Pension Reform and Protests in France

French President Emmanuel Macron has been pushing proposed changes to the country's retirement system for... well, since his reelection campaign. His proposals have proved deeply unpopular, though. The French parliament made clear it would not enact them, so Macron is using a constitutional loophole to change them through executive order. Protests that have been going on for weeks turned violent late last week.

What's at stake may seem quaint to us Americans. Macron wants to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64. Here in the US the "full" retirement age is already 67 (for people born since 1960). And it's not just we Americans who work longer than the French. In Germany the retirement age is 65 years 7 months. In the UK it's 66.

Macron's reason for pushing the reform is the same as that of various US politicians who've been calling for Social Security reform for decades: the system is unsustainable. While the math is pretty clear that US Social Security will start running short of money as soon as 2033 unless something major is changed, it's not so clear how much financial jeopardy France's retirement system faces. Partly that's because it's funded differently, paid out of general taxes rather than through a separate system of levies. The same demographic realities that imperil the US system, though— longer life expectancy and declining population growth— underlie pension cost increases in France.

Social Security in the US has been called "the electrified third rail of politics", a term popularized by Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill in 1982. The metaphor refers to public safety warnings common at the time about the dangers of touching the high-voltage third rail in many electric railway systems. Touching it is often deadly. Macron may find grabbing that third rail kills his political career.

The Mandalorian S3E2: The Mines of Mandalore

Okay, so I didn't actually write about episode 2 in my blog a few days ago, The Mandalorian Season 3 Eps. 1-2. It was getting pretty long, and in writing it I was getting pissed all over again about the episode's cheesy writing that made it like fodder for an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It turns out that ep. 2 isn't as ridiculous as the season opener. It does still have enough unearned plot points to seem like it's a roleplaying game adventure written by a 12 year old.

S3E2, also called Chapter 18 as it's the 18th episode overall, lays out what seems like a plan for the rest of season 3. Like previous seasons it will be an epic story. The hero wants to achieve big goal A. But he can't just walk up and get it; he needs to find B first to make A possible. Finding B requires doing C. Along the way he incurs a debt/makes an enemy that forces him to do D before getting back to pursuing A. And so on.

In this season the overall goal, "A", is Din Djarin seeking atonement. To do that he needs to find the sacred waters of the mines of Mandalore, "B". FWIW he learned that in Boba Fett Writes a Book About a Someone More Interesting, but apparently that show doesn't count as canon, so Djarin had to learn it again in S3E1. In S3E1 he also pursued "C", trying, with limited success, to get info from Bo-Katan. In this episode he scrounges up a droid, "D", after failing in the previous episode, to help him seek the location of B. And then he runs into trouble "E" while exploring and needs help "F". Ultimately he does find the waters with Bo-Katan's help, so maybe this season is effectively done already. What's left, then? Maybe the next 6 episodes will be to tie up all the loose ends introduced in these 2 episodes.