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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

#301

Post by lr4444lr »

notch898a wrote: post #261
BadCookie wrote: post #253

These 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/ 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 w…

I 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.

You know what would happen: they'd be taken by scams disproportionately, and we'd hear to no end how their lesser educations left them vulnerable to that. The taxpayer will still be on the hook to bail them out.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#302

Post by grbty_ciul »

BadCookie wrote: post #253

These 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/ 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 w…

in most countries retirement age is tied to sex and yes it screws poor men the most.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#303

Post by yamazakiwi »

legitster wrote: post #82

My 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 enti…

How 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.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#304

Post by atleastoptimal »

In 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.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#305

Post by billforsternz »

vkou wrote: post #241
retinaros wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the system IS sustained. the main white collar one even generates profits. increase the salaries that will increase money being sent to retirement funds and it won’t be a problem anymore. france income per capita has been the same for the past 20 years. they are stealing our wages to make us slaves and they blame us for not working enough. christine lagarde pushed for blocking wage rise in the EU, european commission…

> and in a globalised world where most of the goods are made in countries where salaries are rising as well as inflation, blocking our wages is only sending us to the third world . Just throwing this out here, but in a globalized world, by what mechanism would one expect Europeans and Americans will be able to enjoy a greater standard of living than people in, say, Asia? Are they somehow smarter? More productive? In…

I've been pondering this exact point for a while. I think we are seeing Western economies regressing to the mean, it's a long term trend. I'm not happy about it, but I can't claim it's not fair.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#306

Post by phpisthebest »

silisili wrote: post #244
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…

Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but sometimes I feel that bloc got all the goodies at everyone else's expense. This isn't a typical 'boomers' or anything argument against the people, but perhaps the demographic itself and the way politics played out. Pensions are unheard of now, and companies are still struggling to keep up with them, likely meaning lowered wages for the next group(and no pensions). Tough luck. I fully ex…

>>I feel that bloc got all the goodies at everyone else's expense

Pensions and SocSec were both Ponzi Schemes, Only government could allow something so fraudulent to legally exist. (Interesting Fact, the original SocSec retirement age was 2 years higher than the Life Expectancy Age, now it is something like 8-10year lower... )

It could have kept working provided the population continued to grow at an ever increasing rate keeping the worker to retired person ratio at 10:1, but 2 or 3 generations of declining birth rates, and low immigration means the scheme is coming apart

More so your 401K is currently, and will continue to be reduced in value as the boomer take more and more capital out of the market for their final years. I think we will need to reassess what "normal" returns on a 30 year portfolio looks like as well, in addition to inflation which I think will stabilize at more than the target 2%..

Simply put.. we are economically stag net, and if you are under 40 retirement will be much harder

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#307

Post by quotz »

bradlys wrote: post #135
HDThoreaun wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do this and literally every billionaire will immediately leave. Seems a bit short sighted.

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

Youre proposing the military hold hostage billionaires in france until they all sign away their wealth to the state? This is basically post WW2 newly-found communist states, or Mao level of fascism. Think twice before you write stuff like this, most Americans cant even imagine the atrocities that were committed during communist times. Literally read any book about how communism felt like. You're offending millions of people who tried extremely hard to escape communism and live a normal life. I am a post-communism kid whose parents grew up in one...

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#308

Post by billforsternz »

bboygravity wrote: post #251
vkou wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and in a globalised world where most of the goods are made in countries where salaries are rising as well as inflation, blocking our wages is only sending us to the third world . Just throwing this out here, but in a globalized world, by what mechanism would one expect Europeans and Americans will be able to enjoy a greater standard of living than people in, say, Asia? Are they somehow smarter? More productive? In…

Because the USD is the world reserve currency. That's why.

That might explain the USA, but it doesn't explain Canada, Europe, Australasia and Japan.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#309

Post by bobthepanda »

notch898a wrote: post #261
BadCookie wrote: post #253

These 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/ 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 w…

I 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.

The origin of the modern pension system in Prussia was not actually designed to let people retire; the age was initially pegged to 70, the life expectancy of Prussians in 1881.

American Social Security had an age of 65, but at the time of its passing life expectancy for American men was 58.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#310

Post by tristor »

yamtaddle wrote: post #180
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.

Mandatory pension schemes remove the option to defect and spend money that "should" go toward retirement to instead compete in zero-sum games for benefit today for yourself and your kids (say, housing in good school districts, tuition, et c.). That part's pretty nice.

> That part's pretty nice.

The part where it takes people's money and prevents them from bettering the life of themselves and their families in favor of feeding that money into older people, most of whom are wealthier than the working person you're taking money from in real terms (e.g. most are homeowners)?

I wouldn't classify that part as "pretty nice", but you do you.

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