Are seriously thinking that the french economy is divided between the public service and foreign compagnies ?
Here’s the list of the companies of the CAC 40 (french dowjones)http://bourse.lesechos.fr/international/international_az.phtml?indice=1rPCAC
Only 3 of them are state owned (EDF – GDF – FranceTelecom. And they can fire people…
There’s NO no-firing clause in french employment contract, but for civil servants !

The post is actualy quite well taken and insightful, but the point of the new law is to make layoffs easier (no need to provide a reason for firing someboby during a 2 years period), not to authorise them. France would not experience such an unemployment rate if the dismissal of employees was forbiden…

You are right, things were better for the young 20 years ago than they are now. In 1986, the Reagan tax cuts were taking effect, and the economy was starting a lovely period of serious growth. The value of real estate was still depressed due to the 20%+ interest rates of the Carter years, so it was possible to purchase a decent property for a reasonable price.

My experience somewhat parallels yours. I’m 53; I entered the workforce in 1975, after graduating from college. Inflation was high (remember President Ford’s “WIN” buttons?), and the best job I could get was in the night typing pool for Illinois Bell. Thanks to an aptitude for computers, and more than my fair share of lucky breaks, we’re doing well now; but we had some very lean years, especially when the kids were young (we have five). Even now, we don’t own a car or possess much in the way of luxuries – the habits of frugality are not easily shaken off.

The biggest difference, as you note, is in property values. We bought the house we live in now, in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood, for $52,000. Back then, ours was a down-at-the-heels ethnic neighborhood. It’s since gotten very hot; a new house just up the street sold the other day for $1.7 million. Quite a change; but here you can’t blame us boomers – it’s the DINKs, traders and lawyers in their late 20s or early 30s, who are bidding real estate up into astronomical heights. People my age or older who don’t make my income are being forced out of the neighborhood by soaring real estate taxes: they are literally being taxed out of their homes.

As for Social Security – well, let’s just say I expect to retire to the cemetery.

Finland???

Not from a bit I saw on the BBC – 7 countries worried about unemployment – Finland was 1.

Horse pucky. In all the discussion above, I haven’t seen one reference to the giant unemployment rate of France, nor one suggestion toward any other method of dealing with it, other than the law now proposed.

It’s French socialism that is screwing the young, via short-term policies that looked good once (supergenerous welfare and unemployment benefits, unlimited immigration to attract garbage workers), but are in the long term being recognized as unsustainable. The generation that voted itself all these benefits is aging out of the workforce, and they all but quit having kids back in the lush 60s and 70s, so there’s a huge shortage of employed Frenchmen to tax.

The over-regulated PRIVATE businesses of France (that’s about half of its GDP, the gummint owns the other half already) haven’t got the freedom to make rational decisions about expanding and contracting their workforce. Hiring a punk is the same as marrying him/her. So the rational decision is to avoid hiring in all but the most favorable circumstances. And the closest the punks can come to ‘rational’ is to chuck rocks at the police – if they aren’t being beaten and looted by the kids of those garbage workers.

Yeah, I know, egalite trumps liberte in the socialist hierarchy, so we’re watching the economic collapse of the Soviet Union all over again. Can’t have liberte in the hands of private business.

You hit it right on the head, it may be unfair, and I may have a right to be angry, but the facts are facts and bellowing in rage at my circumstances won’t actually change a thing. It still sucks, especially when I see an ad for an $850,000 “starter home” in the newspaper, but I try not to let it get to me so much any more.

But I wanted to bring up this subject here becuase it is a real issue, one that will get much bigger in the future, and most Boomers seem totally unaware of it. The reason why I made these vituperative posts is to give the people just a little taste of the rage I, and others of my generation, sometimes feel. (And this is the sanitized version, believe it or not; I could wax even more maudlin if I wanted to.)

The housing market will probably tank, and if I move away I’ll probably be happier, but the underlying problems are only going to get worse. You are going to hear a lot more stuff like this in the future. Just wait until the Boomers start raising our taxes; then even those folks my age who live in affordable places will start howling. The French are farther along this path, but it will happen here too.

The young are going to get mighty angry at the old, there is no doubt about it, and my hope is that by thinking about this our generations can come to some sort of accomodation that will limit the damage. Maybe this will be possible if we start thinking about it right away.

