Another doom and gloom France is stuffed report

[HoneySuckleDreams]

Telegraph Report

 

 

[idun]

I don't like big holes when I read things and it looks like this has a big one to start with!

To demonstrate the point, she shows me a payslip that details a bewildering

array of different charges. I count at least 12 before (for reasons of

confidentiality) she pulls it away, including something called a

“generalised social contribution” – a relatively recent addition to help

deal with the deficit – and a mysteriously labelled “contribution to social

autonomy and solidarity”. Other charges include pensions, health care,

family allowance, workplace accidents, training and so on. She shrugs her

shoulders in classically Gallic fashion: “I don’t know what they are all

for. It’s just a time-wasting expense as far as I’m concerned.

As with all payslips the amount one earns is right at the top and that would be the only confidential thing on a pay slip. I personally cannot think of anything else that should not be seen, unless it is weird expenses, but frankly most of them are included in the sum and one has to pay cotisations on them, these days. The rest of the payments are based on said earnings, so one will see the plafond and the actual amount throughout the pay slip; AND the CSG etc have been around for years and years now, early 90's actually as far as I can remember, so recent, it is NOT!

[Benjamin]

I don't think the article is saying that all of the charges are recent: your quote says only one, generalised social contribution,is relatively recent.

I remember getting my first French payslip (yes, I have worked in France) and seeing a bewildering list of deductions. I gave it to a young French man I knew and he showed it to his mates.Between all of them they could identify and explain about half of them. They didn't have a clue about the rest.

And, if you're going to get all ruffled about a Torygraph report knocking the French, then I feel all is lost. [:@]

 

[idun]

My feathers are ruffled as there will be enough posters on here who have never seen a french pay slip and that is one bit that they should not have got wrong, IF they actually saw one. The rest I didn't pay too much attention to, as actually France is not a poor country or one that I believe will really let itself drop into a real mire. They just need rid of Hollande and a bit of common sense.

Also I hear too much blah blah about rip off Britain, but as far as I am concerned the french win, as they excel in being sneaky.

And you are right, decoding french payslips is a nightmare.

[YCCMB]

I may have posted this before, but there's an excellent little glossary to help decode at least what all the C**p stands for, and after that it;s all a question of googling again to find out what they mean....

http://glossairedusocial.fr/

If I make it clickable it'll just come up as gobbledygook

[NormanH]

From the same newspaper yesterday:

The dire figures for the UK came on the day that the European authorities

released their own regional figures. The eurozone’s deficit fell from 3.6pc

of GDP in 2012 to 2.9pc in 2013; for the EU as a whole, the deficit improved

from 4.2pc of GDP to 3.2pc. In both cases, these numbers put the UK – which

came in on a deficit of 5.8pc of GDP on these figures – to shame. We were

beaten by – among others – Luxembourg, Germany, Estonia, Denmark, Latvia,

Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Ireland , Croatia, Cyprus, Portugal,

France and Poland.

As to the national debt, on the Eurostat definition, it rose from 89.0pc of

GDP in 2012 to 90.9pc in 2013 in the eurozone and from 83.5pc to 85.4pc for

the EU as a whole. Britain’s national debt hit 87.2pc of GDP on these

figures, worse than the EU average and rising at a faster rate.

Britain is doing better than the eurozone, including Germany, on most metrics.

But not on the public finances, where we have a major problem.

[woolybanana]

Perhaps if UK cut the crazy amounts it spends on housin g benefit to private landlords.

[Pickles]

[quote user="woolybanana"]Perhaps if UK cut the crazy amounts it spends on housin g benefit to private landlords.[/quote]

Errr ... the Local Housing Allowance is now set at the 30th percentile of the rents for the appropriate category of accommodation - ie the level of rent where around 3 in 10 properties are let at or below LHA. What's crazy about that?

[woolybanana]

The basic rents were far too high in the first place.

[Pickles]

[quote user="woolybanana"]The basic rents were far too high in the first place.[/quote]

Outside of the South-East? I have to disagree. Seriously.

There are two markets for housing in the UK: the South-East and everywhere else (and it's true for both purchases and rentals). The two areas are pretty much disconnected. In many areas, real-world long-term rentals haven't gone up in a long time.

[EuroTrash]

If you set out to create a 'buoyant' housing market then you have to expect to have 'buoyant' rents as well, the one goes with the other.

[woolybanana]

buoyant market when you have big majority of buyers, not renters. present market is bad and sad. ownership is what is needed.

[Pickles]

[quote user="woolybanana"]buoyant market when you have big majority of buyers, not renters. present market is bad and sad. ownership is what is needed.[/quote]

But who's going to finance this?

And Germany, for example, does quite well with a large private rented sector.

[mint]

[quote user="Pickles"][quote user="woolybanana"]Perhaps if UK cut the crazy amounts it spends on housin g benefit to private landlords.[/quote]

Errr ... the Local Housing Allowance is now set at the 30th percentile of the rents for the appropriate category of accommodation - ie the level of rent where around 3 in 10 properties are let at or below LHA. What's crazy about that?

