Thursday, October 21, 2010

Retirement Riots In France

Public employees have been rioting in the streets of France to protest the raising of the "national retirement age" from 60 to 62. First, why does any modern country have a legislated age of retirement? People should be free to work as long as they want to, even if the majority of people want to retire as soon as is logistically possible. Nobody should ever be forced into retirement if they want to keep working, and conversely nobody should be forced to work until 62 if they want to retire at 60. What's happening in France is completely unecessary on so many levels.

This public union unrest is happening throughout Europe as many governments try to reign in spending. It is nice to see so many of those governments listening to Stephen Harper's advice at the G20 conference when Obama was trying to lobby to continue spending. On that file, Europe liked Canada a whole lot. If only we sat in the European Union, then maybe the EU bloc would have supported us for the Security Council?

2 comments:

  1. Europe may wanted both seats We did not support the Robin Hood Tax or Cap & Trade unless developing nations and audits were included. China, India were not going to go along. As Canadians we feel we deserved the seat and felt disappointed. Ignatieff blew it by playing small politics. He would have gained if he repeated the National Geographic slam and defending Canada's track record.

    Ignatieff comes across as petulant and in it for himself.

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  2. I have been living under a rock for a few weeks and was absolutely shocked to see what was going on in France. I used to live in Germany and would travel through to France to go visit relatives in England on a regular basis. I liked France, rural France I should say since I never went to larger cities like Paris, and it was unrecognizable to me when viewing photos and videos the past 2 days. It saddened me but it also made me think of this: if this is how the public responds to a govt action regarding pensions, what the h*ll are they going to do when/if something REALLY REALLY major comes up? Seriously... it's scary to think about.

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