget stanpoint, like having a self-funded pension system, that in France case would be increasing contribution, raising retirement age, linking pension output to having kids (to stabilize age pyramid) here France revenues brakdown: https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-france.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-france.pdf
- lm28469 4y agoSo what the US is doing ? I don't feel like they're doing much better, especially for the bottom 30%
- forgetfreeman 4y agoThey aren't doing any better, and for the same reasons.
- lm28469 4y ago> the same reasons. Which reasons ? Both systems are about as opposed as you can imagine without straight up walking out of capitalism
- forgetfreeman 4y agoYes, keep going...
- lm28469 4y agoYou're the one making vague arguments, I'm not going to do your homework
- kwere 4y ago
- incrudible 4y agoWealth was not generated, prices rose. Those are valuations, they did not come out of the pockets of the workers. A wealth tax would suppress those prices, not to mention capital flight. It just does not work. If it did, everyone would do it.
- lm28469 4y agoSo I pay my gas twice as much as 5 years ago, the dude selling the gas gets twice as much money, but nothing changed ? ok http://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/27887.jpeg http://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/27887.jpeg
- incrudible 4y agoThe gas supply did in fact change, as did demand. Even a small shortage can drive prices up dramatically, because gasoline is critically important.
- lm28469 4y agoPrices yes, you're looking at _profits_ though
- incrudible 4y agoIf you have a 5% profit margin and the price doubles, so do your profits. Of course you could lower your profit margins and pass up on the opportunity of the decade.
- lm28469 4y agoI mean yeah if you're view of the world is so distorted that a war is an "opportunity"... That's exactly what's wrong and why people protest against this system so you're making my point
- 4y ago
- boole1854 4y ago> fyi taxing the 40 richest people in France 2% more would cover the same amount of money as having the entire active population work 2 more years. My back-of-the-envelope calculations: Sum of wealth of top 40 richest people in France: 556 billion [1] Annual income of top 40 richest people in France, assuming 10% growth of wealth: 56 billion 2% additional tax on that income: 1 billion Size of active working population of France: 40.8 million [2] Size of about-to-retire population: 1 million (guess based on [3]) Annual pension cost per retiree: 18000 [4] Direct pension savings by delaying retirement by 1 year: 18 billion [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_billionaires_by_net_worth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_billionaires_by... [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTFRQ647N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTFRQ647N [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/464032/distribution-population-age-group-france/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/464032/distribution-popu... [4] https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/Practical/Everyday-Life/When-do-French-people-really-retire-and-what-is-the-average-pension https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/Practical/Everyday-L...
- lm28469 4y agoFeel free to contact oxfam: https://www.oxfamfrance.org/rapports/nouveau-rapport-la-loi-du-plus-riche/ https://www.oxfamfrance.org/rapports/nouveau-rapport-la-loi-...
- HideousKojima 4y agoWhere in your link does it say taxing the ultra wealthy would be enough to cover the pension shortfall? I'll give you a hint: nowhere.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- legitster 4y agoMoney is only superficially the issue. Your currency is only as valuable as there is a market of goods and services to spend it on. Even if you ate the rich and took all of their money, all you've done is created inflation because the actual value of the economy hasn't shifted. An economy is more about the "stuff" than the money - even Marx would have agreed with as much. So this is only ostensibly about funding a deficit - this is just as much a measure to prevent a GDP freefall from a shrinking aging working population.
- Levitz 4y agoYes. But money is how stuff gets done. It's not an immediate effect, but give people money to people who want food and more food will be purchased, which in turn increases the production of food.
- vorpalhex 4y agoOnly if the cost to produce food is below the sales price. There is not an infinite "grow more food" capacity. The cost to produce 5% more food may be more than 5% of current costs.
- legitster 4y agoThis is the same idea behind trickle down economics, but I don't think reality really works this way. Simply giving people money does not inherently create economic growth.
- crmd 4y agoA wealth tax (instead of income tax) is the best way to reverse the capital hoarding which is destroying modern society. Go after their assets.
- cperciva 4y agoWould a wealth tax also apply to the NPV of pensions?
- WJW 4y agoDepends on how you arrange it. In the Netherlands we have a wealth tax, but pensions are not affected by it. Pensions are counted as "deferred income", so you can pay into them with "pre-tax" money but when the pension is paid out the income tax is applied. This makes it so that it is beneficial for workers to save into their pensions, since the effective income tax of pensioners is usually lower than for people still working.
- Thlom 4y agoWe have a tiny wealth tax in Norway, so now the richest are moving to Switzerland.
- orangepurple 4y agoSwitzerland also has a tiny wealth tax for all residents
- Jensson 4y agoSwitzerland has a tiny wealth tax instead of a capital gains tax, Switzerland's is 0.3% and Norway's wealth tax is above 1% and also has capital gains tax, totally different. The total tax per wealth is much much lower. Also you can opt for a lump sum tax, and then you don't tax your wealth or income at all, you just pay tax based on your expenses. Switzerland's tax is very lax.
