Cities Paralyzed
French president Emmanuel macron is back in the hot seat over reform proposals. Over 800,000 protesters have taken to the streets in a Massive Strike that has paralyzed cities.
Cities across France were paralyzed by a massive public transport strike against a planned overhaul of France’s pensions system, in a test of President Emmanuel Macron’s resolve to modernize the economy.
Trains, including the high-speed line between Paris and London, subways and buses were severely curtailed if not halted altogether. Hundreds of flights were canceled. Many schools, and nurseries remained closed, while several museums, including the Louvre, said parts of their collections might not open. Even the Eiffel Tower was closed.
About 806,000 protesters—including lawyers, teachers, students and air-traffic controllers—hit the streets across the country, according to the French interior ministry. Unions warned the strike could last days and become one of the biggest in France in over two decades.
Mr. Macron wants to extend the number of years that people are required to work before collecting their pensions—now set at 43 years—rather than raising the age of retirement of 62 years old for all workers. That retirement age remains lower than in most other OECD group of rich nations. Under the plan, some people retiring before 64 could receive a lower pension.
Mr. Macron also wants to consolidate France’s 42 different retirement plans—and their special benefits—into one universal system that he says would be more fair. Civil servants, in particular, fear they may lose advantages they have compared to private sector employees.
Yellow-Vest Movement
Recall that the yellow vest protests went on for months.
On December 10, 2018 I wrote Macron Attempts to Placate Yellow Vest Protesters With Free Money.
The protests started because Macron wanted global warming reforms.
To pay for it, he hiked gas taxes. Things quickly got out of hand, and riots lasted for months.
Paris Burning
On March 16, I reported Paris Burning: Luxury Stores Looted and Burned in Latest Yellow Vest Uprising.
Latest Protest Peaceful
So far the latest protest is peaceful. Unfortunately, the record suggests that peace won’t last.
Riots and massive service shutdowns are a way of life in France.
Tariff Feud
The above protests are on top of a huge feud between Macron and Trump over NATO and digital taxes.
Trump threatens to impose tariffs on French wine and Macron promises to retaliate if Trump does.
Tariffs are a bad idea that will not solve a thing.
For discussion, please see Proper Revenge: How Should Trump Respond to France?
Free Stuff
Meanwhile, France provides yet another example of the impossibility of giving away free stuff.
No one can figure out how to pay for it.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Retirement plans are going belly-up all over the West because of the lack of economic growth that was expected and is needed to support them. Blaming the rich for taking the wealth is to misunderstand the problem. The trend started in the 70’s with big government tax and spend. As the government sector grows, it saps more and more from the productive portion of the economy. Government produces exactly NOTHING. As taxes rise, productive workers pay more and more for those that do not. Industry becomes less competitive since it has to pay two wages for each worker. Capital investment suffers, because money sapped away by taxes ends up spent on consumption, not on investment in productive endeavors. Basically, government is a giant destructive parasite.
Well thank god in the US they have property taxes and can use your house as a piggy bank!
The problem in the US, is all the non-property taxes they have. Direct as well as indirect ones. Property ones are, if any taxes are justifiable and efficient at all, the only ones.
“The protests started because Macron wanted global warming reforms.”
The protest started because Macron wanted increased fuel taxes, using global warming alarmism as a scam to get them.
Has Macron or any other political elitist cut their carbon footprint? No. They spew carbon as they please- all of them. By their personal actions, the political elitists say loud and clear that there is no climate crisis.
“Hundreds of thousands of lawyers, teachers, students and air-traffic controllers protest pension Macron’s pension reform”
Math really doesn’t care.
Everyone in Zimbabwe became a billionaire. Everyone in Zimbabwe was rich. The problem was that all that money wouldn’t buy three eggs.
My wife has relatives in France. 6 adults. As far as I can tell none of them work nor have they ever worked in the entire time I’ve known them. They sent one of their sons to the US for college. Me and other US relatives had to pay for his education. I asked why his parents don’t pay and was informed they’re retired. I think they’re in their 50’s and I question whether or not they understand the whole retirement concept.
There is an underlying reason for the protest in France. People do not think the system is fair. Why not? Because a small sliver of the population has more and more of the wealth, power, and influence while the rest is seeing their wages stagnate while the costs of all kinds of things is increasing. People will get a lot more riled up about any measures if they feel that it is part of a decades long systematic campaign to advantage selected groups and to disadvantage the rest, all the while claiming it is good for them and there is no choice.
It does not matter whether a system is fair or not. What matters is how people experience it. You can affect people’s behaviour with postive and negative incentives, until they realize they are being manipulated, then it won’t work anymore.
