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Why strike? And who?


Jon02
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[quote user="Braco"]A black hole in your argument, methinks. An internal IOU - great. If they had invested wisely say Confederate War Bonds we would have something pretty to hang on our walls.[/quote]

Do you have a problem with double entry book-keeping or just a predilection for Civil war Memorabilia.[:)]

The UK Gov Actuarial Services & the Monthly Report of the Surplus would seem to contradict your attempt at misinformation.

Idem Tony!

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I think its going to be a bit difficult to see how things will pan out till the laws are actually written up and added to the code. I see the new addition (2010-1215) about union votes for strikes has just come in (Legifrance website) as has the new rules/laws for Banking and Financial Institutions.

I still don't think that the unions have worked out the best way to strike and/or demonstrate i.e. where and when. This week they had a massive demonstration at Toulouse blocking all access to the airport. This was the day that the Chinese came to visit, see the Airbus production line and sign the contract for the first 100 aircraft of a 500 aircraft order. Now personally if I was spending that amount of money I might consider going to Boeing if I saw that lot. China are the second biggest aircraft buyer in the world and want to buy 2000 more aircraft over the next 15 years, if I were Airbus Industries I would want a big a bite of that contract as I can. We need these jobs down here, the order will guarantee work for those already there plus create further jobs both directly and indirectly and not just in France. Not, in my opinion the brightest of moves. I just wonder if this is all because Sarkozy wants to do 'a Thatcher reform' on the unions and the unions are retaliating but like Scargill at the price of jobs for their members.

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I think, Q, Sarkozy is motivated by two marginally connected dynamics.

Firstly, he wishes to please the Far Right and more critically, their big capital supporters.

Secondly, he realises he stands about as much chance at a second term as I do of flying Concorde backwards across the Atlantic blindfold: thus he does seek, to continue your Thatcher analogy, his equivalent of the Channel Tunnel or the Falklands War.

Let's face it, whichever politicians succeeds, in France, at renegotiating the broad terms of reference of the Social Contract, will finish up in the record books for all time.

And time is the key here: Sarkozy now lacks sufficient time to undertake these reforms in a more balanced, sensible and gradual way.

As always with changes which are in effect Paradigm Shifts (In terms of final outcomes and realities), the usual -sane! - approach is a series of Step Changes: not a Quantum Leap!

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[quote user="pachapapa"]

Black Holes????    Actuarily the UK State Pension Scheme enjoys a surplus greater than the percentage margin required under the guidelines statutorily established.  Unlike the Frogs daft scheme.[:)]

Each year there is a surplus of the order of £2 billion. The NIF had a surplus of over £34 billion as at 2005/06, £38 billion in 2006/7 and the Government Actuary's Department forecasts that this surplus will grow to over £114.7 billion by 2012.[3]

The surplus is loaned to the government through the Debt Management Office which is part of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt in Call Notice Deposits (previously invested in gilt-edged securities) and interest on these invested monies is paid to the NIF - £1.3 billion in the 2007/08 year.

A black hole in your argument, methinks.[:D][:D][:D]

[/quote]

This is I fear another one of those concepts to be filed under the "Nice Idea" section.

It would have value, and consequence, if Government had have invested the funds income in non-government securities and other trustee class non-Sterling investments.

As things are, it is simply an internal bureaucratic paperchase!

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[quote user="Chancer"]

I am pretty sure that under the terms of this reform no-one is looking at working any more than two additional years. I would like this confirmed.

[/quote]

Chancer I agree with you. The only 'information' that I've seen to the contrary is this post (Nogues http://midipyrenees.angloinfo.com/forum/topic.asp?page=4&topic_id=14607) from AI Midi-P. And I suspect that she’s ill informed or not doing an apples with apples comparison. But one would hardly say that on AI.

It also occurs to me that if your assumption was wildly wrong someone with a better chance of knowing the detail might have intervened by now. Frenchie?

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[quote user="Jon02"][quote user="Chancer"]

I am pretty sure that under the terms of this reform no-one is looking at working any more than two additional years. I would like this confirmed.

[/quote]

Chancer I agree with you. The only 'information' that I've seen to the contrary is this post (Nogues http://midipyrenees.angloinfo.com/forum/topic.asp?page=4&topic_id=14607) from AI Midi-P. And I suspect that she’s ill informed or not doing an apples with apples comparison. But one would hardly say that on AI.

