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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

#741

Post by candiodari »

realusername wrote: post #728
p4bl0 wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "we can afford it" doesn't seem to be the opinion of the people concerned paying it. Then how do you explains the massive strikes and demonstration? Do you think these millions of people and the millions more that support them are all dumb? > Let's not pretend like anybody else is proposing this solution either. Politics don't for obvious electoralistic reasons, but the idea is at least discussed in some unions.

> Then how do you explains the massive strikes and demonstration? Do you think these millions of people and the millions more that support them are all dumb? Not many people understand how the retirement system works in France and its direct impact on salaries. It's not the simplest retirement model either and people don't take the time understand it. > Politics don't for obvious electoralistic reasons, but the idea…

> Not many people understand how the retirement system works in France and its direct impact on salaries. It's not the simplest retirement model either and people don't take the time understand it.

Why would you bother to understand it? It will have changed, and be much worse, by the time you retire. The state is, of course, counting on people misunderstanding the fact that there is not a single guarantee you get paying into this system, as nothing stops politicians from changing it.

And, as you point out, plenty of factors force, to a lesser or greater extent politicians into making the system worse.

So why bother understanding it? France is like most European nations: either you own a comfortable home + some supplemental income by the time you retire or you're f*cked.

(source: my dad was a teacher (in a neighboring country with a very similar system), and is now on the pensioner side of this system. He is single-digit percentage points above the minimum, despite his ability to show a contract, with the government, stating explicitly, in 3 languages, that he's guaranteed at least 40% above minimum. But, you see, "a decree goes above contracts". The state cannot, and will not uphold it's promises made under this system, so it doesn't matter. They just want you to work your ass of, and pay taxes correctly to extract maximum work from you while not upholding their end)

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#742

Post by yeahsure22 »

RugnirViking wrote: post #732
OrvalWintermute wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You call them wars of choice. It would be more correct to call this preventative money. No, we that served don't. > They spend this money in order to prevent having an actual war later. Having spent a good part of my life prepping for Fulda Gap defense against the USSR I know that is incorrect. The US has spread NATO right up to Russian doorstep, on the cusp of inside their early warning systems for missiles, havin…

You served in the american millitary during the cold war but don't think that the countries that were beind the iron curtain should have been allowed to join nato? That's... interesting.

I’ll ignore your lame…rhetorical method and address your point. No, they should not join NATO. When we all die in a nuclear holocaust I will have the comfort of knowing it was all Purim’s fault.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#743

Post by crazygringo »

gruez wrote: post #574
crazygringo wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let me know if the government decides to absolve you of all taxes if you don't think at the end of your year that you've been given money. I... wouldn't? It just wouldn't have been taken from me. Why would I think it would have been given to me? I'm perfectly aware it's money I earned in the first place. In contrast with stimulus checks, for example, which were given, because even if you earned no money at all you…

>In contrast with stimulus checks, for example, which were given, because even if you earned no money at all you still got them. At the end of the day, there's no difference from a fiscal perspective between handing a company a $1M check and giving them a $1M tax deduction. While I agree that this is technically a distinction (ie. tax deductions require a tax liability to actually be used, as opposed to cash which ca…

Of course at the end of the day you either have a certain amount of money or not.

But the point is that there is meaning to the words give and take. It's about language not finances.

If you take less that doesn't mean you're giving. Similarly if you give less that doesn't mean you're taking.

Words matter.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#744

Post by kwere »

croes wrote: post #613
dahfizz wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it worked as long the rise of productivity led to a rise of wages. It worked as long as people had more than 2 kids. There was always a larger young population supporting the smaller old population.

It's about money, not population. And the GDPs are growing faster than the population, at least in the first world. So it's bo a matter of quantity but of distribution.

GDPs are mostly artificially pumped in all the world except maybe switzerland and few others. For example China is financially collapsing now bcs its infrastructure ponzi scheme to weather 08' slowdowns is over. A lot of other countries are playing financial alchemy and poisoning themselves

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#745

Post by candiodari »

mrbadger wrote: post #707
wdb wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's the European Commission not elected? You vote a government in your country and they than select the commissioner for this commission.

Indeed. The Commission is appointed by the Council (member state govt heads of state) and appointments are ratified by the European Parliament. Same as with the executive in the US. Not complicated.