The government has no money of its own. In order to provide pensions it has to tax people to pay for them. Given the changing demographics and the increasing burden on those taxpayers necessary to support a fixed pension rate, what amazes me about France is why arent those having to pay all these extra taxes rioting?
The reason of course is that most people dont realise how the system works nor how they are being fleeced. Most people view the Government as having either limitless money, or they think that the tax you paid has been stored somewhere safe for when you retire. This is the disadvantage of dumbing down the population and not explaining things through. If they had explained how things worked in the first place, they wouldnt have done things this way. But they did, and now they have a problem.
If I were Macron I would invite the biggest loud mouthed protestors in and ask them how they would pay for it. That would be interesting to listen to.
+1
All over Europe it is the same. Generous, unaffordable pensions granted by public sector officials who had no concept of what the future would bring. And now the chickens are coming home to roost. With France’s public sector being 50% of GDP and them not having control of the printing press, higher taxation or reform is the only way out. Today’s workers demand the contract is honored, but reaming tomorrow’s taxpayers to honor it is the only way forward.
Most people, as you say, are pig ignorant, believing the government to have unlimited resources. This will end badly – in every developed nation.
“Cities across France were paralyzed by a massive public transport strike against a planned overhaul of France’s pensions system, in a test of President Emmanuel Macron’s resolve to modernize the economy.”
Language is funny. Cutting pensions is “modernizing the economy”. Why can’t they say “in a test of President Emmanuel Macron’s resolve to make old people poorer.”
More accurately “Macron is reducing incredibly generous public sector pensions whose perpetual massive deficits are financed by constantly raping private sector workers.”
Or: “Macron is considering reducing the sheer amount of crass theft from children; undertaken to keep people who didn’t bother saving for retirement, because some conman told them he’d take care of them, living in splendor off of the back of others’ work.”
I couldn’t tell from the article, but have the lawyers stopped working?
Talk about a silver lining!
I still get demands on this about twice a year
link to globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
quoting_20.html
Tell France to go put its fires out.
Link does not work for me…
Link does not work
How to get to the article Mish referred to (posted Wednesday, November 20, 2013 6:05 PM)
Cut and paste the following into GOOGLE: mish-fined-8000-euros-for-quoting_20.html
The first entry returned will be the article…
Using the link (for whatever reason) won’t return the article: link to globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Sometimes I wish protests would happen here in the US, but generally people are too fat, dumb, and happy to be bothered.
At some point we’ll see disturbances too, but it won’t be nearly as civil as the Gilet Jaune movement. That’s too bad, because without any experience American protests will be less organized, more chaotic, and will quickly turn violent. Then the gov, LEOs, and maybe even US military will have a handy excuse to crack down for our “safety”.
Rather than France, ours will look more like Iraq/Iran with people being encouraged or even paid to incite unrest and maximize damage. American protestors will rally for at least 20-30 different causes simultaneously and most of them will despise each other, making them easy for the state to handle. Looks like decades of divide-and-conquer really does work!
Many seniors across the world are going to experience decreased benefits putting a great many of them in poverty. Europe will be at the forefront of decreased pensions as their benefits were the most generous. Many have increased the pension age but nonetheless most pension plans are not sustainable.
In the US, there is a little time before the crisis hits but it will hit.
You can dicker on the time frame estimates but significantly reduced pensions is a guarantee. How this plays out in social unrest remains to be seen.
The US economy as a whole will collapse long before the social security crisis. I give it two years. The cracks are already apparent with the Fed desperately propping things up with endless QE. The knock-on effect will be felt globally, of course. All ages, not just seniors, will be hit hard.
Another Euro fail
“The dependency ratio of those aged 65 and over as a proportion to those aged 20-64 is expected to rise from the present figure of 25% to 50% by 2050”
same going on in various countries in Europe. Low birth rate, exported economies, removal of natural incentives, political promises and high taxation to pay for them (obviously workers are going to feel conned as pensioners given how much they contribute). It’s all messed up, they can only attract a potential workforce by offering the nation to higher birthrate lower paid foreign migrant population, not the fault of migrants but very own policy-makers. Lesson is that giving away your currency makes it all someone else’s fault when the chips are down.
Excellent comment! Thanks
Tis a good article you have linked there.
What I would like to have seen added in was a discussion about how we should change policies to increase the birth rate in the west. Something needs to be done here, or civilisation will collapse. No one appears to be talking about it.
