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

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#281

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 10:49 PM UTC

strken wrote: post #265

rwmj wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is (so is the US). But ultimately productive value from workers must be transferred to retired people. How exactly that happens, whether through deferred spending power (ie savings/investments) or through direct payments, it has to happen. Although I admit that there being other countries in the world does change the calculus a bit; it would be possible (albeit weird and unsustainable) for everyone in France to be…

"From workers to retired people" implies at a casual reading that the worker and the retiree are not the same person, when in many systems the majority of what the worker pays goes directly to their own retirement. It's debatable whether paying into your own account is a transfer of wealth at all, even if you're not able to withdraw your money until retirement.

[deleted]

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#282

Post by AussieWog93 » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 10:50 PM UTC

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.

That's basically the system we started rolling out in Australia in the 90s (see mandatory super).

Unfortunately it doesn't work for everyone, though, and a traditional pension is still needed as a backup.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#283

Post by joe_the_user » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 10:51 PM UTC

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…

The french pension reform attempts have been going on for decades ... Every president, be they socialist or liberal, have attempted to tackle the issue, only to get country-paralyzing backlash.... it isn't a sustainable system.

Good For them?

They've been trying to change this forty years? So they were trying to change this back when it ipso facto was sustainable, since it's survived 'till now. How credible does that make the current effort.

Certainly, America has changed a bunch of supposedly "unsustainable" things into ... utter misery for the average person.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#284

Post by karaterobot » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 10:52 PM UTC

Honest question: what should the French government do instead? Some people in this thread have said that the government doesn't need to increase the retirement age by 2 years. If that's so, why are they proposing to? Have they done the math incorrectly, are they being needlessly cruel, or ...?

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#285

Post by notch898a » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 10:53 PM UTC

ubercore wrote: post #275

retinaros wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its normalizing but for the worst in developed economies. housing is now out of reach while decades ago a blue collar salary was enough,to own a house.(in the USA you can still get six digits blue collar jobs that lift you out of poverty and give you access to housing. in france that is merely a dream or a netflix show) today already for many qualified workers (tech for instance) staying in india vs coming to france…

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 yourself to the bone but pretty much anybody in the US can make a killing.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#286

Post by supernova87a » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 10:53 PM UTC

retinaros wrote: post #240

andrekandre wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is the cause of not having enough funds to maintain the current retirement age?

there are enough. there are using statistical models to predict that we wont have enough in the coming decades. a biased model that is financed by private pension funds and led by mckinsey… I have a very simple way to make enough funds to maintain current retirement age : increase our salaries. france income per capita is the same for the past 20 years, if you raise salaries it will raise how much money goes to pensi…

And where does the money for raising salaries come from?

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#287

Post by coryrc » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

justeleblanc wrote: post #98

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…

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.

China's building massive amounts of underused housing. US boomers could have built long-lived buildings and infrastructure (high-speed trains) which provide usefulness to people later in exchange for them paying some money for retirees.

Instead, they built ever-decaying roads and rotting ticky-tacky boxes and left nothing durable for future generations. Hell, they even ripped out trains in cities across the country. (Seattle interurban among so many examples).

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#288

Post by globalreset » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 10:56 PM UTC

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.

All financial savings are an illusion. They are just claims on productivity of other people in the future.

Boomer generation globally accumulated a lot of claims and considered them their "wealth" but forgot to produce enough people that are going to be willing to put an effort to satisfy these claims.

Now is the time when boomers will want to use their savings and discover their error.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#289

Post by yodsanklai » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 10:56 PM UTC

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…

> Every president, be they socialist or liberal, have attempted to tackle the issue, only to get country-paralyzing backlash. People will nitpick the details of whatever current plan proposes, but the fundamental problem remains.

The Touraine Law in 2014 raised the number of worked years from 36 to 43, which is a big deal. So it's not like nothing happened. Also there are good reasons to dispute the current proposal, it's not just nitpicking details, it will impact very negatively some people and perhaps there are other ways to fix the system.

Re: French workers protest plan to increase retirement age

#290

Post by notch898a » Tue, Mar 07, 2023, 10:57 PM UTC

AussieWog93 wrote: post #282

notch898a wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's basically the system we started rolling out in Australia in the 90s (see mandatory super). Unfortunately it doesn't work for everyone, though, and a traditional pension is still needed as a backup.

It seems like unfortunately many governments have proven incapable of responsibly handling the money. In the case the government is entirely incapable of handling the money I'd at least see the worker get that tax waved to have something for whatever meager existence is left with the money.