- paganel 4y ago
- lordnacho 4y agoThe way retirement is done was broken from the start. If you have a fixed age, you will get issues when the population pyramid changes and fewer people are around to support the retired. What the system ought to be is: 1) Everyone who can't work gets a pension/state support/whatever you want to call it. If you get run over by a car at 25, you are on this list until you die and the state supports you. It's expensive, but there aren't that many people who end up in this state. Maybe a few percent, eg 3%. 2) We set a pensioner ratio. For instance if it's 20%, the 3% of people in cat 1 above get a pension, and the 17% oldest people who aren't in cat 1 get a pension. This would naturally change the age at which people get to retire, moving it up and down depending on birth rates. What we have is not workable. There aren't enough young people for the number of boomers who are retiring, and not only that, the older people turn out more and have more votes, enabling them to force worse conditions on everyone else.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- forgetfreeman 4y agoReally? Try injecting the majority of hoarded wealth into the equation and re-run the numbers, and then tell us there aren't enough workers to support the system.
- HDThoreaun 4y agoHow does the state seize the hoarded wealth when it can just move to a tax haven?
- bradlys 4y agoThe state has this thing called the military. If it wants to - it’ll get you back and take your money by force. I figured people would understand that this is an option when people like Jack Ma go missing for a few months.
- 4y ago
- MikeTheRocker 4y agoI have no comment on the issue at hand, but I've got to give it to the French for their always impressive level of civil engagement. It feels like Americans are far less willing to take to the streets to support/oppose political causes than they were in times past, and I think that's a shame.
- klyrs 4y agoWhen Americans take to the streets in some states, it's legal to drive through them.
- cudgy 4y agoIn which states? Under what conditions? What is allowed if a mob threatens or begins to pull you and your family out of your car and beat you to death?
- advisedwang 4y agoThis is a reference to Florida's Combating Public Disorder Act (2021 HB1). Amongst other things it creates a defense to civil damages for personal injury, wrongful death, or property damage if the injured person was "acting in furtherance of a riot" (a crime created in the same act). This was widely reported at the time as being a response to cases of people driving through or shooting rioters, which was seen by the right wing as justified self defense against criminals. FWIW it looks like there's a injunction against the law being implemented while courts decide on whether it infringes right to protest [1]. From what I understand though, that means any civil suits trying to use that defense would be on hold. [1] https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/courts-law/2023-01-25/floridas-anti-protest-bill-remains-temporarily-blocked-as-it-moves-through-the-court-system https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/courts-law/2023-01-25/floridas...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lm28469 4y agoLooks like an unregulated militia of unarmed citizens does the job
- yoyohello13 4y agoIt's nice to see a populace willing to defend itself from the ruling class. If only we had this kind of organizational capability in the US.
- MagicMoonlight 4y agoI love it when the ruling class campaigns to make the serfs pay more tax so that they can retire in nicer castles
- orwin 4y agoThanks. Some of us were so well organized with cool songs and stuff, I'm jealous so we're writing one for next week (probably based on Vian, Lluis Llash or Ogeret).
- mynameishere 4y agoAnytime a real protest occurs in the US, 100s of people wind up sitting in solitary confinement, uncharged, for months or years. We've only had one real protest in living memory (that I'm aware of) and that will probably be about it. No one really wants to go to the Gulag.
- dragonwriter 4y ago> Anytime a real protest occurs in the US, 100s of people wind up sitting in solitary confinement, uncharged, for months or years. That seems dubious under any plausible definition of "real protest". > We've only had one real protest in living memory (that I'm aware of) (1) Taken as true, the sample size of 1 undermines the impact of the preceding claim. (2) Define "real protest". (3) What is the single example in living memory?
- grecy 4y agoAnd when Australia moves the retirement age to 67... nothing happens. They're already talking about moving it to 69, to pay for stuff like US nuclear submarines and even paying the French $830,000,000 to NOT buy their nuclear submarines! We can all learn A LOT from how the French hold their elected representatives accountable, and don't let them get away with BS.
- Zealotux 4y agoIn France, most people have to work until 67 if they want to get the full retirement benefit; that's a vastly overlooked fact of the current debate.
- Foobar8568 4y agoYet most people can't remain employed after a certain age. edit:can't
- Overtonwindow 4y agoMy wife and I only just started putting money away for retirement. It took us until 40 to get to a financial position where we could. At this rate, we can retire eventually, but it will always be tight. Likely looking at 70 at the earliest.. That's if no one has a major health crisis.
- PeterStuer 4y agoNo-one hires 58+yo people. This is just about pushing more people into poverty.
- julienchastang 4y agoAs a side note, I like to listen to RFI or France Culture in the morning in my time zone since there are a couple of good science shows at that time (Autour de la question, La Science CQFD). Lately, though those radio stations have just been playing music as those shows are canceled during nationwide strikes in France. :-(
- cudgy 4y agoTop 10% wealthy of population in France holds almost 50% of net wealth of the country, which is around $16 trillion. That gives $8 trillion that could be taxed at higher rates, which is a far greater pool to extract from than just billionaires discussed throughout this thread.
