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Comment by omegaworks | Hacker News Reader

̶F̶r̶a̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶r̶o̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶i̶t̶s̶ ̶c̶u̶r̶r̶e̶n̶c̶y̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶e̶n̶s̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶s̶y̶s̶t̶e̶m̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶i̶d̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶t̶a̶x̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶.̶

Oops I forgot about the Euro. Oh well, so much for sovereignty.

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If they print more money to meet their pension obligations, that causes inflation which quickly erodes the value of the payments.

So, printing money to meet pension obligations has a similar effect to reducing the amount which is paid out.

Also, I don't think many people accept Francs as currency anymore.

> that causes inflation which quickly erodes the value of the payment

Pension payments cover basic subsistence-level costs for goods that can be mitigated by supply-side production and productivity increases. Claiming that they cause inflation is just rebranded austerity politics. Inflation is caused by fraudulent debt-relief for "businesses" like we saw with PPP and low interest rates that create asset price and shitcoin bubbles.

> Inflation is caused by fraudulent debt-relief for "businesses"

Sure? Tell that to Argentina, Venezuela, Zimbawe and Turkey.

I don't know why someone downvoted you, as you are right. But it seems that gigaton of useless little pieces of paper called pesos with which that the governments has flooded the economy since decades has nothing to do with out inflation problems.

nope it is not the same outcome. one sacrify the working class and the current generation that went through multiple economic crisis and a horrible housing market while the other sacrifies boomers that lived through full employment and the golden age of france economy. I ve made my choice.

> France has control of its currency

No it does not. It uses the Euro, which technically requires it to maintain a balance.

if only it had control of its currency! The way out of this previously was to devaluate currency so that the face amounts of pension stay the same but purchasing power decreases (in other words, it decreases the value of pension in a much less visible way, and done over many years is like a slow boil).

Honest question: is that the case? I thought the Euro adoption meant they couldn't print currency with the same freedoms that say the US or UK could.

You are correct and Euro comes with restrictions on creating currency for macroeconomic reasons. This was in the limelight during the 2008-2012 Greek debt crisis, and also came up around that time for other EU countries (Spain and Portugal at least). Additionally, Iceland, which does not use the Euro, had at one time pegged their króna to the Euro which caused issues in the 2008-2012 time period (though as I recall the main problem had to do with some other nation taking a major Icelandic bank into receivership post-2007 collapse).

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