It also occurs to me that if your assumption was wildly wrong someone with a better chance of knowing the detail might have intervened by now. Frenchie?
[/quote]

Forgetting the pénibilité exceptions, cheminot etc, the minimum legal age for retirement is increased from 60 to 62; however note that the age "sans décote, taux plein" ie a full pension without reduction for retiring early will be progressively pushed from 65 to 67. The idea in this thread that the age for full pension rights was up till now 60 is erroneous. Yes up till "now" retirement at 60 with a reduced pension was possible.

Come in frenchie![:)]

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[quote user="pachapapa"][quote user="Jon02"][quote user="Chancer"]

I am pretty sure that under the terms of this reform no-one is looking at working any more than two additional years. I would like this confirmed.

[/quote]

Chancer I agree with you. The only 'information' that I've seen to the contrary is this post (Nogues http://midipyrenees.angloinfo.com/forum/topic.asp?page=4&topic_id=14607) from AI Midi-P. And I suspect that she’s ill informed or not doing an apples with apples comparison. But one would hardly say that on AI.

It also occurs to me that if your assumption was wildly wrong someone with a better chance of knowing the detail might have intervened by now. Frenchie?

[/quote]

Forgetting the pénibilité exceptions, cheminot etc, the minimum legal age for retirement is increased from 60 to 62; however note that the age "sans décote, taux plein" ie a full pension without reduction for retiring early will be progressively pushed from 65 to 67. The idea in this thread that the age for full pension rights was up till now 60 is erroneous. Yes up till "now" retirement at 60 with a reduced pension was possible.

Come in frenchie![:)]

[/quote]

Thank God that at least one person understands the system being commented on [:)]

The rest of the comments are from misinformed ( or Murdoch dis informed) lackeys.

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Thank God that at least one person understands the system being commented on Smile [:)]
The rest of the comments are from misinformed ( or Murdoch dis informed) lackeys.

That will be me then Norman except for I havnt read or heard the UK media for a few years.

I have posted several questions on this, your thread  (I apologise Norman, this is not the thread you started) in the hope of being better informed, I thought that was what forums were for, if there has been misinformation posted then I would have expected you of all people to have corrected it and/or to have replied to the questions that I and others have posed.

But then I suppose we would no longer be misinformed would we?

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[quote user="pachapapa"]

Forgetting the pénibilité exceptions, cheminot etc, the minimum legal age for retirement is increased from 60 to 62; however note that the age "sans décote, taux plein" ie a full pension without reduction for retiring early will be progressively pushed from 65 to 67. The idea in this thread that the age for full pension rights was up till now 60 is erroneous. Yes up till "now" retirement at 60 with a reduced pension was possible.

Come in frenchie![:)]

[/quote]

But my original question was exactly about the exceptions! I also wonder what the total number of workers in the exception regimes is. In the brave new post reform world what is (if it exists) the taper process for someone who works at the Paris Opera and, until this whole can of worms got opened up, expected to retire (on some healthy final salary percentage) at the ripe old age of 50. Have they seen their retirement horizon move to 50 plus two years? To 62? to 67?

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Reading the French Sunday papers it seems the numbers demonstrating over the weekend have dropped now the law has passed although the CGT are claiming a 30 odd times more people than the French government says went on the demonstrations this weekend. Somebody clearly has the numbers wrong, I mean the government claim 375,000 and the CGT 1.2M that is a very big and very noticeable difference. Anyway the CGT say they will now move on and continue to strike and demonstrate about unemployment in general, youth unemployment, older unemployment and working conditions. Some papers claim that the CGT is now falling apart as some unions (CFTC, UNSA and CFE-CGC) are saying their members will strike or demonstrate at the end of November and then call it a day seeking dialog with the government instead.

What also interests me is the readers comments in many of the papers, for the unions and the press to say over 70% of the people are in support can't be right especially if you take time to read the comments from papers covering all the political spectrum's. To think people have a go at the Daily Mail for getting things wrong. [;-)]

As for Sarkozy being thrown out at the next election, well lets wait and see, if a week in politics is a long time then two years must be a life time. PM's and presidents have rebounded back from similar situations to win another term in office on more than one occasion.

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[quote user="NormanH"][quote user="pachapapa"][quote user="Jon02"][quote user="Chancer"]

I am pretty sure that under the terms of this reform no-one is looking at working any more than two additional years. I would like this confirmed.

[/quote]

Chancer I agree with you. The only 'information' that I've seen to the contrary is this post (Nogues http://midipyrenees.angloinfo.com/forum/topic.asp?page=4&topic_id=14607) from AI Midi-P. And I suspect that she’s ill informed or not doing an apples with apples comparison. But one would hardly say that on AI.

