Protesters storm BlackRock’s Paris office
cnn.com
cnn.com
The plan was met with strong opposition and was cancelled following COVID. The current plan is quite different and probably not really what Blackrock had in mind initially.
Keep in mind that reliable polls for weeks now has shown that a vast majority of the population opposes the law. What we see here is just the radicalization of the movement following the complete isolation of the government who has refused to discuss the current plan with the unions (labor or business) as it is usually done in France. It was predictable and I fear it could get much worst.
As a country though, difficult decisions must be made since life expectancy is increasing and a lot of baby boomers are retiring.
The left knows this but use the situation to get at Macron and amass political capital for the next elections.
All of this while the country is virtually bankrupt.
Edit: syntax
Next election, they’ll chose differently if they want.
Government should be afraid of citizens, not the other way around.
Leading against you people works for a while until your rule just become authoritarian. The point of contention here is that Macron says he was elected and discards the conditions in which he was elected. A lot of people voted for him to block the far right lady and not because they were in love with his platform.
It's the third time in 20 years this happens and my gut feeling is, there won't be a fourth time following that pension reform debacle, as a lot of people will just stay home the next time around. I hope I am wrong.
I guess the responsible behavior would have been to get a big tent government instead of a tone-deaf one. But we get the politicians we deserve.
That's why representative democracies, voting on the basis of higher level choices, are effective.
I struggle to imagine a scenario whereby there is ever broad French popular support for raising the retirement age, even if failing to do so bankrupts the country.
Let's agree to disagree.
> That's why representative democracies, voting on the basis of higher level choices, are effective.
Working 2 additional years is a pretty high level choice I believe.
> even if failing to do so bankrupts the country.
I keep reading about bankruptcy but I believe this is incorrect. Here is the reason why the government imposed that law: https://www.budget.gouv.fr/files/uploads/extract/2022/progra....
Quote in french, sorry: La capacité productive de l’économie serait soutenue par les réformes et les investissements du Gouvernement, qui contribueraient notamment à accroître l’offre de travail et à atteindre le plein emploi: réforme des retraites [...].
This is according to the french government. It is its official position. The purpose is to increase the workforce amount. My guess is that the aim is to allow for a pressure on salaries and eventual reduction in pension dues. The cost of labor reduction has been the common thread of french governments for the last 20 years so it would be coherent.
The pension system is more or less fine. It has been reformed multiple times already. The mass of baby boomers are on the precipice of life expectancy statistics now and besides you will find plenty of other possibilities to reform the system [0] if this is what you want.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR-yJQaa6LE (in french)
The conservative corporate elite have been screaming about bankruptcy for decades in the US due to entitlements, but spending for war and corporate bailouts seems to always pass easily along with the debt level.
Could you elaborate on this? Their debt in 2022 was 113.7% of GDP, compared to the USA's 764.7%.
Mostly because in France pensions are financed through taxes and managed by the state. If you want to compare apple to apples, you would have to include spending on healthcare, education AND pensions here.
From your link: Ainsi plus de la moitié recette des prélèvements obligatoires est affecté au financement des retraites et de la sécurité sociale.
People often misuse the passive voice to lend weight to an argument by clothing it in the language of inevitability, as if policy were weather.
I disagree with that frame. "Report" sounds like there was a whistleblower leak or something like this. "Rumors" would be more accurate.
IIRC the "it's all Blackrock's plan" theories were all based on the fact that Blackrock consulted on the reform on one occasion. People ran with the idea because "Blackrock" sounds ominous as hell.
Its not a 'theory' if they actually do a lot of shady stuff.
Let's agree to disagree. Here are the reports:
https://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/emploi/carriere/vie-pro...
https://www.lesechos.fr/finance-marches/gestion-actifs/les-r...
And you can find many others.
This frustrates me to no end. Blackrock is probably the second most boring company in the financial space (behind Vanguard).
The only reason people are conspiratorial towards Blackrock is because some journalists back in the day confused them with Blackwater and Blackstone.
He was also member of a commitee set up by the French government in 2018 to “think about the reduction in public spendings”[1]…
There's no need for whistleblowers here, all of this was done in public…
[1]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comit%C3%A9_action_publique_20...
I can find plenty of polls about how Macron and his government are unpopular.
But where are the polls about this specific law?
