Oh the horror in France, such cruelty, such suffering (btw, many thanks to Taft RIP and Hartley RIP)

Politics
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Oh the utter horror, the utter cruelty, the utter suffering.

My heart is bleeding so much, I may have to get a transfusion.

France is raising the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64.

OH THE HUMANITY!!!

(Note: Hopefully, even the dimmest here should have realized by now I am being sarcastic.)

The French unions are have a ■■■■ fit and are going to paralyze the country by calling a general strike, which brings me to the second point of this thread.

Many thanks to the legendary Robert A. Taft, RIP, and Fred A. Hartley, Jr., RIP, who were responsible for the Taft - Hartley Act, which ensures to this day that the American people will never have to experience the kind of union tyranny and disruption that is about to occur in France and which has disrupted France numerous times.

Now I must go and shed a tear for those poor, downtrodden, put upon souls in France who must work until the incredible age of 64.

Wait, I may have to cut this onion a few more times before I can generate a tear.

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Poor stupid suckers thought they could retire that many years before dropping dead of old age? HA! Not on Le Their watch!

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Don’t the French riot over this very issue every few years or so?

I’m getting a case of deja vu here.

I mean, the French riot a lot over almost anything. So I shouldn’t be surprised.

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4

The temper tantrums continue across the country. However, progress is being made.

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Hooray at people working longer and enjoying life less! Hooray, hooray!

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Just like the rest of the West, their life expectancy increased. It is an actuarial thing. They also often lay off older workers in France. Those workers then go on generous unemployment until they reach retirement age.

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Hooray for the French Government actually trying to fix the system now, so the future entitled little ■■■■■ might actually have a pension when they retire.

But oh the horror, having to work until the extreme old age of 64. Oh the humanity.

:roll_eyes:

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8

All true but, who is ultimately supposed to be in charge and making the decisions in a Democracy? Even if it’s a bad one. Macron is down to 34% approval. France isn’t the US, their culture isn’t as work oriented as ours. I can’t even say they are wrong, they seem to be enjoying life quite a bit.

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Technically it’s not the retirement age. If a person has the means to stop working at age 30, nothing prevents that from happening. The detail here is at what age the government will start giving you money in your retirement.

At least in the USA, people could be collecting Social Security and still be working.

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Barbie once said “Math is hard.”
I think she meant to say “math is cruel.”

If working people work 10% fewer years
and 10% fewer hours per week
etc.

They are going to have a standard of living that is approx 20% lower.
If working people, facing that, do not reduce their standard of living that ~20% while working (like adding 20% savings rate)
then their standard of living while retired will be adjusted for them.

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11

Say what you like about the French, but they get a minimum of 36 paid days off every year and work 35 hours a week.

And by law, they are not allowed to be bothered by their bosses out of hours.

It’s easy to dismiss them as feckless and lazy, but workers in France have a lot more rights and protections that have been hard won.

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It’s also very hard to fire someone. All of that ends up keeping people out of the work place until they hit thirty, employers want to see a long school record of success before taking the chance.

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That’s true of much of Europe.

Firing someone in Sweden is an exercise in futility.

Notice periods are typically much longer as well, I had a 6 month notice period in my last job.

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Pretty hefty trade off.

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Quite, but workers see it as protection and don’t want to let it be taken away from them.

That may increase productivity but workers only get a share of that benefit, the business owners also benefit while giving nothing up.

The French are quire prepared to man the barricades and put up a fight rather then lose their rights.

They definitely life to work and not work to live.

Not to say I agree with them, but at least they stick to their guns and put themselves first.

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Of course business owners take a hit. Not being able to fire a bad or underperforming employee costs money. I would rather have to perform to keep my job then be frozen out of work until I am thirty. And have to support my kids until then.

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Cutting 5/40 working hours… cuts 12.5% of earning/production time.
Cutting 36/260 working days each year … cuts earnings/productivity 13.8%
Cutting the last 3 years off a 47-year career … cuts earnings/productivity 6.4%.

There is no way (zero possibility) of cutting 30-plus percent of your the total work/productivity out of your life for free. It does not happen.

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Take more taxes from companies, pay higher prices for goods and services. Also higher income taxes. Much higher income tax.

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In general Europe has higher personal taxes and lower corporate taxes than the US.

That fact is often difficult to prove/disprove because the Internet is filled with shoddy research and politicized anecdotes that ignore state taxes, local taxes, payroll taxes, commercial property taxes etc…

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True, it’s a actuarial thing, but really most people see “life expectancy increased” and associate that with “Average Life Expectancy” (ALE) which is a terrible measurement.

ALE today compared to ALE from 1935 is in fact about 20-25 years higher. Problem is ALE is impacted by infant and child mortality rates (which the death of young people pulls down the average). One of the major factors in the 20-25 year increase is ALE is the huge drop in infant and child mortality. Since infants and children don’t pay into SS, nor do they draw benefits, the numbers are skewed.

A better data point is to look at average months of drawing a benefit after reaching Full Retirement Age (FRA). Problem is that long term comparisons got muddied when FRA was changed in the 80’s from 65 to 67. Yes we have more months in retirement now than in the past, but it’s not decades. IIRC, circa 1990’s is was - on average - about 3.5 years.

WW

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