[/quote]

Plus I think it's crazy when vast amounts of people's money are tied up in their property, leaving them less to spend on other essentials.

You get the anomaly of, for example, armies of elderly people living in houses worth hundreds of thousands and unable to heat their houses properly or pay for repair and maintenance.

Then, there are young parents, working over-time, paying for childcare and struggling to pay mortgages and house maintenance like the previous group above.

A rented sector has its place.  Possibly a mix of private and public houses for rent with contracts fair to landlords and tenants but this thing we have in the UK about being a house-owning democracy (echoes of Thatcher, anyone?) is nothing short of self delusion.

[Frederick]

Mint wrote :

You get the anomaly of, for example, armies of elderly people living in houses worth hundreds of thousands and unable to heat their houses properly or pay for repair and maintenance.

They can always do what a lot of French elderly do. Come to a private arrangement with someone who they know who pays them a monthly sum This is seen as an over their pension "Top up " to help them to live well ...And to be there to visit and help out so they can stay in the home when they get frail . All on the understanding a will is made and they get the house when then its pop the clogs time ..

[EuroTrash]

One way or another, people get separated from their money, it's just a matter of how the economists decide to do it. In France housing is dead cheap and people pay through the nose for social security and consequently high prices because of business overheads through employing staff etc etc. In the UK social security costs peanuts and house prices are sky high. I guess it finds its own level - they can keep squeezing (house prices in the UK, contributions and business taxes in France) until too many people can't make ends meet, then it has to level out.

[mint]

[quote user="Frederick"]Mint wrote :

You get the anomaly of, for example, armies of elderly people living in houses worth hundreds of thousands and unable to heat their houses properly or pay for repair and maintenance.

They can always do what a lot of French elderly do. Come to a private arrangement with someone who they know who pays them a monthly sum This is seen as an over their pension "Top up " to help them to live well ...And to be there to visit and help out so they can stay in the home when they get frail . All on the understanding a will is made and they get the house when then its pop the clogs time ..[/quote]

Well, Frederick, we do have equity release schemes in the UK.

But, of course, the heirs don't like it as it may mean nothing left for them eventually[;-)]

There are also many elderly who seem to think it's their duty to leave "something for the children".  They'd rather die of hypothermia than put on the heating or of malnutrition rather than spend money on nourishing food!

You know full well that that is true for some of the people that you volunteer to take to hospital appointments?

[NormanH]

There are some who expect the taxpayer to pay for their care so that they can leave their wealth to their children.

And with this Government it is going to be made easier...

[EuroTrash]

"There are some who expect the taxpayer to pay for their care so that they can leave their wealth to their children. "

Of course, the argument is that it makes a nonsense of trying to save up for your old age, because when you get there you see people who've spent everything they earned and never saved a penny in their lives getting all their care paid for by the state, and you have to spend all the money you've maybe scrimped and saved and gone without in order to put aside, on exactly the same services that the other lot are getting for free.

Am I right or wrong in thinking that unlike in France, there is no 'duty of care', the UK doesn't expect the children to pay for their parents' care if the parents aren't able to pay for it out of their own estate?

[mint]

Not only are they not expected to pay, ET, I have heard of people hiding their parents' money for them so that nobody other than the state picks up the bill.................gggrrrr.........

[idun]

That is true ET, the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of France; have a duty of care. But I sincerely hope that it would never be put in place in the UK, 'just like that', it would appal, I would sign anything I could find against it, even though it should be a reasonable thing to do.

For me the whole 'family' issue would need re-hacking and children would automatically inherit when there is money and never be disinherited, unless the circumstances were exceptional in the extreme. As it is, it can all go to the new step parent, (because everyone knows that as soon as you do a will, you'll die (well I know too many people who feel like this)). So wills aren't made and the kids are not covered, especially in second, or third marriages etc.

So for me that someone in the UK has no money, and their children have doesn't mean that they should have to have any obligation to 'help'.

Have the family laws covering many things and being 'complete' sort of makes sense to me.

[mint]

I agree, id, any payment by the children should be voluntary.

However, I don't agree with this hiding of money to make the parents appear penniless.  I have actually seen this happen, in fact, boasted about.

[vivienz]

It's getting a lot harder for children to 'hide' their parents money when there are care fees to be paid as local authorities are far more clued up on this than they used to be. If the local authority believes that a person asking for financial assistance with their care fees has somehow deliberately deprived themselves of their assets, i.e. given them away or hidden them with the express purpose of avoiding paying for care fees, they will pursue and carry out what is almost a forensic accounting exercise to investigate what has gone where. I don't see this easing off any time in the future, either, with the ever increasing number of elderly needing care and help in paying for it.

[mint]

Vivienz, I am relieved to hear that.

The law may be unfair and you may indeed disagree with it but I don't think lying and cheating is the way round it.

If everybody contributes what they can, then the burden will be lightened for everyone else, don't you think?

[EuroTrash]

So boozing and smoking it away and going on expensive cruises to 'spend the children's inheritance' makes perfect sense if the kids are never going to inherit in any case.

However, the French system does at least give an incentive to put a bit aside if you want to help your kids.