Your friends on the barricade are not fighting to dismantle the unworkable system that is going to dump the entire bill on the youth of the future.They are fighting to keep the status qou. You are right abouy social security. You are going to be taxed to death. And the longer the system is kept as is your bill is going to get bigger. And the longer you wait the bigger the population that counts on the broken system is going to be making it harder to vote in changes.If you think the AARP is powerfull now just wait another 20 years and be afraid. If the youth of France were fighting to dismantle the nanny style cradle to grave government straightjacket you would be smart to join the barricades. But they are fighting to keep things the same, thus sealing their fate. You sound like a hard working smart guy. Your right , It’s not fair. Forget fairness, look at the facts, and make a tough choice. The surrounding states are far cheaper then California. My nephew, with no college degree, moved to Nevada, got an entry level construction job, got married, has a kid, bought a house, is planning to buy another small condo for rental income. This took 13 years. He is 34. He got out of SoCal because he could count. You have a very hard choice. I understand if you stay for your in-laws and your grandkids. And I admire your thoughtfullness. But if you stay you are going to be paying a large mortgage for a small house. L.A. and Orange County housing prices are high and complainng about it won’t change a thing.I would be frustrated too. You can stay and accept your fate. You can move out of an area that has housing prices that are beyond your reach and won’t be coming down anytime soon. And you can wake up your agegroup about the coming demographic tax crush that is headed your way and get them to quit fighting for the federal life boat that you are being promised and that will leave you stranded. The youth of France are fighting for the wrong thing, a status qou that can’t be sustained and will only leave them footing the bill.The current system has given them a 24% unemployment rate. Why on earth would they be fighting to keep it.

It is differenet in the rest of the country, I admit that. But it’s not *that* different. I could afford something in my native Chicago, for example.

But even there, it’s harder for the younger set. When I worked in Chicago, one of the partners I worked for bought a second home, and I handled the closing. For some reason he had to get an appraisal of his first home, though he was not selling it, and I saw a copy. His first house was nice, but nothing spectacular. A two story SFH in a nice neighborhood with good schools. Not a mansion, not a place in the fashionable part of town, nothing special, just a nice home, the American dream all the way. I discovered that he first bought it when he was my age, 28, shortly after starting work at the firm. Our backgrounds were quite similar, he too had come from modest circumtances and had worked his way up.

The house cost $400,000. There was no way in hell that I could buy it on my salary. I didn’t have a 20% downpayment of $80,000. I didn’t earn enough money to make the mortgage payments. Hell, I couldn’t even GET a mortgage for half the amount (when your student loan paymets are $1,200 per month, it really limits your borrowing power.)

Mind you, this is Chicago, a place where RE prices have been fairly stable. It’s not a boom town, there has been no massive growth, so it’s not like he bought a place in a gentrifying neighborhood and rode a wave of appreciation. Nope. Things were simply easier at his age than they are for me.

Yes, in Chicago I could get something. But it sure as hell won’t be as nice as what the Boomers got when — this is important — they were my age.

Since I have joined the professional workforce about 10 years ago, stuff like this has only gotten worse. For instance, my old boss’s house is probably $600,000 today.

Sure, it’s easier outside of CA. But it’s still hard. It’s not just CA. The same thing is happening pretty much everywhere. The standard of living of today’s young people is lower than that of their parents. In my case it’s a lot lower, partially due to where I live, but it’s still lower in the rest of the country. And for the Bomoers, it was higher! The starter home they boguht was often a lot nicer than the one the WWII generation started out in. A whole lot nicer.

And Daniel-

Did you have to drag your 80 year-old in-laws accross the country to a completely strange place just so you could buy a house? Did you? Yes, I will have to make that “hard choice” in a couple of years. But YOU, my friend, did NOT have to make it, and that is my whole point. Things are harder today. And I’m not happy about it.
happening all over the country.

The Boomers never had to temp upon getting out of school. You could afford a place earlier in life than we could. I work just as hard as the Boomers do but have a lower standard of living and less security.

But in just a few years, they will start reaching for MY wallet when they begin to feel the unpleasant effects of their total failure to plan for retirement. In France, it’s already happening. That’s why I feel for the youth there. The Boomers get to live under the old system. They don’t have to make any sacrifices. If they are so worried about youth unemployment, maybe some of them could retire early or take a pay cut. But no! Instead, they (predicatably) ask the young to make all of the sacrifices while they sacrifice nothing. Again, I agree that the system needs to be changed, but EVERYONE should make sacrifices, not just the youngsters.

Anyway, just thought I’d contribute a different perspective.