Citation :
The Global Economy Has a Boomer Problem
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France is almost a caricature. French pensions consume about a quarter of the state budget. Current retirees worked when many contributors supported few beneficiaries. Then they lowered the pension age by five years as life expectancy rose by 10. Today, a shrinking workforce struggles to sustain a generation that granted itself guaranteed retirement incomes close to working people’s wages. French pensioners are so rich that those over 70 save a quarter of their income, while workers under 50 save barely half that rate.
As boomers die, many will pass massive inheritances to their children, locking in decades of unfairness. In Western Europe, the size of your house says more about your parents’ wealth than your own job. French governments fill the holes in pension deficits by taxing their own workers. As the country sinks in the OECD’s PISA rankings (international tests of 15-year-olds’ skills), voters blame the youth, smart-phones, Islam, or a political class wasting public money. But the two Prime Ministers who dared to suggest freezing the highest public pensions were immediately voted out of office by both the Left and Marine Le Pen’s far-right.
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