I don’t know how I just heard about the riots in France, but here they are in case anyone hasn’t yet.
All of this over a 2-year increase in retirement age. Three words: addicted to government.
Students making out on the streets… her dad must feel awkward about that.
The French police are sponsored by Red Bull. Why?
That is how it is being reported, but the the reports are not being truthful.
"The retirement issue is far more complex than “the age of retirement”. The legal age of retirement means the age at which one may retire. But the pension depends on the number of years worked, or to be more precise, on the number of cotisations (payments) into the joint pension scheme. On the grounds of “saving the system from bankruptcy”, the government is gradually raising the number of years of cotisations from 40 to 43 years, with indications that this will be stretched out further in the future.
As educationis prolonged, and employment begins later, to get a full pension most people will have to work until 65 or 67. A “full pension” comes to about 40 per cent of wages at the time of retirement."
http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone10212010.html
The whole article is worth a read. The writter is a Socialist but also but also very knowleadgeble about France.
In america, if they do something bad, we think its because the government wants to get more money to corporations.
What about in france? Why do they think government is doing this?
Marko, I am stunned by how we both read the exact same articles and the exact same sites.
Yes, the two-year raise being a cause is a lie and exaggeration by the media.
Anyway, let’s be clear. France has one of the most rigid labour markets ever known in the world - one that is scoffed even by the Swedes I know online. It is social democracy gone severely wrong.
In short, a French person has a really hard time finding a job and a really hard time supporting himself if he loses one. That’s because French labour laws require companies to do a whole bunch of scrutiny and work on every employee they hire - to the point that the employers don’t hire anybody at all.
It is unlikely that the zealots at the French labour departments will allow any reform that will simplify things that make their own jobs irrelevant. As Ludwig von Mises himself once said, any government created problem requires another government intervention to mitigate the bad effects of it. This support that the state had given them was their only fallback, and even that is removed. To give an analogy, as libertarians, would you people oppose laws to have better labour conditions when the companies themselves have lobbied for laws that cap worker’s compensation liability? We’d oppose both, but would you fight two fronts at the same time? It’s why when Mises was a wonk, he also compromised in favour of welfare laws.
One of the biggest Anglo-American lies is the idea of a pampered, unworking French - an idea that even has a few French slowly starting to get convinced. Even I fell to this wrong misleading notion for a very long time. It’s not without basis, but French people are highly intelligent and highly productive, and still produce astonishing technical innovations that bring great results but never much publicity (see the maneuvering software made for Boeing jets). Unfairly, these people bear the brunt of tight labour laws that force them to work for longer hours, with less pay, and less security.
Sarkozy and the other European leaders are trying to put out a big fire with a bucket of water: while we may appreciate the gesture it’s too little and too late. Whatever they do the “pay as you go” retirement system is doomed to fail: the only thing that can be done is postpone the inevitable. Rising the retirement age, slamming the doors open to immigration… it won’t do a iota of good. Not only that, but it’s causing huge troubles, troubles a Continent in desperate need of reforms can hardly afford. Oh wait, those are reforms nobody really wants.
PS: if you take a closer look at that picture you’ll see that’s a plainclothes police officer wearing a Red Bull jacket.
France sounds like an awesome place to live! The few days a year they actually have to work, they go on a protest/strike or riot.