Wednesday, June 6, 2012

France Takes Big Step to Solve the Euro Crisis

File under: Did they do this after drinking too much Chardonnay?

France's new Socialist government moved  today to lower the retirement age from 62 to 60 years old for certain workers.

The minimum retirement age went from 60 to 62, and the age to receive a full pension regardless of how many years you pay into the system went from 65 to 67.

New French President Francois Hollande's government presented a draft decree at a Cabinet meeting that reverses the retirement age to 60 for those who enter the workforce at 18 or 19 years old and have contributed long enough to the pension system. The government said the decree, affecting about one in six retiring workers, will be finalized later this month and take effect in November.

This is a highly impressive move since France is, at most, two dominoes away from not being able to raise money on the open markets. The government says the costs, probably underestimated, will be €1.1 billion ($1.37 billion) next year.

Social Affairs Minister Marisol Touraine said the decree is a "choice for justice."

One wonders why Hollande didn't propose starting retirement at birth.

3 comments:

  1. This new French government is utterly baffling. It acts as though the entire history of economics never happened.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, what would you expect from a socialist idiot (or do I repeat myself)? Socialists are mentally ill and simply refuse to accept reality. They think by issuing an order that the laws of economics, and maybe even gravity, can simply be willed away. They live in a delusional fantasy world as fatalist and insane as Jim Jones.

      Delete
  2. They're just trying to find out if the suckers in Germany will bail them out, too. Never give a sucker an even break!

    ReplyDelete