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October 21, 2004
Work and retirement
Dana's brother Neil is working again for the State of Kentucky. He's also retired from the State of Kentucky.
If you've not followed the latest news in France, you'll not know about Sarkozy claiming he'll keep Camdessus's report on how to get France working again on his night table for regular bedtime rereading. Michel Camdessus suggests that France allow folks drawing a pension to go back to work while keeping their pensions.
Dana didn't agree with me when I suggested this was a sort of subsidy for employers. I think we were disagreeing over terms. Subsidies involved direct payments to those subsidized. In this case, the payment's going to the worker, and the cost reduction's going to the employer.
Under this system, people like me get to compete for work -- by definition something nobody wants to do, but has to because he needs the money -- with people having a lot more experience than we do, and costing our employers a lot less. And this in a system where real unemployment is high and getting higher. Sounds brilliant.
Posted by Mark at October 21, 2004 10:09 PM