[jonp888]

Would it really?

France has the lowest retirement age of any EU country, the second highest expenditure on social benefits, and a large debt burden.

Raising the retirement age by a couple of years is obviously unpopular, yet arguably sensible - but trying to do that was what caused the last set of violent protests.

[throwawaysoxjje]

> France has the lowest retirement age of any EU country, the second highest expenditure on social benefits

That doesn’t sound like a bad thing

> a large debt burden.

Compared to?

[alephnerd]

> Compared to?

It's EU peers.

If France wants to support Ukraine and rebuild it's army, it will be required to borrow heavily to purchase arms.

If France wants to rebuild manufacturing supply chains domestically, it will be required to borrow heavily to invest in infra.

The above two will be in the tens to hundreds of billions of Euros range.

France ALSO spends tens to hundreds of billions of Euros on social services.

France ALSO needs to pay it's existing interest on debt, which is in the tens of billions of Euros a year and rising.

France needs to cut 2 of the first 3 choices - they cannot cut the 4th one due to EU regulations and if France does not want to become the next Argentina.

[FirmwareBurner]

>That doesn’t sound like a bad thing

Of course it doesn't sound bad but what do you do when you run out of money to pay for it?

Do we decide policies based on what sounds good or what we can actually afford? Because getting paid to do nothing but our hobbies would sound even better.

But hey, if you wanna give boomers luxury retirement while immolating the economic prospects of future generations of workers in order to pay for it, go for it.

[BriggyDwiggs42]

> France has the lowest retirement age of any EU country, the second highest expenditure on social benefits

Right, exactly

[ricksunny]

Love it. the previous two parent comments place the cognitive dissonance of Anglo-Saxon economic narratives in stark relief.

[tristor]

> Love it. the previous two parent comments place the cognitive dissonance of Anglo-Saxon economic narratives in stark relief.

For sure, the cognitive dissonance between those who understand basic economics and those who don't. Those who do understand that some of these facts are indicators of a coming crash, and the ones who don't think they're good because they like "free" stuff and don't understand how anything works or gets paid for. We can see where this goes, whether we want to or not, by watching France over the next two decades as it drives the leading edge of the upcoming long-term recession across all large Western economies.

[ricksunny]

I mean you could just say ‘insert infantilizing Hayekian quip here’ and be done with it. And you don’t know the future any better than anyone else in the planet, so prognosticating that doesn’t serve as reinforcement of your argument.

[BriggyDwiggs42]

You can build a strawman all you want man I don’t care.

[AngryData]

That might be easy to say to people with office jobs and good pay, but it is absolute dog shit for people with physical jobs who already have overall reduced lifespans.