Legislation devoid of any economic sense

In France, retirement pensions are awarded more or less in proportion to the contributions paid for the benefit of retirees: the more a contributor C is withdrawn for the benefit of all pensioners R, the more he acquires pension rights, ie claims on all assets and future assets. The day comes when he goes from a status of contributor to a status of retiree: he no longer receives a salary or other remuneration subject to pension contributions, but a life annuity, financed by assets. This means that the pensioner, often without realizing it, is a creditor of the workers, who pay him a pension thanks to contributions that the social organizations deduct from the said workers.

This is where the legislator intervenes to impose an absurd and iniquitous rule: to grant contributions intended for retirees the power to open up rights to the youth. When a worker pays contributions, the proceeds of which are intended to be immediately transferred to the elderly, in good logic and in good justice, he is only discharging the implicit debt he has contracted towards the elders who have maintained him. and trained. He does not invest, he repays the implicit debt he has contracted by taking advantage of what his elders have done for him – maintain him, give him the means to train himself, to become a producer.

Unfortunately, the legislator did not understand anything regarding what is happening, and he imposed a kind of fairy tale according to which supporting the elderly would give the right to be supported later by the next generation. The role played by investment in human capital has been pushed beyond the limits of the legal blueprint. Reality has been expelled, forbidden to stay, in favor of a hazy theory elevated to the rank of revealed truth: pension rights would not result from investing in human capital, but from taking charge of old people! A refund is disguised as an investment, and by the very fact investment in human capital is not recognized as the engine of the pension mechanism.

A parametric adjustment unfairly elevated to the rank of reform

Jean de La Fontaine, if he returned to this lower world, would find there a frog who wants to become as big as an ox: the tiny “law reforming pensions” is a frog who, with the help of the unions and the media , tries to make believe that its size is well worth a law and repeated strikes. In fact, it is a miniscule parametric adjustment, whose promotion to the rank of law seems to be due above all to the desire to make people believe that the Elysée and Matignon are in full swing.

It is true that Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term is not very fruitful, neither in achievements nor in projects. In the absence of a truly important project, the President looks for something that might put him back in the saddle. Since the unions were also short of action that might be covered by the media, the two parties cooperated – tacitly, of course – to launch an operation bringing excitement to the public square and to the media. Failing to have moved the country forward, this burlesque episode fulfilled its mission: to provide the good people with a subject for discussion and squabble.

All of this is quite sluggish. When will our country regain the momentum that had earned it, in the words of the poet, the qualifier of “mother of the arts, weapons and laws? Yes, we badly need a Renaissance!