Europe
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in !yurop@lemm.ee. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media. Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org
view the rest of the comments
https://www.worldeconomics.com/Thoughts/Frances-Retirement-Risk.aspx?ThoughtID=274
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yvq1jy2xgo
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240620-how-france-s-far-right-changed-the-debate-on-immigration
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/09/28/french-public-debt-hits-new-high_6727571_19.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_France
https://www.politico.eu/article/markets-hold-their-breaths-as-frances-pensions-debate-faces-make-or-break-moment/
I mean, given that combination of factors, something has to give at some point. Declining fertility means that there are fewer workers entering the workforce to support retirees. People angry about immigration make it hard to fill in gaps in the workforce created via low fertility via immigration. Already-high taxation means that it's hard to raise taxes to fill revenue shortfalls and keep the French economy competitive. The debt being already high from COVID-19-related costs limits how much further the can can be kicked down the road by running a higher deficit. Opposition to a higher retirement age means that one can't cover the costs by decreasing the amount of time that people spend in retirement relative to in the workforce.
You can, to some degree, trade off one of those for another, but if all of them are an issue at the same time, there's limited room for the government to act. And a lot of those start creating positive feedback situations if one starts to get near trouble, which one doesn't want.
Worker productivity has dramatically increased since WWII. A single worker is able to produce a lot more food, healthcare, and so on than they did in 1950. Of course there's the common problem that a lot of the result of that productivity has been captured by the top. Probably less so in France than some other countries but still. If you look at the real economy, I think you might find that we are able to produce the basics needed with a small proportion of our working population. We already support a much higher retiree/worker ratio than we did a few decades ago and I think that's the reason. There are many workers in unproductive sectors that didn't exist before the financialization phase who could be doing more useful work too. All the computing and automation we build could be used to increase productivity in relevant sectors too, instead of maximizing the time other workers spend glued to their phones.
The living standard is also much higher now. More people expecting more help from the state with more complex problems. Let's for example take a premature baby that would have died 20 years ago can now be saved and can live a long life, but needing 24x7 care by medical staff. Or the fact that our parents and grandparents live longer, but care and medicine cost a lot more.
I'm not disputing that the top takes too much, but the standard of care, medicine and other things cost too.
I agree, I can't imagine the economic bonus gained by productivity is big enough to pay the medical costs at the end of ones life. Back in 1950 people had just a few years of life left when they stopped working. Now a lot of people have 10, maybe 20, healthy years left and another 10 in ill-health. There clearly is either a lot of money for a few years or a little money for a lot of years. Although i also think the wealthy and the top, now get a bigger piece of the pie now.