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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

#361

Post by joe_the_user »

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…

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?

The world standard of living should be equalized globally but it should be the present first world standard, not the present third world standard.

This is certainly possible given increasing world productive capacities.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#362

Post by KyeRussell »

nonethewiser wrote: post #331
game_the0ry wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As populations age into a higher percentage of retirees, the system is forced to cope with a more people who are purely consumers, but contribute nothing to the system. Sort of off topic, but I do agree that the older generations in the western world, particularly the american baby boomers, act sociopathic as a group. There is a good book about this: A generation of sociopaths. [1] Sad to watch an entire generation…

If we’re playing that game, then this diagnosis is coming from a group with severe anxiety.

This being any sort of ‘tit-for-tat’ response is coincidentally a pretty ‘boomer’ take on mental health.

Anxiety can be (and is often) situational, and anxious situations can be a catalyst for general anxiety disorder, etc. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend to know what it’s like to be an average income earning millennial, even though I am a millennial. But the fact that I’m sitting here on my nice fat tech worker salary (after still finding it quite hard to buy a house), supporting my partner who is studying and working part-time, and am still feeling the pinch of inflation, makes me completely sympathise with those earning less than me that are surely freaking the fuck out.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#363

Post by jxidjhdhdhdhfhf »

akhosravian wrote: post #334
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…

It’s really eye opening how big the gap is not just in labor costs but also perishable goods. When I was in morocco 10 years ago one of the buckles for my motorcycle pants suspenders broke. I was able to get a local leather worker to create a pattern from the broken piece, craft the replacement, and integrate it into my suspenders overnight for under 5 USD. This was arranged by the hotel I was staying at, and wasn’t…

You're only looking at that from a consumer perspective. On the other side of that transaction is a person earning only $5 for several hours of labor minus the cost of materials.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#364

Post by Levitz »

legitster wrote: post #85
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…

Money 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 de…

Yes. 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.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#365

Post by notch898a »

jonfw wrote: post #351
notch898a wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely one of those "it depends" situations. For instance, you could be illiterate middle school drop-out and pretty easily make very close if not six figures if you worked near minimum wage canning work all year in Alaska or something by working the season of every available catch (16 hours a day lots of OT). And you'd bank all your post-tax earnings as they provide the housing/food normally too. You may work yo…

"Just move to one of the most remote and inhabitable places in the world, work twice as much as average, and you too can join the middle class"

when I did it they paid for my flight, my housing, and my food... qualifications were homeless off the streets of seattle and I-9 (but lol, e-verify is not mandatory in alaska so as you can imagine such requirement was easily bypassed by anyone who wished). There is no real 'moving' process other than getting on the plane, everything is there.

when you're working 16 hours a day 7 days a week you don't really notice much outside of the factory floor anyway. Whether it was remote or in Manhattan you wouldn't feel the difference as you do nothing but work. I was working ~112 hours a week when I was in Alaska.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#366

Post by uxp100 »

notch898a wrote: post #285
ubercore wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Six figure blue collar jobs are not super common in the US.

Definitely one of those "it depends" situations. For instance, you could be illiterate middle school drop-out and pretty easily make very close if not six figures if you worked near minimum wage canning work all year in Alaska or something by working the season of every available catch (16 hours a day lots of OT). And you'd bank all your post-tax earnings as they provide the housing/food normally too. You may work yo…

Is 40 hours a week of overtime available at canning jobs?

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#367

Post by moremetadata »

omegaworks wrote: post #117
moremetadata wrote: post #92

This 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 an…

>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…

No mention of Lichtenstein when it mentions The Emirates, Norway or Luxemburg.

> In contrast, the persistent backwardness in British productivity, which never reached the American level, is usually attributed to the historical weaknesses in the educational system.

The British state getting rid of grammar schools is often highlighted, but during the 70's and 80's the old rote ways of teaching were scrapped, but continued in overseas territories and the results spoke for themselves, higher literacy and education were achieved on average in these overseas territories than back in the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rote_learning

"However, advocates of traditional education have criticized the new American standards as slighting learning basic facts and elementary arithmetic, and replacing content with process-based skills. In math and science, rote methods are often used, for example to memorize formulas."

This US driven process based thinking, is an attempt and demonstration of the US' desire to have everyone in front of a computer where they can be monitored surreptitiously.

Something else not mentioned is the difference in the US diet compared to the European diet.

If you need a diet to boost GDP, to constantly stimulate then the US diet is it, but it will burn people out more quickly with ill health.

The European model with higher food standards currently is a good standard, especially when comparing how the Chinese have been taught to eat anything that moves, hence their diverse range of palatable foods.

This blog, could enhance its credibility by taking into account factors like diet and health care, instead of just muddying the waters.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#368

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

nonethewiser wrote: post #339
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #87

The 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 w…

Good. Seems they’re going to have to confront the failure of the system. Better than digging a deeper hole.

Parent comment is just wrong. The COR (Conseil d'Orientation des Retraites, meaning advisory board on retirement to the French Prime Minister) says this clearly: the current system is sustainable and does not need to be reformed. https://www.cor-retraites.fr/node/595. Or in video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsL1wT8jxVU (subs auto-translated to English are available).

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#369

Post by Uvix »

tomcam wrote: post #353
atleastoptimal wrote: post #304

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 own…

> Giving old people money for free Didn’t they pay into Social Security?

No - Social Security for the people who are already retired is paid for by the people who are currently working. Nobody is "paying into" anything.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#370

Post by atleastoptimal »

_8j50 wrote: post #360
atleastoptimal wrote: post #304

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 own…

First of all, you don't freaking need your own new house to start a family. In most countries most people never buy a new house. Second, wealth is not zero-sum, there isn't a magic pot of gold redistributed between people. As value and demand are added to the economy, so is wealth because the new young people with demands can provide skills or time to be used in value creation and then they also (and older folks that…

If we removed the electoral college in the US, or if voting day were a national holiday, all those issues would automatically be addressed.

The old and conservative make too powerful a voting block, and it perpetuates every corporate, oligarchic, xenophobic greed cycle one could point to as a rot in our system. I don't think old people are bad because they're just taking government money and have big fancy houses, but largely they do vote the same way and that way they are voting is causing problems.

> First of all, you don't freaking need your own new house to start a family. In most countries most people never buy a new house.

It's important to understand the similarities and differences between "need" and "precipitates conditions that massively increase the chance of", when it comes to demographic trends.

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