One may or may not agree with Pietro Ichino's orientation on pensions, but it must be recognized that the Senator of Civic Choice has the courage to clearly speak the language of truth, even at the cost of supporting harsh and often unpopular positions.
In yesterday's "Corriere della sera" Ichino took to the head a misunderstanding which has been circulating for months and which is undermining the effectiveness of the Monti-Fornero reform, such as that of the so-called exodata who are at the origin of the too many derogations that the Parliament is voting in a continuous stream, effectively picking the reform. Ichino's opinion is tranchant: "Among those who qualify as exodata there is no longer one who can be indicated according to the original meaning of the term". The exodates are no more. Because - explains the labor lawyer - "the safeguard measures adopted in 2011 and 2012 exempted from the application of the new retirement requirements all those who had lost their job before the reform as a result of an individual or collective redundancy incentive agreement stipulated in consideration of an imminent retirement according to the old discipline". Furthermore, "all workers made redundant in the years 2007-2011 were also safeguarded, who were destined to meet the requirements for retirement according to the old rules within three years of the reform, i.e. by 2014".
In other words, the over-fifties who are left without a job today cannot be considered as redundancies to be protected with an advance on their pension to which they are not yet entitled, because this would actually mean repealing the reform. More simply, we must speak of the unemployed who, if there are the means, can be awarded an allowance but not a pension. If, on the other hand, lax attitudes prevail among complaisant and short-sighted politicians that lead to undermining the reform, derogation after derogation, then we must have the courage to say that granting early retirement to fifty and sixty-year-olds left without work means culpably bearing the cost " to the new generations who will retire at the age of 70 or a little earlier because, with a life expectancy of over 80 years, the normal contribution seniority of 30-40 years with which people went into retirement in past decades is not enough for funding of decent treatment intended to last 20 or 25 years.”
The important thing is to have clear ideas and make courageous and non-populist choices, also in terms of retirement, favoring the younger generations, as it should be. Let's say things as they are: in the lottery of life, the fifty-sixty-year-old generation has had three enviable fortunes because, unlike their fathers or grandfathers, they have not known wars, they found a job as soon as they completed their studies and can legitimately expect a pension with which to live in dignity. Quite the opposite for today's young people: it is true that up to now they have not known wars because the existence of Europe has prevented countries like Italy from meeting the tragic end of the former Yugoslavia but when they finish studying the young people of today they don't find work easily and above all they will never have a pension.
It is not moral that the selfishness of fifty-sixty-year-olds, who have already had a lot from life even if they have done everything to leave future generations a worse future, becomes a new robbery of their own children and grandchildren. On this point it is time to start a cultural battle of clarification that makes it clear that today's progressivism is not equivalent to the preservation of privileges but in the exact opposite. In a sometimes rough and perhaps questionable way Matteo Renzi has scrapped pieces of an old ruling class, now it's time to scrap even indecent ideas that conspire against the new generations and which are always at the expense of Pantalone.