- sva_ 4y agoThere will still be work to be done and I'm not sure if just throwing money at it will make that work go away, if you don't have the people?
- jmclnx 4y agoI have to say, the people in France really know how to live! Here in the US, people do not give a sh**. Already benefits have been reduced to the point were you cannot live on Social Security unless you pitch a tent next to a dumpster outside of a restaurant. Not only that, every year the retirement age is increased. For people born after 1960 full retirement is 67. The GOP in congress is trying to raise it to 70. Do US people care, no they do not. If this happened in France I think the full government would be dragged out and "guillotined". I admire the French for standing up for their rights. https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/agereduction.html https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/agereduction...
- bm3719 4y agoSocial security recipients got a +8.7% increase this year. It was +5.9% in 2022. Pretty sure employee wages aren't tracking anywhere near that.
- jmclnx 4y ago8% of nothing is still nothing. No one gets enough Social Security to live on without other sources of income.
- WkndTriathlete 4y ago> Here in the US, people do not give a sh*. Already benefits have been reduced to the point were you cannot live on Social Security unless you pitch a tent next to a dumpster outside of a restaurant. This is a problem with Congress not managing the Social Security system properly over the last 85 years. > Not only that, every year the retirement age is increased. For people born after 1960 full retirement is 67. The GOP in congress is trying to raise it to 70. See the life expectancy and demographic tables published here by none other than the SSA: https://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html https://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html That's because the combination of benefits times life expectancy times demographics is either going to result in a 25% reduction in benefits that the SSA can pay out or result in a high tax burden on workers (read: major economic drag and recessions) or some kind of half-assed compromise in between. Had Congress continuously and properly managed the retirement ages, contributions, and SS trust funds properly over the last 85 years we would not be having this conversation. But they haven't, and now there will be pain for almost everyone because of it.
- legitster 4y agoMy grandfather a few years back passed a rather profound point in his life - he had been retired so long that he officially spent less of his life not working than working (despite entering the workforce at 15). And it's not lost on me I am essentially doing double work: it's not enough for me to generate enough economic value for myself, society kind of depends on me to generate enough surplus value to cover an entire life's worth of labor (Or more! After all I started much later than my grandfather). In a way, when Keynes predicted that everyone in the future would work a 20 hour workweek, he was right! He just didn't appreciate how much we would use those productivity gains to backfill that vacation time later in life.
- yamazakiwi 4y agoHow old is your grandfather? Gotta be 100+ correct? I don't think 99.99% of people will experience having worked less years than worked as they age.
- teachrdan 4y agoNah. OP's grandfather worked (say) from 15 to 45, and is now older than 75.
- yamazakiwi 4y agoWho retires at 45?!?!
- TheHappyOddish 4y agoI retired at 28. Plenty of people do.
- legitster 4y ago90. Retired early at 60.
- 0xffff2 4y ago
- AceJohnny2 4y agoThe french pension reform attempts have been going on for decades. I remember in the mid-90s a huge, weeks- (months-?) long public transit strike which, funnily enough, kick-started Parisian's interest in roller-blading (and led to the awesome weekly Friday-night roller-blading tour [1]. If it's your thing, I highly recommend it! But be prepared to have to go over some cobblestone sections) France's system has the working population pay for the pension on the retirees, as a social security tax. With the retirement age around 62-65, with the lifespan increasing, and with the Baby Boomers retiring, it isn't a sustainable system. Every president, be they socialist or liberal, have attempted to tackle the issue, only to get country-paralyzing backlash. People will nitpick the details of whatever current plan proposes, but the fundamental problem remains. [1] https://pari-roller.com https://pari-roller.com
- rat9988 4y agoit isn't a sustainable system. This is wrong. We have an institute that has one mission. Evaluate its sustainibility, and it disagrees with you.
- golemotron 4y agoWe should make a list of organizations that have one mission and fail in that mission. It would take much time.
- Twisell 4y agoWell the irony is that our french government is precisely relying on one cherry picked scenario of this organization to justify it's reform... So it's why polls quite unanimously report that 70% of the population is opposed of this reform on a quite developer friendly axiom : "When it ain't broken don't try fix it!" Bonus fun fact 1 : Even with the cherry picked scenario of our gov the system might be in slight imbalance starting 2027 while it's currently balanced. To put this in perspective 10 years ago the same organisation predicted a great imbalance for today. Bonus fun fact 2 : The 70% rejection poll is an average. One of the only group that is less rejecting the reform consist of already retired people. There is a growing resentment against baby boomers in the xyz generation.
