I Think a Solution is Possible

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Alice Cappelle Has a Point · New blog on the kid: I Think a Solution is Possible · back to Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Dialogue Under Alice Cappelle's Video · back to New blog on the kid: Do The French Work Too Little? No. Not for Others · back to Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Welsh Viking on Medieval Peasants — He's Occasionally Inaccurate or Off

Part of the problem behind the pensions' deficit, not quite there, but looming, is fertility rates.

The total above 15 years is 53 212 000.

15 - 24 (7 537 000)

2 160 000 have an employment

620 000 are looking for work

4 757 000 are "inactive"

25 - 49 (20 661 000)

16 545 000 have an employment

1 593 000 are looking for work

2 523 000 are "inactive"

50 - 64 (12 750 000)

7 806 000 have an employment

564 000 are looking for work

4 380 000 are "inactive"

65 and more (12 264 000)

368 000 have an employment

12 000 are looking for work

11 885 000 are "inactive"

Figure 1 – Emploi, chômage, inactivité en 2017
INSEE, Population active, Paru le : 26/03/2019
https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/3676623?sommaire=3696937

Now, look at this:

En France, en 2018, l' espérance de vie à la naissance est de 85,3 ans pour les femmes et de 79,4 ans pour les hommes.

I'll assume that men and women are so equal in numbers that we can average this without huge distortion:

(85.3 * 85.3 + 79.4 * 79.4) / (85.3 + 79.4) = 82.46 years.

82.46 - 64 = 18.46 years
25 - 14 = 11 years

15 to 24 = 7 537 000 / 11 = 685 182 per year
25 - 49 = 20 661 000 / 25 = 826 440 per year
50 - 64 = 12 750 000 / 15 = 850 000 per year
65 to 82.46 = 12 264 000 / 18.46 = 664 355 per year

It is very proper that people between 25 and 64 should be more numerous per year than those over 65, but for some reason, those 15 to 24 (births 1992 to 2002) are fewer per year. They should be more numerous. Have births gone down even more since 2002? I suspect it. And that would be a huge part of the problem.

So, what would one like to do?

Well, part of the reason why we have a desire to go into full rights of retirement at 60 is, it's nice to be with grandchildren. And having grandchildren is part of the solution.

The age 62 or age 64 or whatever pension - let it apply to singles or homosexual childless couples (while we are at it, abolishing the "right" for homosexual couples to adopt would be a good thing). But for a couple having five children or one grandchild, let pension set in fully for one of the couple (it would usually be the mother) or half time for both of the couple. For a couple having seven children or two grandchildren, let it set in fully for both. Irrespective of age. If a girl has a baby daughter at 13, and that girl has a baby at 13, let the mother of them have full pension at 26, if her husband still wants to work. If the daughter then has a second child at 14 or 15, let her and her husband have full pension, both of them, as grandparents of two, when she's 27 or 28.

Another part of the problem comes from the school system. I don't think it's lazy to stay inactive because one likes lycée (senior high school) or university, and thinks one can learn something there. But too many stay in school because:

• looking for work is a nasty hazzle (it's worse in Sweden than in France)
• works available for one's age group are dull
• which also means, one is less likely to have children.

This is kind of an pushed-on improductivity and a pushed-on celibacy (to which the evil legislation of 2006 contributes, raising girls' marital age from 15 to 18).

Alice Cappelle suggested large incomes should be forced to pay for pensions. I agree half and half. Taxing people like Bernard Arnault (Louis Vuitton - Moët - Hennessy) half that kind of money (if it's annual income, not fortune), $225 900 000 000, would be like adding 8 000 000 seamstresses to the work force ... wait ... not quite as bad, the seamstresses actually do more than just contribute to the pension system ... but the real way they could contribute would be to legislate:

• big companies (everything above Petites ou Moyennes Entreprises*) keep paying workers who are single and childless as at present
• on top of that, family members at home of the worker, including mums at home, are also paid so that a worker keeping his two parents at home can enjoy the same status of life as the single worker, and if his wife has a child and stays home with it, the worker gets paid for that too.

This is called the Family Wage and was recommended by Pope Pius XI. In, I think, Quadragesimo Anno, but I could be wrong.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Easter Wednesday
12.IV.2023

Memory of St. Constantin of Gap.

Eratum - I should have calculated 24 - 14 = 10 years. 7 537 000 / 10 = 753 000 per year.

* For the higher of these categories I find:
... il s'agit des entreprises qui ne dépassent pas deux des trois seuils suivants : Le total du bilan est fixé à 20 000 000 euros, le montant net du chiffre d'affaires à 40 000 000 euros et le nombre moyen de salariés employés au cours de l'exercice à 250.
They must be below two out of three maxima : total balance sheet 20 million €, net revenue 40 million €, medium number of employees during the work 250 (they probably say "medium number" because seasonal workers can exceed this for a season, and then go back to fewer employees for most of the year).