Comments by "seneca983" (@seneca983) on "The Impending Collapse of the French Economy" video.

@PhilMccamley It's fair to want more free time but then you also have to accept a more thrifty lifestyle. You can't have it both ways.
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"As a Brit i admire the French for fighting for what is theirs" But in this case they're taking it away from their offspring.
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@stgravatt "Lower the supply of labor and youd have more employee friendly wages" But that wouldn't help with what OP is talking about. Lowering the supply would reduce the number of people working or the hours they work which would reduce the total wager received but it wouldn't reduce the amount of people relying on that income (e.g. a stay-at-home parent would usually rely on their spouse's income). Any rise in wages would almost certainly be smaller than that so people would, on average, have even less to live by (or save).
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@unsrescyldas9745 "That is then a short-term issue, as after you get rid of women in the workforce you will have more people as the birthrates will go back up" It's not a short-term issue because there would still be a big cut in average incomes (and therefore living standards) because fewer would have labor income. Note that this income is that same that funds pensions as well so there would have to be a cut in the level of pensions as well in the long run. In the long-term in a stable situation an average person has to pay enough to fund their own pension. Having more people doesn't solve the problem in the long run because it just means there will be more people withdrawing pension in the future. If your plan is that every generation should be bigger than the previous one, then that's an even worse Ponzi scheme.
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People don't live forever but they live longer than before. That's an extra cost on the pension system that has to be covered somehow.
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Companies traded on the stock exchange are (mostly) real companies.
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Peter Zeihan is less informed about these kinds of topics. He doesn't have much interesting stuff to say about economic data like this.
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"France and other countries which have a pension based retirement fund need to look at Australia's superannuation system" That isn't much help without a proposal to how to make the switch.
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I don't think you understand what he meant. When Zhou Enlai was asked that question he thought it was about the 1968 student uprising in Paris which had occurred only about 4 years earlier. It's not the same as the French Revolution which happened almost 2 centuries earlier.
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@alexlazar4738 "we can all just guess what he really thought the question referred to" I've seen it mentioned that supposedly it's clear that his response was about the 1968 riots according to both Nixon's interpreter (Chas Freeman) and Chinese archives. Of course, I've not perused these archives myself so I'm relying on what people written but at least my impression is that it's pretty clear what he thought.
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@heavensbutterfly It's entirely possible to voluntarily save for retirement so you have something on top government pension (or you can use it to retire before you start receiving government pension). Yes, some people are poor enough that they can't save without an unreasonable sacrifice but most people who have a typical middle-class salary (or more) should be able to save at least a little bit.
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"It's not a Ponzi unless the initiators of the scheme run off with the money." Calling it a Ponzi scheme is an exaggeration. However, it's still the case that this kind of (less than 100% funded) system is also a transfer to the first generations enjoying the system from the later generations. If e.g. economic or population growth is less than expected then some generation (or generations) have to cover the shortfall and there often is a temptation to pass the cost onto later generations.
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No, small businesses are difficult to invest into. Companies traded on the stock exchange are much easier.
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@muneebbasit2314 Investors to small companies are usually wealthy individuals. They can be much nimbler investors than big organizations and they can offer their contacts and expertise to the company when investing. These things are difficult for larger bureaucratic institutions. Also, a pension fund's employees are not investing their own money so there is more risk of both corruption and honest mistakes. This is less of an issue for listed stock because in that case the fund can rely on market prices for valuation whereas for non-listed stock there's a much bigger risk of corruption and incompetence.
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"One good example is investing social security funds into public markets, like Norway" For that you have to actually have capital to invest. If you already have a 100% (or at least a high percentage) funded pension system, great. However, if it's close to 0% funded (or at least with a low percentage) then you can't quickly turn it into a 100% funded system without significant pain.
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