It also occurs to me that if your assumption was wildly wrong someone with a better chance of knowing the detail might have intervened by now. Frenchie?
[/quote]

Forgetting the pénibilité exceptions, cheminot etc, the minimum legal age for retirement is increased from 60 to 62; however note that the age "sans décote, taux plein" ie a full pension without reduction for retiring early will be progressively pushed from 65 to 67. The idea in this thread that the age for full pension rights was up till now 60 is erroneous. Yes up till "now" retirement at 60 with a reduced pension was possible.

Come in frenchie![:)]

[/quote]
Thank God that at least one person understands the system being commented on [:)]
The rest of the comments are from misinformed ( or Murdoch dis informed) lackeys.
[/quote]

Absolutely.   before, you were entitled to retire at 60 with a reduced pension.( unless you had paid long enough at that age. ) 

Now, under this new law, you'll have to wait until you are 62 for it.

And to get a full pension it was 65; now it is going to be 67.

I am a teacher ,a fonctionnaire, I started at 22 . ( 5 years at Uni.) With the new law, I will have to pay into the system for 42 years , so 64 years of age. Minored by 6 months because I had a child. that makes 63.5. that is when I will retire.

But I started early, most of my collegues will work til 67.

Or maybe they will retire at 65, because, whatever you may think, it is not always a bed of roses to deal with teenagers, and they'll be tired and feeling too old for the job. So less retirement money to be paid...

I have too much school work these days to join in the debate, but I will be back again as soon as I can, because I am highly interested in these matters.

 

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Thank you for that Frenchie. I think that I now have a better understanding of how the reforms impact 'ordinary folk' in both the public and private sector. My question remains though. How do the reforms affect those in the 36 or so special regimes? Do they have a period of adjustment in which to join the real world? Are there really situations in which a 53 year old who was expecting to retire at 55 discovers that he has another 5 or 7 years? And what sort of percentage of the working population are the special regimes in total?

I understand that you're busy but I would value your input as and when you get the chance. Lots of opinions on this forum, rather less actual understanding IMHO.

And I never, ever read the Mail.

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Frenchie wrote:

But I started early, most of my collegues will work til 67.

Or maybe they will retire at 65, because, whatever you may think, it is not always a bed of roses to deal with teenagers, and they'll be tired and feeling too old for the job. So less retirement money to be paid...

Another question that I have, I hope you will be able to answer if you have time Frenchie.

I don't think anyone will disagree with the above, even those that criticise the holidays and working hours.

In the UK loads of people leave the profession for the reasons that you cite and also because of the way the job is changing due to government targets, reporting etc, conversely lots of people join the profession much later in life as a change of carreer and these make a valuable contribution alongside their peers that have never been outside of the education environment or as some would say in the real world [;-)]

It is very rare for me in France to hear of anyone that changes career especially in L'education Nationale, given that your pension terms seem to be on a par with the regime generale if you were to decide to do something else say after 20 years and hence join another caisse de retraite would your pension rights be penalised? Do you have to do a certain number of years before qualifying for anything at all?

To explain it another way if you did 21 years as a teacher and then left the profession and did 21 years in another perhaps in the private sector, ignoring that the second retirement regime might only entitle you to 50 not 75% would you be worse off at the end of it.

My gut feeling is that it must be disadvantageous as if not, why on earth do virtually 100% of teachers stay in the job for life in France? I would love to think that it is for the love of the job or dedication and indeed I do know of several teachers coming up for retirement that I would describe that way but by that age they are in a small minority.

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[quote user="pachapapa"]Black Holes????    Actuarily the UK State Pension Scheme enjoys a surplus greater than the percentage margin required under the guidelines statutorily established.  Unlike the Frogs daft scheme.

Each year there is a surplus of the order of £2 billion. The NIF had a surplus of over £34 billion as at 2005/06, £38 billion in 2006/7...

A black hole in your argument, methinks.[/quote]

I don't think ppp understands the numbers he has quoted.  The "surplus" only means that the contributions received to date exceed the payments made.  That doesn't mean that the liabilities are funded.

If you have an obligation to pay somebody £100 a year for the next 20 years, and this year you receive £105 in contributions, you have a "surplus" of £5 for the year.  But you haven't funded your future obligations.  To do that you would need to have about £1,250 right now, and this assumes that you will earn 5% a year on the invested fund; if you think you will earn less than that, then of course you would need to have even more in the kitty. 

The truth is that the UK's state pension liabilities are not funded, and neither are its liabilities for public-sector employment pensions, which were so generously expanded by the last government.   

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[quote user="allanb"]

The truth is that the UK's state pension liabilities are not funded, and neither are its liabilities for public-sector employment pensions, which were so generously expanded by the last government.   