- moremetadata 4y agoThis is another example of how the state gets its numbers wrong, promising something it can not deliver without bankrupting the country. France is not alone, other country's have raised the pension age, but other countries use their food legislation to keep the population docile, high house prices to keep people from protesting for fear of losing a roof over their head, and other tactics people are getting wise to and slowly rejecting when they wake up to the subtle forms of manipulation that goes on.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- omegaworks 4y ago>promising something it can not deliver without bankrupting the country. If the government can not get something basic like covering subsistence-level costs for its population over 62 working without bankrupting the country, the government is broken, the economic system is broken and shutting it down is an appropriate response. Technology and efficiency has caused labor productivity to increase [1] and that increase has not been captured in wages. It has been instead captured by private capital as profit. 1. https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/piketty/2017/01/09/of-productivity-in-france-and-in-germany/ https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/piketty/2017/01/09/of-productivi...
- LeftHandPath 4y agoFascinating article. Loved this quote in particular: > The truth is that this trade surplus is not really a choice: it is the outcome of decentralised decisions made by millions of economic actors and in the absence of an adequate mechanism for correction. To put it simply: there is no pilot in the plane, or at least the pilots available are not very accurate.
- dh2022 4y agoThe reason for discrepancy between productivity growth and wages stagnant is because the productivity initiatives were created by a few people that benefited handsomely, not by the masses employed in call centers / coffee shops / warehouses. I think one probable reason for this change was technology - technology made spreading knowledge and controlling processes among thousands of entities a lot cheaper. Who are these few people? Most likely you will find them in corporate centers. These people constantly fine tune processes, haggle with suppliers, diversify their suppliers, create new machines, lobby for legislation to make off-shoring easier, etc... I had the opportunity to work 4 years in Amazon as Financial Analyst. None of the cost savings initiatives came from call centers / distribution centers. Even more to the point, as part of ACES program, bright motivated individuals in call centers / distribution centers would be picked up and brought to HQ so their initiatives can be applied to the entire company. When I worked as Financial Analyst with Starbucks there was only one cost saving initiative that came from a store manager - that store manager figured out how to use less milk for the lattes. All the other cost saving initiatives came from HQ.
- nemo44x 4y ago> "We haven't been heard or listened to...." Maybe they have been heard and listened too and the democratically elected government of the people disagrees. Just because you don't get your way doesn't mean you haven't been listened to. > "We are using the only means we have left: it's the hard strike ... we are not going to give up." This is the part where the petulant child that doesn't get what it wants threatens to hold its breath until it turns blue. This is anti-democratic and nothing but coercive, naked extortion. Like literally extortion.
- Timshel 4y agoWith comments like this you are closer to the petulant child than the people, some with low paying jobs, who decided that the issue is critical enough that they prefer a loss of income in the short term ...
- anigbrowl 4y agoWithout commenting on the French government specifically (which I haven't followed closely): Consider the fact that politicians can be elected and then break the promises they made during the campaign. The electoralist response to this is 'well you can vote them out next time,.' But that ignores the cost of the damage that can occur during the interval, plus it's not clear how the populace is supposed to hold other politicians to account - to the point that there is a general expectation of politicians being dishonest and mendacious. Really, in what other job are you only subject to review every few years and if people don't like what you're doing in the meantime you can reply with complete BS, often overtly? Democratic elections are a good thing, but they are not the be-all and end-all of politics. Strikes and boycotts are absolutely a legitimate form of political expression, in which labor or consumer market participants coordinate their economic activity to obtain political leverage. If you won't tolerate anything other than elections, North Korea has those.
- mcsniff 4y ago“In the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard." - MLK Protesting is the mechanism they have at their disposal.
- dahfizz 4y agoThe idea of relying on the government for your retirement is insane to me, for exactly this reason. You're willing to bet your life that the government is always going to do right by you? Save your own money. If Social Security exists by the time I retire, great. I'm planning as if it won't.
- JamesBarney 4y agoThere are very few if any institutions that sophisticated investors trust to pay back money more than the U.S. government. Banks go bankrupt, gold changes value, cash gets stolen. Seems like the U.S. government is the best option.
- dahfizz 4y agoUS T-bills, sure. Not so for Social Security. I would trust my retirement to the US Treasury. No sane human would trust their retirement to the US Congress.
- maxilevi 4y agoOnly because the debt is denominated in USD, so the government can always print it to pay it back. It’s not like it’s the most fiscally responsible government around
- ur-whale 4y agohttps://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1800?amount=1 https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1800?amount=1 I'd love to have to repay my debts with those conditions.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoThe government issuing the money can reduce the purchasing power of “your” money anytime it wants, and most governments do every year.
- cypress66 4y agoYour savings wouldn't be all USD or bonds. It would include stocks, commodities, investments in other countries, maybe precious metals and crypto.
