Excellent reasons to hate the wealthy

[Brian Peacock]

And Soros of course.

[Strontium Dog]

But we need to work right up until we die. Otherwise, SOCIALISTM!!!1

The great irony is that people can only retire if they have pensions, and people can only have pensions if they invest money in the sort of private enterprises that a pure socialist state would abolish. People worked to death in the USSR, here they retire at 55.

[pErvinalia]

55? Seriously? I think it's about 63 or 65 here, and they have been trying to put it up to 67 recently. Fucking barbaric. Fifty-five seems reasonable I guess. Gives most people plenty of years and health to enjoy retirement. I'm not convinced that private enterprise alone is the only way to go about providing pensions. Particularly in light of you using as a counterpoint an authoritarian militaristic state that started out its "socialism" experiment largely agrarian.

[rainbow]

I got running water. A couple of the wives run down to the water hole every day.

Wives can be expensive. How many goats did you pay for each one?

[pErvinalia]

[Rum]

But we need to work right up until we die. Otherwise, SOCIALISTM!!!1

The great irony is that people can only retire if they have pensions, and people can only have pensions if they invest money in the sort of private enterprises that a pure socialist state would abolish. People worked to death in the USSR, here they retire at 55.

I'm one of the lucky ones who scraped in with a final salary pension and stopped work at 60. I also worked in the public sector more or less all my life and of course the popular view is that you had a safe job for life and that the jobs were a doddle. I do of course have a different view on that.

The main pressure on pensions is the relentless drive for profit margins, mostly by boards of directors and shareholders. Competition to keep prices low means that the more expensive parts of businesses are stripped out first - and pensions - old traditional style ones anyway - are by those standards expensive.

If a government made it mandatory for companies of a certain size to provide decent pension schemes they would all be on a level playing field - but the economic shift to the right in most developed countries isn't going to see that happening any time soon.

As an aside - I had little choice other than to retire because of the introduction of austerity. I got an excellent deal and I can't complain, however I enjoyed my job enormously and in different circumstances I would have been happy to stay on a few more years. Not everyone does work they hate and want to be out of asap.

[Scot Dutchy]

Waltons?

[Scot Dutchy]

That Rum is in Britain.

[Svartalf]

As an aside - I had little choice other than to retire because of the introduction of austerity. I got an excellent deal and I can't complain, however I enjoyed my job enormously and in different circumstances I would have been happy to stay on a few more years. Not everyone does work they hate and want to be out of asap.

well, I was one of those job hating folk, and I have good reason, not only was the work soul killing drudgery, but I got harassed by the higher ups and eventually broken, not that the unions were any good in helping me defend myself. So I got put on invalid retirement around age 45, after some 18 years of service... can't even really enjoy my retirement because I have to count every penny, so enjoying Paris' rich artistic life is completely out of the picture.

[rainbow]

As an aside - I had little choice other than to retire because of the introduction of austerity. I got an excellent deal and I can't complain, however I enjoyed my job enormously and in different circumstances I would have been happy to stay on a few more years. Not everyone does work they hate and want to be out of asap.

well, I was one of those job hating folk, and I have good reason, not only was the work soul killing drudgery, but I got harassed by the higher ups and eventually broken, not that the unions were any good in helping me defend myself. So I got put on invalid retirement around age 45, after some 18 years of service... can't even really enjoy my retirement because I have to count every penny, so enjoying Paris' rich artistic life is completely out of the picture.

Become a toy-boy for some rich old lady.

[Svartalf]

I'm too old, for my age bracket, the cougars are Egyptian mummies.

[Rum]

As an aside - I had little choice other than to retire because of the introduction of austerity. I got an excellent deal and I can't complain, however I enjoyed my job enormously and in different circumstances I would have been happy to stay on a few more years. Not everyone does work they hate and want to be out of asap.

well, I was one of those job hating folk, and I have good reason, not only was the work soul killing drudgery, but I got harassed by the higher ups and eventually broken, not that the unions were any good in helping me defend myself. So I got put on invalid retirement around age 45, after some 18 years of service... can't even really enjoy my retirement because I have to count every penny, so enjoying Paris' rich artistic life is completely out of the picture.

Long term invalidity pensions - especially for mental health stuff, excluding things like schizophrenia etc is exceedingly hard to get here now. Successive 'money saving' governments have stripped our benefits system to the bone. France does spend a lot more on public services as I understand it.

[Svartalf]

well, macron is going to do a thatcher on our social security, if he's not stopped... he's started with rent paying aids, but given the devastated state of our health system, I have little doubt that destroying health insurance is next, soon, only the wealthy and the uncommonly luckywill be able to afford health. Me, I know they cast me away the soft way because they knew they were at fault, and that I might take them to the cleaners if I went through courts... my problem, of course, would have been gathering acceptable evidence, but that's another matter.

[rainbow]

I'm too old, for my age bracket, the cougars are Egyptian mummies.

[Scot Dutchy]

I think you are too pessimistic Svarty. Your social benefits were far too high. Pension at 55. Come on.
What evidence do you have to prove that Macron is going to scrap the health care system? All systems need to be updated. That is the trouble in the UK. We updated ours in 2006. It would have been a worse mess than the UK.