[/quote]

Absolutely bang on.

And to exacerbate matters, the number of expected retirees will exceed the number of contributors (If present demographics pertain), past 2029/30, by which time 50% of UK population will comprise people over 50 years of age.

Further - and worse -  mortality analysis indicates that average life expectancy will continue to increase: thus creating an increasing demand for geriatric healthcare.

To make matters worse (Could they be worse?[:-))]) government-driven monetary and thereby cost inflation, will mean pension value will need to increase year-on-year, precisely as contributions are reducing.

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[quote user="Gluestick"]undertake these reforms in a more balanced, sensible and gradual way.

As always with changes which are in effect Paradigm Shifts (In terms of final outcomes and realities), the usual -sane! - approach is a series of Step Changes: not a Quantum Leap!


[/quote]Aha!

As a "victim" (like many on here, I suspect) of the raising of the state pensionable age for women, I must concur with you here.  We all knew, having won - at least in theory - equal pay and equal taxation rights with men, that we would have to take the hit on the retirement age which, imo, was only right.  It was made to feel much less onerous because it was a) postponed and b) introduced gradually.  We all knew what was coming and had years to adjust and make provision, if that were necessary.

The problem here, it seems to me, is of expectation.  It's all very well for people (not just on here, I hear it everywhere) to say that "the French" must wake up to the reality of increased life expectancy and an empty public purse.  But to expect people who are about to retire, to suddenly have to slog on for another two years, whilst their grandchildren have no jobs to go to, is surely unreasonable and akin to shoving medication down people's throats against their wills?

A bit more subtlety and a more stealthy, step-by-step approach, as you say, is surely called for here if a solution is to be found?  Plus a convincing plan for increasing employment opportunities, instead of just saying: "work for longer, you lazy g*ts".

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[quote user="allanb"][quote user="pachapapa"]Black Holes????    Actuarily the UK State Pension Scheme enjoys a surplus greater than the percentage margin required under the guidelines statutorily established.  Unlike the Frogs daft scheme.

Each year there is a surplus of the order of £2 billion. The NIF had a surplus of over £34 billion as at 2005/06, £38 billion in 2006/7...

A black hole in your argument, methinks.[/quote]

I don't think ppp understands the numbers he has quoted.  The "surplus" only means that the contributions received to date exceed the payments made.  That doesn't mean that the liabilities are funded.

If you have an obligation to pay somebody £100 a year for the next 20 years, and this year you receive £105 in contributions, you have a "surplus" of £5 for the year.  But you haven't funded your future obligations.  To do that you would need to have about £1,250 right now, and this assumes that you will earn 5% a year on the invested fund; if you think you will earn less than that, then of course you would need to have even more in the kitty. 

The truth is that the UK's state pension liabilities are not funded, and neither are its liabilities for public-sector employment pensions, which were so generously expanded by the last government.   

[/quote]

It was Tonyof Dordognyshire that mentioned  "black holes" not me. But your suggestion that contributions to the UK national pension pot, DO NOT create a vested interest EVER is quite correct.

As to the Net Present Value of a sum of £ 100 per year discounted at 5% for a period of 20 years. Oh Dear! next you'll be threatening me with the IRR of the UK.GOV  NP scheme.[:)]

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Such as allowing people who are autoentrepreneurs and in receipt of a pension to keep more of their benefits. Thus Frenchie could take her reduced pension  and work for a few more years as something else.

Or she could be allowed to buy the missing years, or at least some of them at a sensible rate.

The solutions are there if the government would only look. In fact, I suspect the problem is that the bureaucracy could not adapt.

However, 62 is not an unreasonable age to obtain a State pension, even if it is a bit reduced.

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[quote user="woolybanana"]

Such as allowing people who are autoentrepreneurs and in receipt of a pension to keep more of their benefits. Thus Frenchie could take her reduced pension  and work for a few more years as something else.

Or she could be allowed to buy the missing years, or at least some of them at a sensible rate.

The solutions are there if the government would only look. In fact, I suspect the problem is that the bureaucracy could not adapt.

However, 62 is not an unreasonable age to obtain a State pension, even if it is a bit reduced.

[/quote]

And the average of your 25 best years of emolument may not be as "best" as one would wish.

SAM may well be short of the Social Security Ceiling.

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[quote user="pachapapa"][quote user="woolybanana"]

[/quote]

And the average of your 25 best years of emolument may not be as "best" as one would wish.

[/quote]

Unfortunately, for many it is the last 6 months, a perk which I think the fonctionnaires have retained, though I might be wrong.

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