The Read International/The 1st Thread For 9/7/10: Another Lesson We Better Learn

As rich and well off overlords like Peter Orztag continue their absurd assault on Social Security here, over across the Atlantic in Paris-land, the people are not really taken to kindly to their President trying to screw them over once more:

Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of France to register their anger over the government's austerity measures.

The rallies came as a 24-hour national strike disrupted flight and rail services, and closed schools.

Officials said 1.1 million people had joined protests, but unions claimed the figure was 2.5 million.

The activists are angry at government plans to overhaul pensions and raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.

France's retirement age is lower than many countries in Europe, but analysts say the issue is polarising politics in the country.

Just like over here with the supposed fears of that evil budget deficit yelled by our elites to the workers, the proletariat in "Les Blues" have to digest the "we need to save by you sacrificing first" message fed by their elected officials .

Ministers have done little to lower the temperature in the run-up to the day of action, insisting pension overhaul is essential to balance pension accounts by 2018, reduce the public deficit and preserve the country's credit rating.

The increase in age would still be well under the average of around 64 in the OECD group of wealthy democracies, despite France having one of the world's longest life expectancies.

But French workers also pay high social charges on their salaries through their career and need to build up relatively long periods of paid employment to qualify for a full state pension.

Retirement at 60 was seen as one of the left's signal victories in the first term of late Socialist president Francois Mitterrand, and its defence is seen as a bulwark against future liberal economic reform.

According to opinion polls some two-thirds of voters think Sarkozy's plan is unfair and support the day of protest, but two-thirds also think the strikes will make no difference.

The unions will be just as mobilized here if the same thing transpires to our land with the Catfood Commission swaying Congress and probably our President like, right now.

You already see the former CBO director for the Administration pushing to reform Social Security (and insisting that tax cuts remain in place for 3 more years) instead of preaching for egressing out of stupid wars and keeping illegal contractors on our books. The momentum on touching our best functioning public system just keeps keeping on.

And we had better heed to the lessons of that supposed socialist country truly on the verge of doing a completely un-socialist and highly unpopular thing.

It's hard for us to learn obvious lessons though.