- supernova87a 4y agoOne big challenge I see with the whole business about pension reform (and government spending in fact) as a public debate is that two sides are talking on totally different planes. In France, and someday very soon, here in the US. And the public in a certain sense, will problematically have to end up voting a simple yes/no on extremely complex topics which are incentivized to push buttons on single issues. cf. Brexit. On the one side (hopefully meaningful to this crowd) is a group that when confronted with the sheer numbers involved and tradeoffs that would make any dent in the coming demographic-driven bankruptcy (shorthand name for it), have to keep things running and try to come up with the actually mathematically workable or "implement this decision" plans with the resources they have. Not aspirations. Take a look at this for example: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/06/upshot/balancing-budget-painful-spending-cuts.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/06/upshot/balanc... See those numbers/scenarios, there is no getting around the severity of the situation. Then on the other plane, there are people (politicians, and people in general in the country) who deal in "symbols" and qualitative statements about what they think who is entitled to, what was promised, etc. "Eat the rich!" etc. And lately it seems, rarely the twain shall meet. Or at least, it's quite rare to find leaders who are equally incentivized or capable of handling both sides of this adeptly. Also, the people who don't understand the numbers generally tend to shout and insist they're right. On the other hand, numbers people don't usually shout (and underplay the severity of coming problems; the type that analyzes is usually civil about it). Also, and this is an evolving thought -- I don't think democracies are very well suited to allocating the pain of a country's long-term downturn very well, or having people understand when your country's resources are actually decreasing. One thing is for sure -- there is a massive unpleasant reckoning coming in terms of what benefits and tax rates people believed they would experience. There is no magic getting out of this hole, it will be one of / combination of: -- taxes will rise (for whom?) -- benefits will decrease (for whom?) -- retirement age will increase -- borrowing will increase (from whom?) And undoubtedly it will largely fall on the next generations. Or just in time for my retirement.
- noobermin 4y agoI read the article and no, I do not see that there is no getting around the severity of the situation. The very last plot is ridiculous, how can they even extrapolate that from the graph given?
- myshpa 4y agoThe world needs basic income, with guaranteed housing, internet and food. We have the means to do it. Upto 75% of population is employed in bullshit jobs anyway (= not producing anything, or even being harmful to the society). Only 2% of population working in agriculture already produces food for 10+ billion people, just 8% works in manufacturing (IIRC). Give the basic income population plant-based food (== use just 25% of agriculture land) and automate transport (trains) and distribution (like amazon with its warehouses). Everybody can choose to work on anything they want, and be compensated for doing so, of course. We'd save the environment, stop biodiversity loss and store more carbon than produced since 1750 (reforesting grazing lands), solve the world hunger, save the environment (no need to own so much cars, burn so much fuel and time going to meaningless jobs, to pay for a roof over a head with 40 years of life, no need for so much pesticides/herbicides, deforestation etc.) ... Hm ... time to stop dreaming. Back to work.
- yrdmb 4y ago> The world needs basic income That's all we need. Basic income will allow people to get housing, internet and food.
- myshpa 4y agoYes. But basic income means different things for different people. I wanted to emphasize the level of sufficiency it should provide.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago> Upto 75% of population is employed in bullshit jobs anyway (= not producing anything). Source? I love that so many people are convinced everyone but them is doing nothing and somehow getting paid for it. > Only 2% of population working in agriculture already produces food for 10+ billion people. What's your point? Who's going to take care of sick people? Who's going to educate our next generation? Who's going to maintain our infrastructure? Who's going to police people? Who's going to defend our country from war? Who's going to make sure your cellphone still works? Who's going to make sure your house still has electricity? Who's going to make sure the laws are being followed? Who's going to make new entertainment for you? We need to do more than just have beans to eat.
- guilhas 4y agoIt is strange how a lot of countries claim they will have trouble to pay pensions but at same time are campaigning for UBI
- advisedwang 4y agoThere's a lot of UBI proponents who really just intend it to be a way to strip away current benefits with something that in aggregate provides less. Not all UBIs are the same. There's a similar situation with the UK's universal credit. On the face of it it was replacing a patchwork of benefits with a single unified benefit, which should be better and more efficient. However the implementation was designed to actually reduce benefits paid out (e.g. they replaced up front payments with payment in arrears, made it difficult to sign on to, kick people off for small issues, etc etc). Changes labelled with the same name can be radically different in actual results, you really have to look into any given proposal.
- kwere 4y agoNixon docet
- BadCookie 4y agoThese stats are for the U.S., but one thing that usually get ignored in these retirement discussions is just how massively life expectancy depends on income level and sex: http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/health/ http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/health/ Raising the retirement pension age screws over the poor, especially poor men. Perhaps retirement age should be tied to income/wealth somehow ... and maybe even sex (as controversial as I imagine that would be).
- notch898a 4y agoI figured the one upside of retirement was it was a baseline for the poor. If it screws them over too I think it should just be eliminated all together and return the tax to the worker to save/invest on their own.
- AussieWog93 4y agoThat's basically the system we started rolling out in Australia in the 90s (see mandatory super). Unfortunately it doesn't work for everyone, though, and a traditional pension is still needed as a backup.
- notch898a 4y agoIt seems like unfortunately many governments have proven incapable of responsibly handling the money. In the case the government is entirely incapable of handling the money I'd at least see the worker get that tax waved to have something for whatever meager existence is left with the money.
- AussieWog93 4y agoHonestly, our system works really well for 90% of people. Look into it.
