Originally posted by John W Booth I'm with you, Eladar. Each nation state and/or civilization beyond our own shores needs an analytical adjective to sum up their relative inadequacy succinctly.
You're FMF pretending to be a Sam the Sham clone? You have such a strange sense of humour.
Originally posted by darvlay Forgive me if this topic has already been discussed as I just returned from a European vacation. Watching the news I saw a lot of different footage of the protests in France regarding the change in retirement age. I found this coverage humorous for a couple reasons:
1. The raising of the retirement age from 60 to 62. Am I out of my head to think that ...[text shortened]... nothing better to do or are their youth really that concerned about the retirement age?
Forgive me if this topic has already been discussed as I just returned from a European vacation. Watching the news I saw a lot of different footage of the protests in France regarding the change in retirement age. I found this coverage humorous for a couple reasons:
1. The raising of the retirement age from 60 to 62. Am I out of my head to think that this is hardly a big deal at all? I am shocked that people feel they have the right to retire at such an early age.
The question should be why does the retirement age need to increase in the first place?
2. I saw footage of a lot of angry protestors with balaclavas and what not trying to provoke police, etc. All the protestors I saw acting this way couldn't have been older than 25 and didn't look like they had ever held a meaningful job in their lives. Is this a case of naive and restless youth in France with nothing better to do or are their youth really that concerned about the retirement age?
It was way more than just young punks with buttons on their shirts. Why should the average working man be forced to work 2 extra years because a bunch of bankers gambled and lost?
It's class warfare all over, again. It will only get worse in the coming years. California anyone?
Originally posted by darvlay Forgive me if this topic has already been discussed as I just returned from a European vacation. Watching the news I saw a lot of different footage of the protests in France regarding the change in retirement age. I found this coverage humorous for a couple reasons:
1. The raising of the retirement age from 60 to 62. Am I out of my head to think that ...[text shortened]... nothing better to do or are their youth really that concerned about the retirement age?
this may have been offered already but here goes:
In a country with high unemployment, one of the few ways that jobs become available is through retirement. If a whole group of workers must retire two years later, that backs up the people trying to enter the job market.
It has been suggested that one way to quickly end unemployement in the US is to have a six month window where workers from 62-65 can retire at full benefits including medicaire. this would open up millions of jobs quickly. There would be little cost to the government because the new workers currently on unemployment would come of the dole and be paying the unemployment taxes of the newly retired.
the employers would benefit because newer workers would be working for lower wages. Everyone wins.
28 Oct '10 21:36
Youth and Protest
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