2023-10-03 19:32:38
EDITED – The size, the gabelle and now the pension bill (1).
Are we going to witness a robbery in broad daylight?
Olivier Dussopt, our Minister of Labor, Full Employment and Integration, announced this weekend that “the government plans to take 1 to 3 billion from the surpluses of the private Agirc-Arrco supplementary pension scheme” (2).
The economic deterioration of the country is already more than “on the move”…
Necessary to finance whatever it costs or aid to Ukraine, the size (3) version Emmanuel 1st, whose astronomical sums end up who knows where, thus constitutes a transfer of wealth, through uncontrolled spending (budgetary laxity that we see in all areas: how much are our efforts in favor of Ukraine really costing us?). Added to this is the increase in the salary of members of the government financed by the gabelle (4), a tax on almost everything which, in its modern version, is constantly growing.
France having fallen into debt to the tune of hundreds of billions, money must be found to repay even the constantly growing amount of interest on loans.
Thanks to the law of January 1, 1973
Loans granted by whom?
By the kind private bankers and international creditors (like China and certain investment funds) without whom France would already be bankrupt. Kind because they generously lend us at only 2.5% interest per year money that they borrowed at an interest rate of 0.5% from the European Central Bank. An ECB which itself is financed by what? By the taxpayer’s money! This amounts to selling back to us five times the price of what we agreed to sell!
Thanks to the law of January 1, 1973 imposed by a former Prime Minister, Georges Pompidou, who was general director of the Rothschild bank under the presidency of General de Gaulle. If France were self-financing, as was allowed before the law of January 1, 1973, it could lend taxpayer money to itself without having to pay interest.
The interest on our abysmal debt (more than 3,000 billion) is now around 60 billion per year and we must therefore, as you have understood, repay our own money to private banks. It’s awesome !
And all this results from decisions that were taken “in the name of the French people” by elected representatives in parliament and by the government. So don’t complain!
At the start of the scenario, there is a nest egg
But back to our current heist.
At the start of the scenario, there is a nest egg. This loot amounts to several tens of billions of euros. This is the money from the supplementary pension funds of private sector employees. Led by employers and unions, the Agirc-Arrco scheme distributes pensions to 13 million retirees, financed by 26 million contributors.
Unlike the structurally deficit basic Social Security scheme, the well-managed supplementary scheme is profitable. Last year, it generated a surplus of five billion euros. In addition, it is sitting on generous reserves which reached 68 billion euros as of December 31, 2022, or the equivalent of nine to ten months of benefits.
And above all, with the pension reform coming into force on September 1, 2023, Agirc-Arrco will hit the jackpot: 22 billion in additional revenue over the next fifteen years.
It is completely logical that this government wants to appropriate this money.
When the government tells us: “Whatever it costs”, it is not “whatever it costs politicians in general and Macronie in particular” that we must understand, it is “whatever it costs”. “it costs the French”. To the taxpayer. To you and me.
This is why the economist Philippe Herlin published a rather virulent tweet yesterday:
Pensions: the State wants to dip into the coffers of Agirc-Arrco
➡️A government of crooks, mafiosi, we must get rid of this breed.— Philippe Herlin (@philippeherlin) October 1, 2023
The excuse of provocation
Did he write this out of anger? Or, more precisely, on what we call in French law “the excuse of provocation”? Any person who considers themselves insulted, injured or wronged by another person may in fact publicly make comments against this other person which would otherwise incur criminal liability on the basis of the offense of insult or contempt. . This, however, is subject to the following limit: like legitimate defense under criminal law, the insulting or outrageous remarks made must not exceed, “in nature and in their scope”, the damage claimed by the author of these remarks as having been caused to him by the facts which he comments on this occasion.
Translation: if a person does or says something about you which in your opinion constitutes a crime, the excuse of provocation allows you to make comments against this person which constitute the offense of insult or the offense of public outrage against a “person holding public authority” such as a minister thus attacked in the exercise of his functions.
However, if the government carries out this robbery, then all French citizens will be victims. And such an act is considered by criminal law to be a crime. Any citizen castigating the authors of this crime announced with insulting or outrageous remarks will therefore benefit from the excuse of provocation.
And this despite the fact that as it stands, the announced Agirc-Arrco heist is only at the attempted stage. For what ? Because in French criminal law, when it comes to facts that constitute a crime, the simple attempt is punishable. There is therefore no need for this crime to have actually been committed for the excuse of provocation to be admissible.
However, I leave responsibility for his comments to Philippe Herlin. And then, who am I to judge him?
(1) This editorial could have been titled “The heist of the century”, but that has already been done, concerning the transition to the euro! This euro that we were sold for 6.5596 francs, approximately twice the price of its true value. Mathematics: prices doubled as soon as the euro was introduced. Yes, the transition to the euro constitutes a disguised tax, amounting to around 50% on everything we owned and were going to acquire, which was paid by all the citizens of the eurozone. A tax which deprives each person of 50% of their property only moderately affects the rich (because with only 50% of a very large sum, one can still live easily), but significantly affects the less well-off (because already with little, it is difficult to live decently, with half of little, surviving becomes downright problematic).
The transition to the euro also called by accomplished observers: “Tax on misfortune”.
(2) Agirc-Arrco is the supplementary pension for employees in agriculture, commerce, industry and services. It supplements the compulsory basic pension of these employees which is paid by the National Old Age Insurance Fund for the general scheme or by the agricultural social mutuality for agricultural employees.
(3) Instituted in the Middle Ages, the taille is a direct tax which became annual and permanent in 1439. This tax was intended to finance the war effort and it was very unpopular. For what ? Because the bourgeois of large cities, the clergy and the nobility were freed from it. Yes, exactly like today, within the Republic “of the privileged and the well-off”.
Those who constantly ask the French to tighten their belts more and who free themselves from having to participate in this war effort. A permanent war and peace effort.
So, nothing has really changed it seems. The Revolution of 1789 replaced the monarchy and the Republic which resulted from it took on the appearance of a “revolution” consisting of making a complete turn on itself, that is to say finding itself in the end exactly at the same place or in the same situation.
(4) The gabelle originally designated an indirect tax levied on various items of industrial or agricultural production in France, during the Middle Ages and under the Ancien Régime: gabelle of wines, sheets, wheat, etc. From 1342, the term referred only to the tax on salt.
#Pension #trafficking #FranceEvening