Policies would need to include politically incorrect things like, discrimination against women the in work place, limited places for women in education. A review of medications including vaccination, to find out if they are having an effect. A change of marriage and divorce law. Changing taxes and benefits to favour the young over the older generation so that they can afford children more easily. Plus a whole lot more.
The answer to that is going to be that it depends where you are looking from. We are so caught up in legislation to favour everyone, where each group (age, gender, nationality, social class etc.) is chasing what are often false expectations and promises. Each will not let go of what they have come to consider their right, they compete with each other via politics, they have come to expect government arbitration in their favour, because that is what is promised them. Whether this is purposeful or not, society is being pitted against itself, and centralised order, increasingly by force and dictate, is the natural response of state.
What I observe is that the social rewards that used to come from raising a family are becoming increasingly perverted and co-opted, especially in Europe. Success and status are projected as available outside of family, the responsibility of raising a family are intervened in in so many ways that not only does raising a family seem at the behest of outside authority,but responsibility is offered by the state and options of conflict or abandonment within a family increase.
Before moden interventionist policies, raising a family carried fewer liabilities of this kind, choice of partner was based on raising that family, social (not government) support was fully geared to family. That is community, or eventually nation, it is personal, not law. Success was judged by how well a family was raised by the parents, reward for the parents outside of that of raising a family, was the extended support that family could then provide.
With state intervention, various pieces go missing, and society, and nation, fail.
They obviously have to raise taxes again. As a bit of an aside, generous pensions were the reasons for the bankruptcy of the USSR.
No they were not.
Retirement age for males was 60, 55 for females.
And their military budget in the 80s fluctuated between 13 to 20% of GDP.
You should also check out their life expectancies.
No they don’t. Tax burden in France is already the highest of the OECD. They must fire half the public sector workers, stop subsidising unions and privatise all pensions.
They don’t have “free” stuff for their own retirees who worked their whole life, but they have plenty of resources for the “New French”.
Problem is free stuff, period.
Falling for the scam that some permutations of it are somehow preferable, or “less bad” than others, does nothing but play into the leeches’ divide-and-conquer strategy of pitching some against others.
Sure, but in real world things don’t work the way libertarians like to imagine.
The real problem is that there is an agenda to import as many illiterate non-Western “refugees” to western countries as possible. Free stuff is used to lure them in and support them, while at the same time the native population has to work to pay for this.
French retirees have worked their whole lives and received certain promises that are now being broken in favor of population replacement agenda.
It is completely, 100% irrelevant whether the French government gives free stuff to Charles Manson or Mother Theresa. The whole, 100.{infinite zeros}% of it, problem is the French government giving free stuff.
Government can not pick winners. Period. They don’t suddenly, weeellllll, buuutt, like mayybeeee…., become anything but categorically incapable of doing so, just because they in some cases happen to pick ones you personally agree with. After all, you can’t pick winners either. Nor can I. So we should abstain from pretending. All of us.
Irrelevant. Try living in the real world for a change.
BTW, those pensioners worked their whole lives to earn their pensions. That the pensions are financed by a pyramid scheme is not their fault.
Then those pensioners should collect their pensions from those they worked their whole lives for. Which was most certainly not the kids who weren’t even born back then.
Again, once you start down the rabbit hole of “But it’s OK for government to rob some people, as long as its someone else, and for the purpose of handing the loot to me and my friends…” you’re done with regardless. Just another clueless casualty reduced to nothing more than cheering for one Dear Leader or the next. Picking between Hope and Change and Making Hope and Change Great Again and Restoring Hope and Change and Bolivarian Revolutions.
Check this out: link to spandrell.com
Much better aligned with reality than libertarian fantasizing. (trigger warning – not politically correct)
I will not be vacationing in France at any point in the foreseeable future.
The last time I was there in 2018 (staying at friend’s house near Avignon) there was another “wildcat” rail strike that completely ruined our plans to travel by train to Italy.
I’m sure that there are many others that have experienced the same holiday nightmares and won’t be returning anytime soon. And theirs is an economy that depends significantly on tourism. Not winning.
I won’t either
There is still a 10,000 euro fine on my head
We were there last summer. The train stopped on its own due to a power outage. Nothing like being stuck in the middle of nowhere, unable to speak the language, with locals that didn’t even pretend to want to be helpful.
France is like California. A fantastic place, as long as you avoid dealing with officialdom and anything they touch. While their (France’s…) trains are nice, just rent a car (or better yet, as always, a bike). That way, if they do strike and are shut down when you go to return it, o-well, you just get to keep it for a bit longer….
Their chefs don’s seem to strike much, for what it’s worth…