- ghaff 4y agoYou almost certainly want people who aren't working any longer to get some sort of base level income. And if this income comes from the government, the details may differ, but the big picture looks a lot like social security. This is especially true because, at least on an ongoing basis, few private firms offer a defined benefit pension any longer except for whatever obligations they incurred before they mostly scrapped the plans going forward.
- skee8383 4y agoYou can beat millinials and zoomers into the ground with low wages and no one bats an eye, but if you mess with the boomers the retirement the entire country is shut down.
- karaterobot 4y agoHonest question: what should the French government do instead? Some people in this thread have said that the government doesn't need to increase the retirement age by 2 years. If that's so, why are they proposing to? Have they done the math incorrectly, are they being needlessly cruel, or ...?
- mzs 4y agoIncrease wages.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 4y agoNothing needs to be reformed. The system is sustainable (https://www.cor-retraites.fr/node/595 https://www.cor-retraites.fr/node/595 if you can read French).
- scotty79 4y agoTax capital and property owners.
- hinata08 4y ago> why are they proposing to? It depends on who you ask. At first, macron is neoliberal. He doesn't believe in the role of the democratic representation in the economy, nor taxes nor wealth redistribution. On his first mandate, he deleted capital tax at the same time he lowered housing subsidies for the worse off. Today, he saves on social security to fund tax breaks. Then some say it's "pantouflage", and he's pleasing future employers. Indeed, a lot of formerly high ranking politicians and civil servants ended up on the board of profitable companies. For example, Nicolas Sarkozy was hired on the board of Accor (Europe #1 hotel company). François Fillon, a former prime minister, joined the board of a Russian state owned oil company after he lost a presidential election (he was a conservative and nationalist candidate). So politicians and regulators can just make financial companies happy to get a top job. A third explanation is that poor workers won't vote for him anyway. Macron's party only rely on 20% of the voters. Raising retirement pleases them. It's ok if he upsets the other 80%, as other political wings suffer from too many similar parties that compete (we had 3 trostskyist candidate during the last election, 1 communist, 2 socialists) so they number of voters get split. or they don't get along (traditional right wing was weak after the cases with Sarkozy and Fillon)
- atleastoptimal 4y agoIn the US at least, the original retirement age, set in 1935, was 65. The average life expectancy was 60. Today in the US it's 77.8. In France, it's 82. As populations age into a higher percentage of retirees, the system is forced to cope with more people who are purely consumers, and contribute nothing to the system. In a post-scarcity world, this would not be a problem, but currently with the oldest generations owning the vast majority of wealth and real estate, and with college, housing, and many costs of living having inflated 3-20x since the older generations were younger, it is a problem. Giving old people money for free when their 10x more valuable houses inflate the market, keeping the younger generation from being able to start families, is a killing blow for population growth and the livelihoods of younger generations.
- bjourne 4y agoAt some point we have to rethink what "contributing to the system" means. What are web developers designing ads for online casinos contributing?
- nonethewiser 4y agoThat’s the nature of social programs. They’re for everyone.
- KptMarchewa 4y agoTaxes.
- fleddr 4y agoGreat comment. The status quo is so bizarre. Human life has no inherent value unless it makes continuous contributions to "the economy". It would be economically most efficient to drop dead on the day you retire. Thanks, human! All of this to keep a machine running that wrecks the planet and everything living on it, including ourselves. Probably some 50% of the economy is pure bullshit that nobody asked for, just keeping each other busy. At some point we lost the plot. The economy doesn't work for the people anymore and drastic productivity increases have somehow not really improved our lives in terms of freedom, time, physical/mental health, quite the opposite.
- fleddr 4y agoThe French are sometimes ridiculed for their "unrealistic" worker demands but as a Dutch person, I greatly admire their unity. Here in the Netherlands, we pride ourselves on our "polder model", a trinity of government, employers and unions that come to a consensus, hence no need to strike. That system worked well for some decades hence society runs on auto pilot. Trouble is, due to globalization and ever more temp contracts (fire at will), the power of unions have been decimated and the combination government/employers are calling the shots, slowly eating away at worker rights. Our "holy" retirement age used to be 65, unchanged for a huge amount of time. It was declared as unsustainable to keep it that way, instead it should become a rolling number, coupled with life expectancy. My pension fund predicts my retirement age at about 70.5. This change was pushed through because keeping it at 65 would cost 5B per year for the foreseeable future. Absolutely unaffordable for our tiny country. 40B in support to keep businesses open during COVID though...just pulled from a hat. 25B in energy compensation so that households don't freeze to death...arranged in mere weeks. Just saying...unaffordable means no political will. Anyway, regardless of the money mechanics, retiring at 70+ is absurd. It effectively means no retirement at all. I know a huge amount of boomers, many were able to retire at 58-62, especially blue collar. Most by then already were in poor health but managed to pull off a decent decade of rest and joy with still some activity like going on holidays. By 70 it's over. Some dead, the others depleted. Their partner may have died. They have severe health issues. No energy or will power left to truly have one more adventurous run. Hobbies abandoned. Health and quality of life declines exponentially. 60-70 and 70-80 are not the same thing. Further, nobody actually wants these old people at work. Blue collar people are broken by then and white collar is either obsolete and outdated or strongly discriminated. I'm in my 40s and struggling to stay relevant. The point of my rant is that there's always an economic reason to make workers' lives shittier. Always. Every time there's a rational reason to do so that seems to make sense. And that's how you end up working as a couple for 50 years straight. It's never going to be enough. Only with unity as seen in France can you call out their bluff. The age should actually be 60 and we should be having ever shorter worker weeks. A concept I call "time for wealth". In the future we probably have to do with less stuff. But it's not a vision for the future to say to people that their wealth is under pressure whilst still needing to work themselves to death. Hence, we trade that wealth for time. You learn to live with less material goods which increases your appreciation of them. More durable/reparable products. Higher prices because externalities are included. Doesn't have to be bad at all, restoring some sanity here. In return for this material "poverty", you get more economic security, more free time, retire earlier. Also fits in well with our AI future that will disrupt work. I think that's a vision people can get behind, and we'll still leave the door open for the super achievers that want more stuff.
