French Riots. Really? Really???

[Clinton Huxley]

More robots is the answer.

[Bella Fortuna]

More robots is the answer.

[Clinton Huxley]

More robots is the answer.

The Japanese have one that will wipe your bum.

[Bella Fortuna]

The French will have one that sneers disdainfully and wafts body odor at you.

[Svartalf]

I'll be back

[Clinton Huxley]

The French will have one that sneers disdainfully and wafts body odor at you.

I believe even now Her Majesty's Cybernetic Savants are working on one that complains about the weather.

[Ian]

I am 100% behind the French. Their workers, whether they consciously know it or not, are trying to protect something great about France and that is the notion that work is not life and life is not work. Life is and should be a balance. The world is being increasingly overtaken by international capitalism, which is driving down wages in its relentless pursuit of profit. In that process, as is easily evidenced the rich are getting richer and the poor even poorer. The French 'social culture' is naturally socialist (far more left as a whole than most other non French people realise!) and they rebel at this notion. Its in their DNA!

Tomorrow in the UK the so called comprehensive spending review is announced. Its main purpose is to get the UK back into 'credit worthiness'. The people who got us there in the first place? Workers? The average mortgage slave? No. The people who own most of stuff. Fucking wake up people.

Indeed. The US, for example, is a culture that is too devoted to work. I like the French workers' sentiments, but there's a limit to what's practical. People are living longer, and that trend is not going to level off too much too soon. And standards of living have gone up. Are the French willing to compromise that standard for the sake of working less? They'll either have to, or they'll have to face some realities about an obsolete pension system.

The same goes for the US and Social Security. We're facing the "Silver Tsunami" as Baby Boomers start retiring this decade. Europe's demographic dilemma is going to be even more acute though. Japan's will be a nightmare as well.

[Ian]

in the US, we no longer have the increasing pool of investors - we have a declining pool of investors, and an ever increasing demand for more and more benefits. This means that fewer workers continue to pay for more and more retirees. At some point, the system has to break, because younger workers are not going to sit still to being a slave of a 2 or 3 retirees, working to support just a couple of people.

It can't sustain itself. You need to either generate more revenue or cut payments.

Very succinct. In my opinion, Social Security will be "fixed" by the former option rather than the latter: at some point, probably between ten and twenty years from now, we'll be in for the mother of all tax hikes. As a rule, older people vote more than younger ones, and the Baby Boomer generation will have some especially big numbers. Retirement age might go up a bit between now and then, but benefits won't likely be cut.

There might be the offset of guilt in taking from the younger generation, but I think the dominant attitude will be "I didn't pay into this system my whole life only to live in poverty now that I'm retired." When it comes down to it, they'll vote themselves benefits.

The Baby Boomers came into America with a "generation gap", and that's how they'll leave it.

[Coito ergo sum]

The French will have one that sneers disdainfully and wafts body odor at you.

The French whore one will.....

....ahem...um....

[Rum]

I am 100% behind the French. Their workers, whether they consciously know it or not, are trying to protect something great about France and that is the notion that work is not life and life is not work. Life is and should be a balance. The world is being increasingly overtaken by international capitalism, which is driving down wages in its relentless pursuit of profit. In that process, as is easily evidenced the rich are getting richer and the poor even poorer. The French 'social culture' is naturally socialist (far more left as a whole than most other non French people realise!) and they rebel at this notion. Its in their DNA!

Tomorrow in the UK the so called comprehensive spending review is announced. Its main purpose is to get the UK back into 'credit worthiness'. The people who got us there in the first place? Workers? The average mortgage slave? No. The people who own most of stuff. Fucking wake up people.

Indeed. The US, for example, is a culture that is too devoted to work. I like the French workers' sentiments, but there's a limit to what's practical. People are living longer, and that trend is not going to level off too much too soon. And standards of living have gone up. Are the French willing to compromise that standard for the sake of working less? They'll either have to, or they'll have to face some realities about an obsolete pension system.

