[OFF TOPIC] Politics Thread

[heywoodu 16,475]

12 hours ago, Monzanator said:

Macron loses majority in French Parliament. Funny how raising the retirement age level or even suggesting that usually loses you votes?

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61859881

Which is quite funny, considering retirement age already seems to be rather low in France, so raising it seems rather...normal 

 

Not much wrong with somehow tying it to life expectancy. 

[Monzanator 5,136]

5 hours ago, heywoodu said:

Which is quite funny, considering retirement age already seems to be rather low in France, so raising it seems rather...normal 

 

Not much wrong with somehow tying it to life expectancy. 

People usually don't like to work longer. Raising taxes & forcing people to work longer always works against politicians and loses them support. The same way Civic Platform lost power in 2015. Donald Tusk also raised the retirement age and next thing you know CP lost elections and they are losing them in the last 7 years. It's gotten so bad Tusk now says he won't raise the retirement age again if his party is back in power (Law & Justice government lowered the retirement age to the previous mark of 65 for men & 60 for women).

[heywoodu 16,475]

On 6/20/2022 at 9:04 PM, Monzanator said:

People usually don't like to work longer. Raising taxes & forcing people to work longer always works against politicians and loses them support. The same way Civic Platform lost power in 2015. Donald Tusk also raised the retirement age and next thing you know CP lost elections and they are losing them in the last 7 years. It's gotten so bad Tusk now says he won't raise the retirement age again if his party is back in power (Law & Justice government lowered the retirement age to the previous mark of 65 for men & 60 for women).

Obviously, but yeah, people are not often known to vote for realistic things  It might destroy the economy and everything, but people would vote for a retirement age of 40 if they could  

[dcro 10,211]

35 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

Obviously, but yeah, people are not often known to vote for realistic things  It might destroy the economy and everything, but people would vote for a retirement age of 40 if they could  

One wonders who defines the term realistic in this case? Those who stand to gain the most profit?

 

It's funny because one of the selling points of capitalism has always been improved efficiency and less workload. And yet the 40-hour week arbitrariness has been at large for like 200 years. All those technological advancements in the meantime did not change a thing. And it does seem that someone's desire of profit is the thing standing in the way.

[heywoodu 16,475]

20 minutes ago, dcro said:

One wonders who defines the term realistic in this case? Those who stand to gain the most profit?

 

It's funny because one of the selling points of capitalism has always been improved efficiency and less workload. And yet the 40-hour week arbitrariness has been at large for like 200 years. All those technological advancements in the meantime did not change a thing. And it does seem that someone's desire of profit is the thing standing in the way.

Realistic in the sense that in places where you get some form of financial support once you stop working (like here, but I'm not sure how it works everywhere), it stands to reason that when the average life expectancy and such goes up, people work a little longer. Just to use some extreme examples: if people, on average, live 50 years, and are physically too weak to work from 40 years old, it would seem normal to have a lower retirement age than if people on average reach 110 and are physically strong for 90 years.

 

There is improved efficiency, to be fair. Looking at a local bakery, for example: they might work almost the same hours as when the bakery started, 150 or so years ago (not exactly as much), but instead of being able to sell bread to a few adjacent streets, they can now sell it to the entire town and people from outside.

 

And yeah, desire for profit of everyone involved (including a lot of the regular working people) definitely plays a part, as it has always done and it always will. If speaking for myself: I do want to earn a nice living and in the ideal situation, which of course I'm not sure I will reach, a majority of what I earn is not simply for food and living costs, but mostly for 'fun'  (which one can argue is a form of profit)

[Grassmarket 4,318]

1 hour ago, dcro said:

One wonders who defines the term realistic in this case? Those who stand to gain the most profit?

 

It's funny because one of the selling points of capitalism has always been improved efficiency and less workload. And yet the 40-hour week arbitrariness has been at large for like 200 years. All those technological advancements in the meantime did not change a thing. And it does seem that someone's desire of profit is the thing standing in the way.

Sure, you can easily work less, which lots of people want. You just need to be willing to accept less money. Which very few people want. 

[Grassmarket 4,318]

And try calculating how many days a year we have to work just to pay our taxes before we start earning any money for ourselves. I will guarantee you that in every country in the western world it is sometime between May & June.

[heywoodu 16,475]

Sure, they're letting a woman die in order to make absolutely sure there's no abortion because....reasons/religion/whatever, but hey, at least she won't be burning in hell for having her (as good as dead) baby aborted !

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-61898437

 

Hopefully enough pressure can be put on Malta in time or at least they manage to get her out of that hellhole of a hospital.

[bestmen 2,926]

 it official , Ukraine joined EU

[Monzanator 5,136]

39 minutes ago, bestmen said:

 it official , Ukraine joined EU

They did not. They're only approved as "candidate for membership". This period may last 20+ years. Turkey has EU candidate status since 1999