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France and Britain are in thrall to pensioners
Financial Times ^ | Sep 13 2025 | John Burn-Murdoch

Posted on 09/14/2025 4:45:31 AM PDT by fluorescence

What do Theresa May and Andy Burnham have in common with Michel Barnier, François Bayrou and Emmanuel Macron? All five were admirably honest with the public about the trade-offs inherent in financing an ageing society, and all five were duly punished for their candour by the public, the press, opposition politicians or all three.

The past two decades of French and British politics are a graveyard of proposals to slow the upward ratchet of spending on growing elderly populations. The same two decades of French and British fiscal balances show the results. Public disbursements to older citizens have climbed higher and faster than in peer countries, and debt-to-GDP ratios have followed suit.

[snip]

Not only do French pensioners receive larger cheques from the government than their counterparts anywhere else in the west, they start getting them several years earlier. The result is a situation in which over-65s now have higher average incomes than the working age population — unique both internationally and in France’s own history.

Even the rumour of threats to this arrangement is met with mass public outrage and opposition from left and right. Macron’s proposal to nudge the retirement age up towards the lower end of western norms was met with nationwide protests. Barnier’s suggestion of a six-month delay to the latest scheduled increase in pension payments led to the first of two collapsed governments in the past 10 months. Bayrou’s refusal to scrap the same pledges brought about the second.

In a particularly stunning statistic highlighted by French political analyst François Valentin, pensions play such an outsized role in the country’s public finances that they accounted for one-sixth of the ministry of defence budget last year, and without them France would not meet Nato’s 2 per cent target for military spending.

(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society
KEYWORDS: euthanasia; france; multiplenicks; pensions; randpaulsucks; tariffs; theyearnedit; trollfarm; uk; unitedkingdom
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To: 9YearLurker
--- "We need unions out of governments—totally. And yes, they probably need their pensions cut down to size—in contrast to the diminishing crumbs of social security."

Our history has shown us revolutions -- these United States against Great Britain, as France against its aristocracy, and many more than these -- and those who sit on "thrones" rarely champion such.

While I have no idea what the form of the next "storming of the Bastille" will be, we have seen only in the last days the Parliament burned in Nepal. Whether through one avenue or another, the trenchant observation of Herb Stein tells "that which cannot continue, will stop."

The gathering clouds of debt, as in California, predict some form of collapse. How that will manifest is not within my field of vision. But THAT IT WILL MANIFEST is, and is assured.

Stay safe and sensible, and when the stampede runs in a direction, don't follow easily. Or at all.

21 posted on 09/14/2025 7:35:20 AM PDT by Worldtraveler once upon a time (Degrow government)
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To: fluorescence

For so long, mothers and fathers would have many children and the many children would help their mother and father as they aged.

Then government intervened with “retirement” systems. Birthrates dropped.

Well, you know the rest of the story.


22 posted on 09/14/2025 7:41:37 AM PDT by Racketeer
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To: Worldtraveler once upon a time

They’re squeezing the masses more, which reflects their greater confidence of control. But I think the vise will have to be tightened quite a bit further first.


23 posted on 09/14/2025 7:58:06 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: Worldtraveler once upon a time

Well of course in all socialist systems you still have an elite that lives in opulent luxury.

But the selling point for the dumb masses that put this elite in power, usually permanently, is this idea of “fairness and equality.”

In only a very few cases do you not get this elite. For all his faults, Castro lived a humble life (a rare exception) and he was born into wealth (father was a sugar cain plantation owner): https://indecisivetraveler.com/fidel-castro-house

Most are the Bernie Sanders socialists. They have multi million dollar mansions and fly around in private jets, while lecturing others about equality and how they need to live in smaller homes, drive smaller cars, and set their thermostats down, sweating in the summer and freezing in the winter, to “save the planet.”

These humans are a grease stain on humanity. I can say that with certainty because most are hypocrites (they love money for themselves), and most know what they are selling to the public is total dysfunctional nonsense.

In many cases they hurt a lot of people along the way. Even in the US, think of how many kids have been sterilized or mutilated because of this LGBTQIA junk they pushed when that “sounded good.” Think of how many people had their lives messed up with Covid through forcing their business to close, denying them in some cases health or proper mental health care, vaccine mandates and firing people that didn’t comply... Yes, these are nasty people.

They essentially pervert a noble, even Biblical concept of “fairness” and use human greed (free stuff others pay for) and sloth (people that live from the government) to promote themselves into the most senior positions of government.

These are nasty people that see themselves as superior because they exploit contemporary fads (example climate change or covid) and social ills to their own personal advantage but almost never improve the conditions for the broad population. In fact, they only worsen things.

Want to see a city with horrible drug problems, go to any city in the US that has had a liberal minded policy regards drugs. Want to see real poverty, go to a city with a liberal policy addressing poverty. Want to see really bad home and apartment shortages, go see a city with liberal policies addressing this. Want to see violence, go to a city with liberal policies regards crime and gun control. Want to see crappy schools, go to a city with a real liberal education board. It is almost as if anything that is touched by the modern liberal turns to $#!t.

That is because when someone like James Comey brings his philosophy into the FBI, it’s not based on results, the logical distribution of resources among the various threats, hiring and promoting the most qualified people... And what will that inevitably do to the organization long term?

Liberals have a philosophy and view of how they think the our world the universe, ought to be, and they do not care about how things really are.

Through sheer willpower and repeating things enough, by extinguishing all dissent, you can make the world how you wish it were, which follows the modern philosophy of people like Nietzsche (so goes their reasoning). In fact, if you point out how their “world view” might might be flawed in some way, you will be attacked. You dare question their dogma!


24 posted on 09/14/2025 11:41:07 AM PDT by Red6
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To: bert

I agree, France is toast. I think the Brits are too, but France is definitely gone.


25 posted on 09/14/2025 11:42:52 AM PDT by DesertRhino (When men on the chessboard, get up and tell you where to go…)
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To: Red6
--- "Through sheer willpower and repeating things enough, by extinguishing all dissent, you can make the world how you wish it were, which follows the modern philosophy of people like Nietzsche (so goes their reasoning)."

If you haven't read C. S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength, it is recommended. It rather mirrors your prose, and conclusion.

That Hideous Strength 1945

A small point about Nietzsche, he puts the entire "God is dead" onto people of the time, and his madman asks hard questions which remained unanswered. The end comes only to "I have come too soon." Soon seems "now" as I react to things.

26 posted on 09/14/2025 12:57:04 PM PDT by Worldtraveler once upon a time (Degrow government)
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To: ClearCase_guy

The subsequent comments to your post mostly prove your observations.


27 posted on 09/14/2025 2:19:47 PM PDT by Jacquerie (ArticleVBlog.com)
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To: fluorescence

Blaming the old people for expecting socialism to do for them what it promised. The problem is that socialism chokes off innovation and removes initiative, and has been doing that since WW2, eroding their economies’ ability to cover the upcoming bulge in the costs curve. The socialist politicians’ mouths wrote checks their asses now can’t cash.


28 posted on 09/14/2025 6:32:55 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (RIP, Charlie. Say hi to Andrew Breitbart. God protect your family. Justice for Charlie Kirk!)
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