- seydor 4y agoIt s very hard for these reforms to pass in europe, to the point where it might be better to just let the pension systems collapse. Raising the retirement age is not a great strategy, 70 yo people are not as productive and hoard jobs thus increasing unemployment of the most productive, the young. This is massively happening in all of southern europe and is a major reason for economic retardation. Young people are increasingly aware that they will not get pensions. Old people hold vast amount of wealth in real estate which has become entirely unaffordable even to well-earning young professionals. At some point the collapse of pension funds will meet the need for housing. Hopefully there will be a tradeoff
- ajmurmann 4y agoI understand the financial need for a higher retirement age, but I also wonder about the viability of a single retirement age. Doing some jobs that are physically taxing is quite different from my comfortable desk job. Maybe this is where disability aid comes in? On the other hand my mental ability night decline and now I'm simply unemployable and wouldn't qualify for anything but unemployment. Such a hard and nuanced topic.
- miki_tyler 4y agoPeople does not understand how Social Security works. Your payments today finance old people's pensions today. Your kid's payments tomorrow will finance your pension. That is the reason why this is a problem.
- letmeinhere 4y agoIt's strange to me that the neolib position is that we should have a universal basic income, that automation portends the end of work for all but a highly specialized creative and managerial class, but also that the retirement age should be 85.
- cmehdy 4y agoAs a French citizen, I find it unsurprising that the usual top comments here are all about numbers. Life expectancy going up, do your part, work work work. That people are angry is not about the damn numbers. It's about the attitude of a political class that had private restaurant dinners behind closed doors during lockdown times where the population was fined for being out walking their dogs, it's about a president that's been deliberately calling left-leaning ideas of the younger generations about ecology and equality "extreme-left" while joyfully siding persistently with the actual parties created by fascists, it's about a reform that comes in with a justification of a deficit that was literally created by giving money to large companies and rich people in the form of tax deductions, it's about some of his ministers who take part in all sorts of horrible things and continue to go unpunished, it's about people asking for compassion towards difficult jobs more than for their own selves, and I could go on...
- aluminussoma 4y agoThank you for adding this perspective. The news reports we receive do not provide this context so it is easy to think it is only about numbers.
- cmehdy 4y agoThanks. I didn't even get into the minister pushing for the reform doing crosswords during a parliamentary session on his subject, the inflation absolutely exploding in France, the surge of students falling below poverty lines and needing food stamps worse than during covid, the ministers genuinely advising the population to "wear turtlenecks during the winter", the abuse of 49.3 article (similar to Canada's notwithstanding clause) exactly 10 times in order to push laws that were not democratically agreed upon, the fact that the prime minister got a football t-shirt for Christmas that had that very same "49.3" number on it and really appreciated it. Or the political failure when handling the CCC (citizen's climate convention) that Macron himself created to satisfy people's expectations, and which actually delivered amazingly as a panel of 150 citizens representing all parts of France giving educated and actionable input on what the country should do. The energy prices putting small business owners on the street in a country where nuclear power could have pretty much carried the load but has been grossly mistreated (admittedly by nearly every single president in a long time). The recent Uber papers, where Macron was directly cited, at a crucial time where now most poor jobs in France have literally been called "uberized" in pejorative terms. And that his party calls for "decency" in the mist of all of this. French people aren't dumb, contrary to what the sneering suits might believe. This was not only poorly timed, but absolutely tonedeaf by the government, and revealing of the amount of contempt they have for people who at a majority reluctantly elected Macron. Some sources: Students hardships: https://www.euronews.com/2022/12/23/inflation-crisis-french-students-struggle-to-survive https://www.euronews.com/2022/12/23/inflation-crisis-french-... Dussopt and his crosswords: https://todaytimeslive.com/world/219510.html https://todaytimeslive.com/world/219510.html 49.3 t-shirt: https://24newsrecorder.com/politics/226033 https://24newsrecorder.com/politics/226033 Wear turtlenecks: https://www.thelocal.fr/20220927/french-minister-advises-wear-a-turtleneck-this-winter/ https://www.thelocal.fr/20220927/french-minister-advises-wea... CCC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Convention_for_Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Convention_for_Climat... CCC: https://www.publicdeliberation.net/the-promises-and-disappointments-of-the-french-citizens-convention-for-climate/ https://www.publicdeliberation.net/the-promises-and-disappoi... Uber papers: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/emmanuel-macron-secretly-aided-uber-lobbying-drive-france-leak-reveals https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/emmanuel-macron...