Euhm. Sort-of. The commission is appointed by country governments (specifically by the minister of foreign affairs). That minister is appointed by a government, which tends to be a coalition government, chosen by the head of the executive, that then has to be ratified by a majority of the national parliament of the country. An appointment to the commission remains valid until their term runs out, no matter what happens to the government that placed them there.

So it's EU commissar (appointed) -> Foreign Minister of member country (appointed) -> Coalition government (appointed) -> Head of the executive of member country (ie. the king, in most cases) -> Parliament of member country (elected)

Certain member countries don't have very stable coalitions, which means there's always a few EU commissars that don't have the support of their host governments. This is especially true now that Christian parties are in the process of being voted into irrelevancy in a lot of countries (unfortunately to be replaced by rightist and in some cases extreme-right parties)

So, what you said. With one very important difference: there isn't one level of indirection, there's at least 4 or 5 levels of indirection. It isn't very democratic, especially since EU law means these people have law-giving power, power to override the parliaments of member countries (that would be why Christine Lagarde proposed using that power to freeze wages)

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#746

Post by kwere »

advisedwang wrote: post #259
guilhas wrote: post #237

It is strange how a lot of countries claim they will have trouble to pay pensions but at same time are campaigning for UBI

There'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…

Nixon docet

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#747

Post by refurb »

gymbeaux wrote: post #740
refurb wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody loves socialism until they get back less than they put in.

To assume I'm one of those types just from that tiny comment... Jeez it's math. Why do I have to pay way more into my retirement than I am going to get back? I don't mind my taxes going towards others' retirement, but why does the beating have to be so brutal and severe? Why can't I pay $200k in and then opt out of SS and start putting that SS tax into my IRA?

If you're talking about US social security, your premiums are capped and your payout is directly linked to your contribution. Not sure how you could ever put $1M in of your own money over an entire career.

Do the math but ignore inflation (because the cap and payment is indexed to inflation)

If you work 30 years at $150,000 per year, you've put in 6.2% per year ($9,300) or a total of $280,000 (your employer put in another $280,000). You can't contribute more than that, since income above ~$150,000 is exempt from the social security tax.

Assume a 3% real return, your contribution turns into $500,000 plus the employers $500,000, so $1M.

If you get the max payment (because you put in the max contribution), you'll get $3,627 per month or $43,524 per year. If you retire at 65 and die at 95, you would have drawn over $1.3M. That's more than what you put in.

I'm not sure where the "rip off" is? I guess it is if you die early, but hey, that's how pensions work.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#748

Post by moritz »

gruez wrote: post #575
selfmodruntime wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time and time again it’s the same bullshit argument. I’ve grown tired of it. The price of goods and services has decoupled from the cost for a while now, and prices are rising at a staggering rate without salary increases.

>The price of goods and services has decoupled from the cost for a while now, and prices are rising at a staggering rate without salary increases. Almost as if there's multiple supply chain disruptions (from pandemic to ukraine) causing goods to be more scarce, causing consumers to bid up the prices for the goods that remain.

yeah, that’s not why this is happening

> the US COVID-19 inflation is predominantly a sellers’ inflation that derives from microeconomic origins, namely the ability of firms with market power to hike prices.

https://scholarworks.umass.edu/econ_workingpaper/343/

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#749

Post by harimau777 »

bloppe wrote: post #679
selfmodruntime wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time and time again it’s the same bullshit argument. I’ve grown tired of it. The price of goods and services has decoupled from the cost for a while now, and prices are rising at a staggering rate without salary increases.

Sounds like an excellent opportunity to start selling goods and services.

Where is an average person going to get the capital to start telling goods and services?

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#750

Post by dv_dt »

rahen wrote: post #684
1letterunixname wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Austerity is the neoliberal elites like Macron way of feigning poverty. They want a small, weak government, powerful businesses, and an impoverished society completely dependent on their whims and generosity.

Any government wants power, money, and having society depend on them. The bigger and more powerful the government, the more they can do. Same with companies: the larger the more annoying, but at least you can choose them, and there's competition. Not so much with governments, they just act like a powerful monopolistic megacorp. The goal is to make power decentralized, not further concentrated in a few hands, especial…

I am skeptical that blanket decentralization works without some central framework to maintain it. Otherwise power still accumulates and without some enforcement of openness and a collective discussion - corruption also grows perfectly fine without government involved. See decentralized crypto industry as a microcosm.

I would say that government and a healthy protest of government as the French are exercising is one way to check the over accumulation of oppressive power.

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