Keep in mind that Macron and his centrist government have always been unpopular and have only managed to win the second round of elections because it is against a far-right populist.
2023-01-18 61% against https://www.ipsos.com/fr-fr/reforme-des-retraites-la-majorit...
2023-02-02, 64% against https://www.ipsos.com/fr-fr/lopposition-au-projet-de-reforme...
2023-04-05 68% against https://harris-interactive.fr/opinion_polls/observatoire-de-...
Uh... this makes no sense. At first I thought it was a coincidence, but nope, it was intentional and targeted.
> “The meaning of this action is quite simple. We went to the headquarters of BlackRock to tell them: the money of workers, for our pensions, they are taking it,” Jerome Schmitt, spokesman for French union SUD, told CNN affiliate BFM-TV.
Again, this makes absolutely no sense. The protesters aren't even aligned on why they are there. If this was about the pensions this moment would be a bit like keying your own car.
What’s weird here is that it seems more like willful stupidity rather than just random mobs burning things due to chaos.
I think it’s some sort of availability bias. Black rock isn’t doing the thing they dislike but they are big and have an office in Paris; therefore, burn it down as an effigy of the system I dislike.
I don’t like this description. Peaceful protests are peaceful. Pretty peaceful protests aren’t peaceful.
There was a protest in my town recently where a cop car was set on fire and a bunch of windows were smashed. Maybe 200-500 people total but it was described as “mostly peaceful.” While that is true as I think only 10 people were arrested and more were violent, but that’s like 5-10% violent and the rest peaceful. I don’t think that’s earnest and truthful and I’d rather like to know if a group is peaceful or not.
But “mostly peaceful” protests are the bad kind of protests. I think they are more accurately described as light riots or something or mostly peaceful riots. Or some inflection point between a lawful, peaceful protest and a violent protest.
The police actually just kind of watched the protesters smashing and burning stuff and they certainly werent tear gassing people. But I think that they do need to do something to stop violent/mostly peaceful protests and arresting 9 out of 100-200 rioters doesn’t seem to be reducing the number of riots.
It’s like describing someone charged with domestic abuse as “mostly a loving spouse who almost never beat their spouse.” True, but disingenuous.
Blackrock is a massive player that is by some accounts, possibly the largest and most powerful hedge fund in the world, that is doing things like buying up houses to rent out, pursuing ESG initiatives extensively etc.
It's not about the pensions so much as it is an expression of outrage about the powerlessness people are feeling and directing it at what is precieved to be one of the sources of that powerlessness.
I've seen this reported many times even in places like nytimes but never seen actual numbers behind it. I 've read number between 3% and even as high as 20% .
My impression was it was ordinary upper income ppl like high end tech workers , retirees ect that were doing most of the buying and renting. A vast majority of my friends now own rental properties by directly buying them or turning their previous residence into a rental.
We all want one evil villain to blame but reality is much more complicated. Thats why movements like occupy wall st acoomplish nothing. Wouldn't it be easy if the problem can be solved by taking down one evil dude in his castle.
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/22524829/wall-street-housin...
Whether the demise of OWS was 100% due to their shortcomings and actions is speculative - a lot of people think the original demise and subsequent massive increase in culture war catching the media's attention (and in turn, dividing the public on yet another contentious issue) was to some degree coordinated...and I am one of those people.
Taking out one evil dude = one less evil dude = better society.
Do not let perfect be the enemy of good.
FWIW: institutional investors buying up single-family-homes (at least in the US) never really worked out. The FHA and VA programs are such huge players in the US loan market that individual investors can still outcompete big guys on financing.
this is mis-information by incompleteness. There are records and there are lies, with a non-zero overlap. Source- investor/accountant with a US California Masters degree in Taxation
Blackrock is not a hedge fund. They are an asset manager. They take your money and park it into the market for you. To the extent that they exercise any discretion over the market basically comes down to the stock blend they put into their otherwise very boring index fund options.
(BTW, BlackSTONE was the company that was buying up houses.)
> In me it seems more of an expression with a general dissatisifaction with the current massive conglomerates that seem to be ossfying into a defacto ruling class.
Okay, sure. If you want to take down global capitalism, go for it. But functional pension programs rely on bond and investment markets to function. If French politicians are looking for ways to keep their pension programs from collapsing, attacking the mechanisms that service your pension programs dilutes your message.