The same goes for the US and Social Security. We're facing the "Silver Tsunami" as Baby Boomers start retiring this decade. Europe's demographic dilemma is going to be even more acute though. Japan's will be a nightmare as well.

All true in a limited way. I am a 'baby boomer' who has just squeezed through the door at the age of 60 taking a pension and going half time with work. I am very conscious indeed that I am lucky and one of the 'winners' in the system that has prevailed over the last few decades. I am doubly lucky because of the pension scheme I joined - not consciously as it happens and not even deliberately, when I got into this line of work in my mid to late 20s.

However this does miss the point somewhat and that is that the profits at the top of the capitalism tree are absolutely enormous. Gigantic in fact. And the level of taxation at that level - don''t forget that they have made money from 'us', our labour and endeavours to a great extent - is pitiful. Why does it not seem to register with most people that many, possibly the majority of the owners of the profit making industries actually get there through the exploitation of the rest of us?

I am truly puzzled sometimes.

[Coito ergo sum]

I am 100% behind the French. Their workers, whether they consciously know it or not, are trying to protect something great about France and that is the notion that work is not life and life is not work. Life is and should be a balance. The world is being increasingly overtaken by international capitalism, which is driving down wages in its relentless pursuit of profit. In that process, as is easily evidenced the rich are getting richer and the poor even poorer. The French 'social culture' is naturally socialist (far more left as a whole than most other non French people realise!) and they rebel at this notion. Its in their DNA!

Tomorrow in the UK the so called comprehensive spending review is announced. Its main purpose is to get the UK back into 'credit worthiness'. The people who got us there in the first place? Workers? The average mortgage slave? No. The people who own most of stuff. Fucking wake up people.

Indeed. The US, for example, is a culture that is too devoted to work.

I recall you work for the government in some fashion. Color me surprised that you would take this view...

[Bella Fortuna]

I am 100% behind the French. Their workers, whether they consciously know it or not, are trying to protect something great about France and that is the notion that work is not life and life is not work. Life is and should be a balance. The world is being increasingly overtaken by international capitalism, which is driving down wages in its relentless pursuit of profit. In that process, as is easily evidenced the rich are getting richer and the poor even poorer. The French 'social culture' is naturally socialist (far more left as a whole than most other non French people realise!) and they rebel at this notion. Its in their DNA!

Tomorrow in the UK the so called comprehensive spending review is announced. Its main purpose is to get the UK back into 'credit worthiness'. The people who got us there in the first place? Workers? The average mortgage slave? No. The people who own most of stuff. Fucking wake up people.

Indeed. The US, for example, is a culture that is too devoted to work.

I recall you work for the government in some fashion. Color me surprised that you would take this view...

From all government employees -

[Coito ergo sum]

However this does miss the point somewhat and that is that the profits at the top of the capitalism tree are absolutely enormous. Gigantic in fact. And the level of taxation at that level .... is pitiful.

Quick query - What's the rate?

[Clinton Huxley]

The rich will steal our dotage and turn it into more yachts.

[Coito ergo sum]

I am 100% behind the French. Their workers, whether they consciously know it or not, are trying to protect something great about France and that is the notion that work is not life and life is not work. Life is and should be a balance. The world is being increasingly overtaken by international capitalism, which is driving down wages in its relentless pursuit of profit. In that process, as is easily evidenced the rich are getting richer and the poor even poorer. The French 'social culture' is naturally socialist (far more left as a whole than most other non French people realise!) and they rebel at this notion. Its in their DNA!

Tomorrow in the UK the so called comprehensive spending review is announced. Its main purpose is to get the UK back into 'credit worthiness'. The people who got us there in the first place? Workers? The average mortgage slave? No. The people who own most of stuff. Fucking wake up people.

Indeed. The US, for example, is a culture that is too devoted to work.

I recall you work for the government in some fashion. Color me surprised that you would take this view...

From all government employees -

Good enough for government work!

For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program!