Yes Jim, how is your retirement going? :hmmm:

The French retiring at 62? Wow! So, they work a couple of hours in the morning, a couple of hours late afternoon for forty years and that's it! Buck your ideas up fellas, pull your finger out! :yep:

Shure, I understand that the population is getting old and the life expectancy going up and we're all screwed if the only thing our children will work for is to keep our retired selves out of poverty. But for some por soul having a backbreaking work in a mine or factory, 60 years is a lot, 65 is in grave. My grandfather died at 70, now imagine working your ass of all your life and then dying after only 5 years of retirement. It's a loose loose situation until we figure out a third option, and that would be the easy part

Most people are living longer (80+) and the population here in Australia is getting older. They have already raised the retirement age for accessing superannuation and the pension here, and nobody made that big a fuss about it. They are also about to start increasing the amount that is put into super from 9% to 12%, with a view that it may go higher.
At least Australia can afford it, we are in surplus (hard to believe), unemployment is low (5%, if you have a trade or can work in a mine, come on down!) and politically stable (despite a minority federal government!) They also have let the Australian dollar rise and fall freely over the last 28 years which has been a help and a hindrance, but at least it kept us grounded. Even with our dollar rising against other currencies, is has meant that at least we can't borrow large amounts of foreign debt to keep us living in a fools paradise

Maybe the French will do like we did in Boston but, dump perfume in their harbor.

More like smelly cheese!:doh:

There's a difference?

Ooo. Snap.

Well actually....I returned to work on 20th Sept this year (in a different discipline) that allowed me to hang onto my pension http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima.../evillaugh.gif

I now await the day HMRC eventually catch up with me http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/2391/bubblegum21.gif

Dont the french already have a 4 day work week?

The pic was in todays papers
http://www.slovenskenovice.si/assets...katura2110.jpg

TRANSLATION: Furius French (title) Sarkozy: take the Slovenians as an example, how peacefull and cultural have they accepted their pension reform

Two years. That is the difference. Talk about not seeing the forrest before the trees.

Given the outcry, unneccesaary in my opinion, what will happen if the benifits are suspended for 5, 10, 15 years? Back to the private sector they must go.

The French need to grow up.

They have one of the cushiest regimes in Europe but don't they realise they can't afford it.

There was a great piece in the Sunday Times by Rod Liddel...called "What's the point of the French"....

Very funny satirical piece.

Catch up with me they will....eventually :doh:

and yes I found footage of Jim at work. Well, actually, this footage was from the subsim meeting where Jim and Tarjak did a little performence to earn some extra drinking money for that night. But you get the idea:D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RajNvJ3bCU

I just gotta know, what is your stage name?:har: