Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 835 posts

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#181

Post by ur-whale »

rahen wrote: post #118
flashfaffe2 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French here: Though the problem is well known (at least for 40 years), No french governments has considered diversifying the source of the revenue funding the pension system. Actually its worse as the only capitalisation existing are in a process to be nationalised. Moreover, this reform is purely the outcome of political game. Macron electorat is mainly the 'boomers' who fully beneficiated of th situation ( in fact…

As a French, I have absolutely no trust in the government to manage my pension. And no desire to hand them that power either. But as usual they'll fight tooth and nail to keep their monopoly, as they like us to depend on them as much as possible.

Vote with your feet (i.e: walk away from it all), it's the only option.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#182

Post by creato »

ur-whale wrote: post #167
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.

> You're willing to bet your life that the government is always going to do right by you? Hear, hear, especially given the historical priors : (hint: across a generation-sized time spans, governments never keep their promises. Why should they, they usually are in power for decades at most). And yes, relying on governments to handle your retirement money is completely insane, but the vast majority of folks in e.g. the…

It’s the same scheme that has existed for all of humanity: the tribe’s young people work to provide for the children and elders. No one was retiring by hoarding a pile of gold. The tribe is just bigger now.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#183

Post by icelancer »

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…

These pensions were bankrupt the minute they were implemented - the capital appreciation rates were completely insane to start, and have only looked worse as time rolls on (which, I have to stress, is extremely tough to imagine). Delusion around pension portfolios eclipses all but the most insane crypto scams.

Quite a bit of my university work in the early 2000s revolved around studying and modeling pension-type retirement plans, primarily in the United States (Chicago and Philadelphia mostly come to mind), but a little in foreign countries. While EU pensions tend to be in worse positions, it's a distinction without a difference: Pension reform is basically impossible. Catastrophic bankruptcy and refusal to pay benefits is coming to a theatre near you, because the political will to even begin meager cuts (and so-called "drastic" cuts are indeed merely meager) does not exist.

Politicians who propose meaningful cuts to pensions are guaranteed a single term in office while the candidates waiting in line promise to keep the Ponzi scheme going.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#184

Post by Izikiel43 »

yazantapuz wrote: post #112
Izikiel43 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After seeing the pensioners in my home country living in poverty because of economic crisis destroying their pensions, the government using pension money as if it was its own, and being actively hostile to pensioners by delaying trials to pay the pension money fairly waiting for them to die, I will take a 401(k) over that always, my money is mine and no one else's.

Argentinian? The government theft of the private funds was outrageous. Although the AFJPs were far from being a 401(k) system.

> Argentinian

Takes one to know one

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#185

Post by phil21 »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #162
phil21 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you save now so you get money later. How do you save labor for later? Current retirees need young folks to do the work they cannot do, and thus those young folks are paying in today. When those young folks retire they will be relying on even younger folks to do the work for them. If there are not enough younger folks to do that work, the money saved between generations will become relatively worthless. Thought anot…

How exactly does the same amount of labor need doing when there will fewer people who need anything in the near future? You seem to be saying more labor per person is necessary to satisfy this “need.” That doesn’t seem beneficial to workers as a whole. I thought innovation was supposed to benefit everyone? Where’s the hole in this logic?

When the current crop of retirees were in peak earning periods, there were something around 6-8 workers per retiree. Data on France isn't super easy to come by.

By 2030 this is expected to be about 2, which is better than I expected. You would need massive productivity gains inside the span of the past 40 years to make up 4-6 workers per retiree in labor.

The fact I have 4-6 less cousins my age to sell my labor to to help take care of grandma doesn't seem to offset that huge amount of labor now needed to be expended on largely unproductive tasks. We went from 4-6 people pitching in to help out grandma each day to just myself. If you look at that in hours vs. dollars, the problem starts to become quite apparent to me. I don't feel I'm 500% more efficient at what I do than my elders.

Perhaps we've innovated so well that we can now support old folks with a fraction of the labor, but I'm skeptical. Fixed costs seem rather fixed, and from where I'm sitting I think a whole lot of that "innovation budget" has been spent already on rising expectations of minimum quality of living.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#186

Post by yamtaddle »

aetherson wrote: post #102
justeleblanc wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single pension system has the working population pay for the retirees. Where do you think the money comes from? Thin air? Any increase in the value of pension funds (for example) is coming from the workers.

I think a lot of people assume that pension systems ought to or actually do work as savings/investment systems, like private 401(k)s do. So you pay into the system when you're working age, your money is saved, then it is paid out to you later.

Whose labor is giving those investments value? Who's doing the labor that gives those IOUs (dollars) value even if you just stick them in a savings account and don't invest them? It's not retirees.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#187

Post by skywal_l »

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.

What makes you think that if people are stupid enough to elect corrupt government officials they will be smart enough to invest their money wisely?

If you trust the financial markets more than the government that you elect, I have a bridge to sell you.

Sure some smart people will be able to extract profit from the market but most won't. I'd rather live in a country where the people I chose can organize to ensure that nobody needs for anything rather than in a country where I gamed the system and now have to protect my loot against hordes of have-nots.

And if I can't do that, the joke is on me.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#188

Post by loudmax »

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.

I'm relying on a functional democratic government still existing when I retire. It doesn't seem like a high bar, though admittedly less of a certainty than we would have imagined a decade ago.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#189

Post by mcsniff »

nemo44x wrote: post #111

> "We haven't been heard or listened to...." Maybe they have been heard and listened too and the democratically elected government of the people disagrees. Just because you don't get your way doesn't mean you haven't been listened to. > "We are using the only means we have left: it's the hard strike ... we are not going to give up." This is the part where the petulant child that doesn't get what it wants threatens to…

“In the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard." - MLK

Protesting is the mechanism they have at their disposal.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#190

Post by forgetfreeman »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #77
forgetfreeman wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Try injecting the majority of hoarded wealth into the equation and re-run the numbers, and then tell us there aren't enough workers to support the system.

How does the state seize the hoarded wealth when it can just move to a tax haven?

Capital flight is a potential risk, true. There are any number of potential remedies on a niceness continuum ranging from using the legal system to freeze assets on the nice end to guillotines on the not-so-nice end. You're encouraged to consult any number of history texts for past examples of wealth transfer from the elite classes.
Post reply on HN