French workers protest plan to increase retirement age • Hacker News Board

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#751

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #257

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Upto 75% of population is employed in bullshit jobs anyway (= not producing anything). Source? I love that so many people are convinced everyone but them is doing nothing and somehow getting paid for it. > Only 2% of population working in agriculture already produces food for 10+ billion people. What's your point? Who's going to take care of sick people? Who's going to educate our next generation? Who's going to ma…

> I love that so many people are convinced everyone but them is doing nothing and somehow getting paid for it. That's not the point. The point is what they are producing isn't contributing value to our lives, or actually creating negative value. Building highways looked very productive on paper in the 50's, but now we live in car dependent sprawl, and we continue to pay people to maintain that sprawl when we could ha…

You're forgetting that a lot of people that use those highways want to live outside the city and don't want to be crammed into the city.

I love it in the city, can't imagine living where you literally cannot walk anywhere - but most of those people out there like it or they wouldn't be out there.

So, no, the people maintaining those highways aren't doing nothing. Maybe they're doing nothing for you. Maybe you can argue you're subsidizing other people's lives. But you can't say that people maintaining highways are doing nothing or are net negative.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#752

Post by frenchman99 » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:31 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #200

frenchman99 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If we're talking about the USA, the USA is one the developed countries with most inequality, both income and capital. Way more than in France anyway, where I live. Even though USA has way lower tax rates than France (about 30/35% vs 45/50%).

Although not perfect, taxes work quite well in France to reduce inequality. And the low taxes in the USA have the effect of helping a handful of super wealthy whilst leaving a lot of poor people behind, without access to good higher education, medical benefits, etc.

High earners and capital owners should most likely be taxed more in the USA, so the gov can redistribute have a better education & healthcare system, if the USA is to reduce inequality and become again the land of opportunity it once was.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#753

Post by wdb » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:36 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #712

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.

That's indirect at best. The government also decides who it sends as ambassadors to foreign countries, but would you say that ambassadors are elected?

As far as I know ambassador have a total different role compared to the European Commission.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#754

Post by frenchman99 » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:36 PM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #198

frenchman99 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#755

Post by pweezy » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:36 PM UTC

TexanFeller wrote: post #588

toomuchtodo wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-debt-25-percent/ (25% of national debt was incurred during the last administration; half was COVID relief measures, the other half was tax cuts for the wealthy) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fiscal-deficit-idUSKB... (Republican tax cuts to fuel historic U.S. deficits: CBO) Sources at bottom of the first link. This doesn’t include healthcare cost inflation due to a gros…

> the other half was tax cuts for the wealthy The other political sports team cuts taxes for the rich too. For instance they recently removed the cap on the SALT tax deduction which primarily benefits rich people, largely in coastal cities, i.e. those most likely to vote for and donate to them.

This isn’t true - the cap on SALT tax deduction hasn’t changed since it was put in place in 2017.

Some members of congress, apparently from both major parties, are proposing legislation to raise the cap from $10,000 to $100,000 or otherwise raise or remove the cap. But these proposals are not certain to go anywhere.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#756

Post by luckylion » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:51 PM UTC

wdb wrote: post #753

luckylion wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's indirect at best. The government also decides who it sends as ambassadors to foreign countries, but would you say that ambassadors are elected?

As far as I know ambassador have a total different role compared to the European Commission.

They sure do, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. We tend to call someone that is elected by the people 'elected'. Someone who gets decided on by these elected representatives we call appointed, they don't inherit the 'elected' attribute. If they did, essentially all political officers (e.g. high level workers in a government department) would be elected, because they were chosen by elected officials.

US supreme court judges get nominated and confirmed. The president is elected (well, kind of, but most agree that he/she is elected by the people even though the electoral college is mixed in there) and then nominates a judge and the Senate confirms the nomination. I don't think it's common to call the supreme court judges 'elected' though, despite their selection by two elected parties.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#757

Post by yamtaddle » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

tristor wrote: post #310

yamtaddle wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Money burned on these games (by making e.g. home prices in good school districts higher because people are competing with money that ought to be going to retirement) isn't helping anyone. It just hurts responsible savers because their and their kids' opportunities & QOL suffer relative to those who pick "defect"—unless they also sacrifice their retirement.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#758

Post by myshpa » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #751

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love that so many people are convinced everyone but them is doing nothing and somehow getting paid for it. That's not the point. The point is what they are producing isn't contributing value to our lives, or actually creating negative value. Building highways looked very productive on paper in the 50's, but now we live in car dependent sprawl, and we continue to pay people to maintain that sprawl when we could ha…

You're forgetting that a lot of people that use those highways want to live outside the city and don't want to be crammed into the city. I love it in the city, can't imagine living where you literally cannot walk anywhere - but most of those people out there like it or they wouldn't be out there. So, no, the people maintaining those highways aren't doing nothing . Maybe they're doing nothing for you . Maybe you can a…

The comment you're reacting to is imho talking about the system of transportation, while you're talking about the people managing that system.

Our preferences, choices and decisions have ripple effects.

Maybe if we'd intentionally designed our society/environment differently, we wouldn't need so many highways, and so many people managing them.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#759

Post by amadvance » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 3:22 PM UTC

aaplok wrote: post #165

UncleOxidant wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it wasn't a problem when the working age population was always increasing... but when it no longer is (as is the case in much of Europe) it becomes problematic.

> when it no longer is (as is the case in much of Europe) it becomes problematic. Not necessarily. What matters here is whether production matches demand. If the proportion of people in the workforce declines, but their productivity increases by the same amount (which isn't far from being the case in Europe) you don't have a problem. And even that is too simple. As the population ages, demand changes. It increases im…

Europe can also benefit from immigration. One advantage of immigration is that immigrants do not have to grow up to be productive.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#760

Post by RugnirViking » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 3:36 PM UTC

yeahsure22 wrote: post #742

RugnirViking wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For what its worth I don't intend it as a rhetorical method, it really does seem like a disconnect from what I'm familliar with. My experience living in europe is that when I do meet folks from romania/poland/lithuania/estonia etc are viruently anti-russia, and pro eu/nato - almost disconcertingly so. Especially because they see their own governments as corrupt (I can't say whether they are right) and seem to look to these other organisations to save them from that.

I don't know what point that serves, but I do find it difficult to see membership as something imposed on them. If they weren't allowed to join, I don't really know where that would go?