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French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

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Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#31

Post by WJW »

cperciva wrote: post #6
crmd wrote: post #4

A wealth tax (instead of income tax) is the best way to reverse the capital hoarding which is destroying modern society. Go after their assets.

Would a wealth tax also apply to the NPV of pensions?

Depends 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.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#32

Post by forgetfreeman »

scotuswroteus wrote: post #8
crmd wrote: post #4

A wealth tax (instead of income tax) is the best way to reverse the capital hoarding which is destroying modern society. Go after their assets.

The best way to reverse the capital hoarding is to deeply understand the way the policy making system works, not to debate the merits of different policies. Folks who believe in a wealth tax also don't believe in putting their noses to the grindstone for decades to engage in the high octane chess game of bureaucratic power politics. So it'll never happen.

Many do. Invariably they run into issues trying to finance their campaign when competing with candidates who are funded and offered media coverage by oligarchs. So having thrown our hands in the air and given up should we just make serfdom a thing again officially, or should we just go on pretending?

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#33

Post by tgv »

kwere wrote: post #17
lm28469 wrote: post #2

That'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…

Or 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 increasin…

Blame and tax the poor, and force them to breed. Nice plans. Perhaps you'd like to start your plan by swooping into France via Belgium.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#34

Post by lm28469 »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #24
lm28469 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what the US is doing ? I don't feel like they're doing much better, especially for the bottom 30%

They aren't doing any better, and for the same reasons.

> the same reasons.

Which reasons ? Both systems are about as opposed as you can imagine without straight up walking out of capitalism

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#35

Post by HideousKojima »

lm28469 wrote: post #19
earlyam wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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.

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-bag-nearly... https://www.tf1info.fr/economie/reforme-des-retraites-2023-y... https://www.cor-retraites.fr/node/595 https://linsoumission.fr/2023/01/16/retraites-milliardaires-...

The 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.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#36

Post by Foobar8568 »

Zealotux wrote: post #26
grecy wrote: post #14

And 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.

In 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.

Yet most people can't remain employed after a certain age.

edit:can't

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#38

Post by HideousKojima »

lm28469 wrote: post #29
HideousKojima wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, 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.…

I'm talking about pension related debt, not the entire national debt > 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." You should ask yourself why kids can't get their basic needs such as nutrition covered then...

The pension deficit is 30 billion a year, so seizure of all French billionaires' wealth would still only cover the shortfall for 15 to 20 years.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#39

Post by boole1854 »

lm28469 wrote: post #2

That'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…

> 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...

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTFRQ647N

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/464032/distribution-popu...

[4] https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/Practical/Everyday-L...

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#40

Post by earlyam »

lm28469 wrote: post #19
earlyam wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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.

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-bag-nearly... https://www.tf1info.fr/economie/reforme-des-retraites-2023-y... https://www.cor-retraites.fr/node/595 https://linsoumission.fr/2023/01/16/retraites-milliardaires-...

Thanks
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