What we can learn from the problems facing France
Can you believe what’s going on in France? Students are rioting in the streets to protest the proposed increase of the retirement age from 60 to 62. Yet these students will have difficulty finding a job after finishing school. This seems strange by American standards. But if our country keeps moving in the direction it has been going, we may be faced with similar civil unrest in the near future.
Image by Anirudh Koul via Flickr
It’s not just the students who have been angered by the austerity plans of the French government. This has upset workers too, because they are unwilling to give up any pension benefits. Now, the protests have resulted in walkouts in the transportation and oil industries. Travel has been severely hampered and a serious fuel shortage exists.
More than a third of the gas stations in the throughout France reportedly are out of gas. Unions have held peaceful marches, but many of the violent demonstrators were high school students who skipped classes while the teachers looked the other way.
The need to correct financial woes in other European nations has resulted in student and worker demonstrations in a number of countries. Greece had the start of ongoing economic problems surface earlier this year. Although unemployment in the European Union (9.7) is about the same as the United States (9.6) Italy, Germany, Spain, England and Ireland are all experiencing a money crunch and long-term pension plan problems.
To add the difficulties in Europe, the bloated government workforce is unsustainable and must be reduced. Britain, for example, wants to shed a half-million jobs from the government payroll to help reduce spending by some 20% in order to get its economy under control. Welfare and spending reforms can be expected throughout the EU, but the citizens of these countries will fight change to the bitter end.
This one-time foreign problem has come to the shores of the United States. Out-of-control spending, escalating debt, deepening deficits, government and union salaries and pensions that are not in line with private sector employees are now key issues. More government regulations coupled with greater involvement (some consider these intrusions) along with more taxes and fees at the federal, state and municipal levels are growing concerns that have become key issues in the upcoming midterm elections.
New Seniors, those born between 1930 and 1945, have seen Europe’s problems develop over the years and its form of democracy grow further away from that of the United States. Now the European governments are starting to sound like the America of not too long ago as we mo closer to the system they desperately want to fix.
That’s why many of the 30 million New Seniors are determined to vote for a change of direction and the return of sound fiscal responsibility. Otherwise, the people will be taking to the streets in protest. And, the marchers won’t be limited to students, union members and government workers it will include those of us who are 65+.
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