Fascinating analysis, being on other side of planet I naturally assumed it was just a beef about raising the retirement age in order to restrain the growth in unfunded public pension debt - that's why I thought it so ironic that young folks were out on the streets - after all, they will have to foot the bill for this generation of retirees in due course through higher taxes. Your point towards the end:

They estimate that it will mechanically increase the effective retirement age for a large number of employees, particularly those having suffered a broken career due to periods of unemployment, to a much higher age bracket of 65 to 67 years, thus putting off for a further three to four years the age at which young people will have room to enter the work market.

implies that the workforce is a static size and that younger workers are waiting for older folks to retire so they can take their jobs. This doesn't make much sense to me given the obvious productivity gains technology does and will no doubt continue to deliver, as well as the innovations it will drive and the knock on impacts this will have to tradition ideas of employment.

Perhaps Sarkozy just thinks these measures need to be legislated NOW rather than in 20 years. He is duly elected to deliver good government and so should be permitted to do so until he is voted out, don't you think?

Dear Mr Crisp,
Thanks for that up close and personal view of the situation. Surely the socialist party will get in next time..
For me it's simply a matter of there being a minimum standard of living, welfare and infrastructure and its being maintained via increased taxes from the top down. The insane situation we have around the world--obscene wealth complemented by obscene poverty--has to come to an end. Of course what maintains this status quo is those in between these two extremes, who buy into the capitalist ideology and derive their self-worth from what they see as their relative "success".
A better idea would of course be to impose a wealth cap of say a million dollars a head (plus some assets). After that point people would have to derive satisfaction and fulfilment otherwise than in accumulating superfluous wealth and gloating at those less well off.
Going cold turkey like this will never get up though, so I say just keep hitting the wealthy to maintain that minimum standard---mind that I don't say people who don't contribute should enjoy the lap of luxury, just a minimum standard, including pensioners.
Much as this is shocking to the fascists, capitalists and their hangers on, it's coming sooner or later. The benighted masses have to wake up one day...maybe as the middle classes retreat back towards the poverty line...

*A better idea would of course be to impose a wealth cap of say a million dollars a head (plus some assets).*

So Squeers, your romantic notion would mean that we limit those few
creative, innovative individuals, who create new industries, new
wealth, new jobs. John Deere would have remained a backyard
business. Hewlett Packard the same, so be it for Microsoft and all
the rest.

Somebody once claimed that socialism works great, until the money
runs out. So true!

If those innovators never create those ideas, never create that
wealth in the first place, we can all be poor together and you would
seemingly be much happier. How sad.

The heck with new industries, Yabby...

>>*A better idea would of course be to impose a wealth cap of say a million dollars a head (plus some assets).* So Squeers,your romantic notion would mean that we limit those few creative, innovative individuals, who create new industries, new wealth, new jobs.<<

A million bucks won't even go halfway to a new helicopter, let alone the downpayment on my next Gulfstream.

Where do these people get such strange ideas from?

Interesting article.

The fact is that the spending commitments of the welfare state are unsustainable and all of the western world will be faced with these kinds of choices over the coming decades.

Of course the socialists dream that they can bring greater prosperity by taking from the rich and giving to the poor. But their economic illiteracy never seems to consider whether their own policies produce outcomes that are worse than the original problem even considered from their own standpoint.

For example:
"[The socialist party] has detailed an alternative reform project to finance the maintenance of the existing 60 year retirement age limit through fiscal reform [translation: taking more of other people's private property] including increased contributions from the financial sector, taxes on bonuses and stock options and revenue on capital"

So in other words, the socialists' original complaint against the current reform is that it would cause higher unemployment (since they regard employment as intrinsically exploitative you'd wonder how they could consistently be in favour of it).

But it never seems to occur to them to wonder whether taking more of other people's capital might itself have the effect of causing higher unemployment. They think that capital is just a gratuitous fountain that they can drain indefinitely without any corresponding downside for the people who, in their own view, are most dependent on it.

Dear Yabby,
obviously the wealth cap wouldn't work unless it was agreed upon internationally because people would desert in droves. Obviously too there would need to be a great deal of thinking it through, but then I think it would begin to address a great many of the world's problems, number one being the sustainability issue. The cap would have to apply to everyone, without exception. Business would perhaps then be disincentivised to go corporate and global in search of new markets and greater profits to appease an insatiable dynamic. I don't believe it would disincentivise individuals; the creative types you mention are surely not driven only by the prospect of vast wealth? One could still lead a very nice existence with a million bucks in the bank, relatively speaking; and surely there would be as much satisfaction to be had in husbanding one's wealth as in abusing it?
A million bucks still represents a considerable challenge (I've barely begun) and the competitive types could have a race to the top. Having attained your million you could reduce your working hours and pursue other interests, thus creating a vacancy for someone else, or be creative in business just for the hell of it. There are plenty who would do just that and feel damn good about themselves! Of course the range of commodities would diminish and we'd have to find other ways to amuse ourselves than consumption for its own sake, but it would make for a better, more humane and more conscionable world.