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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

#191

Post by creato »

nebula8804 wrote: post #164
supernova87a wrote: post #156

One 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…

Pardon my language but where the f** is all this money going? Is it even humanly possible for a group of regular joes to audit where all the money is going? I think thats the first thing that HAS to happen, a clear transparent audit down to the penny. As a coder, this kind of complexity just drives me up the wall. Also on a side note, I love how sneaky that NY Times article leaves out the option to cut defense . Afte…

The top 3 chunks of spending are social security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The majority of that spending is payments to individuals or on behalf of individuals for medical bills. You can probably find the exact fraction of overhead for each program somewhere.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#192

Post by Convolutional »

supernova87a wrote: post #156

One 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…

The US has spent $100 billion in the Ukraine over the past year, with more on the way, it is sending billions a year to Israel and Egypt, is involved in Iran, China, Venezuela etc. It just stopped spending a ton in Afghanistan. All the money spent there seemed to have no positive effect.

The US seems to have money to throw all over the world for this kind of bloodthirsty waste, if it cuts it can cut there. People getting back money they put into Social Security should be the last thing to go.

The US spends hundreds of billions on these wars of choice, that can be cut very easy.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#193

Post by icelancer »

nebula8804 wrote: post #164
supernova87a wrote: post #156

One 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…

Pardon my language but where the f** is all this money going? Is it even humanly possible for a group of regular joes to audit where all the money is going? I think thats the first thing that HAS to happen, a clear transparent audit down to the penny. As a coder, this kind of complexity just drives me up the wall. Also on a side note, I love how sneaky that NY Times article leaves out the option to cut defense . Afte…

> Pardon my language but where the f* is all this money going? Is it even humanly possible for a group of regular joes to audit where all the money is going?

Not really, but for as bearish as I am on the government in general, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a bright spot, and they do very good work at forecasting, auditing, and evaluating tax cuts, tax increases, budget cuts, and so forth. The average person can have faith that the CBO does mostly good work because politicians on both sides of the aisle really dislike the department when they tell the truth about their plans.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#194

Post by icelancer »

dahfizz wrote: post #155

The 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.

> Save your own money. If Social Security exists by the time I retire, great. I'm planning as if it won't.

I would guess that most people my age (between 35-45) got told some variant of this in their business and economics classes in university. At least, I hope they did.

Looking at Social Security budgets for about 20-30 minutes and what politicians have proposed to do to fix it is enough to make most reasonably-minded people understand that expecting anything more than token amounts of money from the program is idiotic.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#195

Post by yodsanklai »

ChemSpider wrote: post #140
yodsanklai wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is another example of how the state gets its numbers wrong, promising something it can not deliver without bankrupting the country. France pension system isn't close to bankruptcy. It needs some adjustment but pushing retirement age isn't the only option. Also one thing to understand is that there are two criteria to get a full pension 1. work 43 years (this used to be 36.5 but has been increased 10 years ago)…

Many countries in the EU have 67 as retirement age - so 64 does not feel a big issue to me. (France and Malta are the only one with 62) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_in_Europe

France isn't 62, it is (according to your link)

> 62 to 67: Depends on the duration of contribution (minimum 43 years)

For instance, for me it will be 67. Besides, these numbers don't mean anything without context.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#196

Post by forgetfreeman »

legitster wrote: post #88
forgetfreeman wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only are these not assumptions, they're trivially proven with even the briefest of research on the subject. Capital hoarding: go look at GDP graphed against wages over the last 60 years. Wages don't go up, so all that extra productivity is going in -someone's- pocket. Capital hoarding is destroying modern society: global news media is largely controlled by 7 organizations, the international housing market has bee…

Capital hoarding only refers to wealth being held back from the market. Investments wouldn't count because you are lending your money to others and that generates economic growth. I think you are conflating terms with some other inequality concepts. You're clearly trying to shorthand a lot of disparate political topics into one point (a good share of hospitals and insurance companies in the US are non-profit - it cle…

I mean if you want to pretend the issue is murky despite one being able to toss (at random) a loose collection of off-the-cuff examples so be it, but I don't think your confusion is rooted in much beyond cognitive dissonance. Put even more simply: the haves are taking too much from folks that actually work, hampering their social and economic mobility.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#197

Post by forgetfreeman »

cperciva wrote: post #132
forgetfreeman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"skilled earners" here being a euphemism for inherited wealth oligarchs and trust fund kiddies, or are we pretending wage earing individuals are included in the top 1%?

are we pretending wage earing individuals are included in the top 1%? You seem to be confusing the top 1% with the top 0.01%. The vast majority of top 1% income earners -- in Canada, the number was recently reported as 95% by Statistics Canada -- are employed, with the largest numbers being in management, medicine, and "business professional" (lawyers, accountants, etc) professions.

I suppose that's fair. Quibbling about where to put the decimal point doesn't invalidate the larger issue however.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#198

Post by icelancer »

frenchman99 wrote: post #175
dahfizz wrote: post #155

The 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.

That's if you have enough salary to save enough for retirement. Which is not the case for a lot of people unfortunately. Hence a government lead system where wealthy people are required to pay more to help less wealthy have a somewhat acceptable retirement.

> Hence a government lead system where wealthy people are required to pay more to help less wealthy have a somewhat acceptable retirement.

Nothing stopped about this. Our demographics have changed for the worse in this regard, is all. From the latest report from the SSA's Board of Trustees:

"Social Security and Medicare both face long-term financing shortfalls under currently scheduled benefits and financing. Costs of both programs will grow faster than gross domestic product (GDP) through the mid-2030s primarily due to the rapid aging of the U.S. population. Medicare costs will continue to grow faster than GDP through the late 2070s due to projected increases in the volume and intensity of services provided."

Furthermore:

"For the sixth consecutive year, the Trustees are issuing a determination of projected excess general revenue Medicare funding, as is required by law whenever annual tax and premium revenues of the combined Medicare funds will be below 55 percent of projected combined annual outlays within the next 7 fiscal years. Under the law, two such consecutive determinations of projected excess general revenue constitute a “Medicare funding warning.” Under current law and the Trustees’ projections, such determinations and warnings will recur every year through the 75-year projection period."

It's a good read beyond the summary, too:

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TRSUM/tr22summary.pdf

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#199

Post by bradlys »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #147
bradlys wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the fun part - your military makes it so they can't leave.

Europe has open borders. How is that going to work?

Europe doesn't have open borders... Even if they "left" their home country somehow - extradition treaties are a thing.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#200

Post by dahfizz »

frenchman99 wrote: post #175
dahfizz wrote: post #155

The 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.

That's if you have enough salary to save enough for retirement. Which is not the case for a lot of people unfortunately. Hence a government lead system where wealthy people are required to pay more to help less wealthy have a somewhat acceptable retirement.

The pension money doesn't come from nowhere. The people who are living paycheck to paycheck are paying 20% VAT and ~20% income tax. Maybe they would have less financial trouble if they could keep some of their own money.

I'm all for a safety net. Scaling the system way down so that it only serves the people who need it would reduce the tax burden and solvency issues.

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