This is quite a common occurrence and even I get them confused.
If anything, the collapse of the French public pension system would be a net benefit to their business if people start fleeing to private investments.
Sure the workers are screwed in favour of retired people but the fund is increasing with this change.
You might say the same about large quantities of public policy, written by The Experts, with little regard for public sentiment, in this so called "democracy".
Let's hope that the elites aren't too inconvenienced in their walled neighbourhoods by these non-expert's lack of expertise.
that would be ordinary people who invest in index funds like vanguard that hold blackrock.
Quickest way to bring blackrock down is if ordinary Joe chooses to not invest in blackrock shareholder (vanguard).
Boycotts can be effective, but only when issue and target are very easily and clearly defined (which is not always equivalent to 'honestly'). And the problem with boycotts is that they take a long time to spin up, and if you successfully focus all your boycotting energies on an intermediate target, the boycott coalition tends to fall apart after victory and you have to start over almost from scratch for your next objective.
For a 70 millions people country, only 30 millions are considered active and soon we will have 20 millions retirees.
And knowing exactly this, the left is blocking the country, attacking to police and burning dumpsters.
In Switzerland, retirement is at 65 since a while ago and the retirement is financed through capitalization whereas in France, active people pay for retirees.
I let you guess which system proves to be the best for working people and retirees alike…
Switzerland wins because they are few people who make contrarian choices all the time and read the fine print on any international accord to see how they can free ride on the shoulders of all the other signatories.
Big countries like France, Germany, UK etc. they cannot be compared with the Switzerlands, Singapores, Hong Kongs of the world.
What you don't do is change the terms without consulting with the constituents. Because that's how you end your political career in the medium term and cause protests in the immediate term.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/01/11/the-gilets-jaunes-a...
Yes he was a banker before running for office. The left is pushing this narrative a lot. Forgetting that their leader is a millionaire who never worked in the private sector…
That is the most French thing I've heard all week.
This guy wants to run a country and make it prosper…
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/11/biden-bankruptc...
So not a lot of diversity, but even if that's regrettable, it's pretty ridiculous to blame Mélenchon for that.
Seems Biden only became a millionaire after his stint as VP, from book sales and speaking engagements. Being in Congress doesn't pay much.
I don't care for simplistic reductionism, it reminds me of Le Pen's rhetoric.
63% of French continue to approve protests [0] 73% of those surveyed approve when opponents of the reform block toll barriers and allow motorists to pass for free [1]
Your opinion does not look representative to me. It looks like French people have a social model that they want to keep.
[0] https://www.bfmtv.com/societe/sondage-bfmtv-retraites-63-des... [1] https://www.tf1info.fr/politique/sondage-exclusif-contestati...
Also, government is not a popularity contest. In fact, maybe we should trust the politicians especially when they are pushing unpopular reforms.
Edit: words and clarity
For instance, taxes on property should be restrictive to the point that having a second residence would be a net cost, and a third would be only accessible to multi-millionaires.
Business can be financially penalized to own property as well and force to sell or operate at loss.
Heritage could be better taxed and not just progressively but exponentially and without known loopholes.
There are lots of options.
The protests just make these options look more realistic, this is why the general population approves of the protests.
https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prélèvements_obligatoires
Enough said no?
Then the weak President probably shouldn't have used article 49.3 provisions to pass the unpopular law. Considering that the outcome of this decision was obvious and that they were warned specifically that this would happen, I'd say the President and his Prime Minister created this crisis.
The people are simply unwilling to let this mismanagement slide.
Point is.. no one is "taking advantage" of the President. It's entirely self-inflicted.
You're approaching this backwards, probably because you're hoping it will allow you to continue to be dismissive without having to put forward an argument of merit based upon the facts.
You're also missing the obvious. He could have just retired if he believed this so strongly yet was unable to _convince_ the legislature to pass the law. He clearly wants the job more than he wants his popularity. That is a person who cannot be trusted.
This is obvious.
And because he must always be the smartest in the room, the government has to be a bunch of idiots (this is almost a literal translation of quote from the prime minister, the exact quote being «Un gouvernement composé à moitié de débiles»).
When you govern a country with less than 30% of citizen's approval acting as if none of their opinions on the subject mattered, no shit people are unhappy and start doing stupid stuff…