- x-complexity 4y agoThe one thing I'm not seeing in the comments is a discussion on the fundamentals of pension schemes. In principle, a pension scheme will work forever, in isolation, as long as the following inequality holds true: (A:=(working_pop * avg_income * avg_pension_tax_%)) >= (B:=(retirement_pop * avg_benefit_payout)) If investments are allowed in said scheme, the inequality can be relaxed slightly: A + (C:=(investments * return_ratio * withdrawl_%)) >= B with (investments:=(previous_investments + A-B)), and (return_ratio:=(1 + return_%)). From here, 2 long-term paths can emerge: a) C >= B : The entire scheme can run off of investment returns, reducing reliance on A. This is the ideal. b) A + C < B : To rebalance & reaffirm the inequality, more is taken from A or C to return back to A + C >= B (see below). Future C may be less than Current C as a result, making the chances of (b) happening again increase. The vehicle begins to fall apart when A + C < B, with no alarms sounded until it's been made known. From there, the following solutions are brought out to reaffirm the inequality: - Increase any(working_pop, avg_income, avg_pension_tax_%) - Decrease any(retirement_pop, avg_benefit_payout) Some of those modifications are unpalatable to some of the voting population, and thus can't be changed: - The elderly will not be happy if avg_benefit_payout decreases - The 'close-to-retire's & the general working pop in general will not be happy if the retirement age increases, in an attempt to reduce retirement_pop - The working pop, depending on culture, will not be happy if avg_pension_tax_% increases - Anti-immigrants will not be happy with immigration, in an attempt to increase working_pop That leaves very little on the table: - Child tax breaks & incentives in trying to increase working_pop, but this takes time - Increase avg_income, increasing pressures on businesses in order to keep margins the same --- There is a way to always keep the scheme alive, when all else fails, but it's a last-ditch effort only reserved for emergencies. Referring back to the relaxed inequality above (A + C >= B), we can append another inflow stream to the left side of the inequality: A + C + (D:=(treasury_money_printing)) >= B This will keep the scheme working, but it sacrifices the long-term value retention of the currency being used. The baseline inflation for said currency increases, giving everyone a 'soft tax' via the debasement of the currency in question. The implications of incorporating D into the inequality would mean that the currency's ability to keep its value long term will be brought into question. Very little good will come from a weakening currency, unless the country is a net exporter.
- gwright 4y ago
- IndoorPatio 4y agoGood.
- pyuser583 4y agoIt’s funny because I’ve heard that plenty of “retired” French resent being pensioned off at their most productive years. Plenty seek high paying jobs elsewhere. Literally paying your most experienced people not to work is a little … not so good.
- throwpro 4y agoMany things to learn from the French. Go head and Bring down the elite class. You earned my respect
- Aeolun 4y agoI’m not quite sure what they expect? Do they want the government to just print money for them until they die? And will they have to keep doing that for every successive generation? If people get older on average, and there’s less young people to take care of them (pension wise), then the old people will have to work longer. It’s not a hard equation.
- speedgoose 4y agoPeople just want to adjust the system so they don’t have to work when very old. It doesn’t mean the government has to print money. You can change more than the retirement age in the equation, or change the equation.
- Aeolun 4y agoBy all means. How exactly would you go about that? You can pay people even less. Can you imagine how that would go? You can make fewer young people pay even more. You can redirect other taxes to cover the gap. You can print more money to cover the gap (until your economy collapses from interest payments). Retirement age is the least contentious variable as far as I’m concerned.
- speedgoose 4y agoIt looks like you know the potential solutions. Paying people less is a common option. You just increase their payments slower than the inflation so they don't burn the country down immediately. You can make people pay more, that's also a common option. A frequent feeling in France is that some people don't pay enough taxes. You can also redirect other taxes, the retirements pension scheme doesn't have to be a zero-sum actually. You can also print more money, because everyone does that all the time and it works well in practice. Modifying the retirement age is the lazy and capitalist way. Thankfully I'm not in charge, but I would do a bit of everything (including changing the retirement age of some category of workers).
- throwaway102233 4y agoFrench people doing what French people do best.....
- snapplebobapple 4y agoThe discussion in here is why this whole thing needs to go defined contribution. Nobody is getting screwed over by these plans except the young paying for it.
- moi2388 4y agoSorry, but when aren’t the French on strike? Seriously, it’s been at least 35 years since I’ve heard about a French person actually working..