Mark Steyn said this yesterday, and I had intended to mention it here and then forgot.
He was talking about American ideals migrating to Europe, and pointed out that it never happens. It's only European ideas that come here, and of course most of Europe is bankrupt because of their ideas.
The most recent idea, and Rush touched on it today, is that a few governments in Europe - for example Hungary - have nationalized their people's retirement plans. So now all that money belongs to the government, and the government can spend it however it wishes. And so in the year 2015 when Hungarians are all set to retire...chances are they won't be able to because their retirement pensions were spent this year, in 2011.
Rush also commented on it today:
Story #5: Europe Starts Confiscating Private Pension Funds
RUSH: Now, I have warned you. I'll tell you when I warned you of this. Back in the early nineties I first heard an idea put forth by the Reverend Jackson and the Reverend Jackson even back in the nineties was very, very alarmed over the fact that we were running out of creative ways to transfer wealth. We just could not continue to raise taxes, that wasn't politically viable, and yet the Reverend Jackson and all of the left was insistent that government get bigger and that wealth be redistributed. And so the Reverend Jackson targeted private pension funds. I'll never forget it, started running around talking about all the money in the various private, not public, private pension funds. And individual pension plans, like 401(k)s, IRAs, this kind of thing.
It was just like when the Sierra Club back in 1997 started making noise about getting SUVs off the street. I believe these liberals when they say what they want to do. I believe these clowns from the Center for Science and Public Interest, these clowns in the lightbulb ban, I believe 'em. They get an idea in their heads and they don't give it up. You that the SUV's targeted, we got the electric car. Now, SUV sales continue to skyrocket because they're what people want, but you cannot deny that there is now a stigma attached to them and there are now people who don't buy them because they're afraid of what somebody might think when they see someone driving it during global warming and when there is gasoline crunch and I don't want to be seen as harming the planet or being selfish. So people go out and buy a car they really don't want to avoid being thought of as something by somebody else in another car they don't even know.
And then I saw this story on January 3rd yesterday, Mark Hemingway in the DC Examiner: "The U.S. isn't the only place that's facing a major pension fund crisis. The Christian Science Monitor has this alarming report: People’s retirement savings are a convenient source of revenue for governments that don’t want to reduce spending or make privatizations. As most pension schemes in Europe are organised by the state, European ministers of finance have a facilitated access to the savings accumulated there, and it is only logical that they try to get a hold of this money for their own ends. In recent weeks I have noted five such attempts: Three situations concern private personal savings."
They have started doing it, individual and group private pension funds, just confiscating them. They can't raise taxes any more, either. What is it, Spain, Portugal, who is it that the ChiComs are bailing out? The ChiComs are bailing out one of the European Union nations. I'm having a mental block as to which one. But folks, our government is no different than theirs in Europe. None of these governments have any money. That's why, you know, class envy and tax the rich.
There's a poll, somebody at CBS or Vanity Fair, somebody in early December, or maybe it's early November, a poll shows a majority of people say tax the rich to close the deficit. Why are they releasing this now? The poll's over a month old. Why did they hold it 'til now? I don't believe it anyway. The election results would not have been what they were if that were the actual sentiment of a majority of Americans. And if a majority of Americans believed that we need to raise taxes on the rich, Obama would not have made this deal to keep the Bush tax rates where they are in the lame duck. So it's all smoke, mirrors, bogus. But what's not bogus is -- you go out, let me give you a little test to take. If you ever in your life encounter somebody who has just recently made a lot of money, recently has become wealthy, ask them what they most fear. And I'll tell you that seven out of ten times, if they're honest with you, their answer will be they are scared to death the government is gonna come take it. Not tax it, but come take it.
That's what many newly wealthy people fear the most. They don't know what form it would take, a wealth tax, or just an outright confiscation, but with people like Obama in charge you can't rule it out. I mean, the socialists in Europe, confiscating private pension funds. What's to stop 'em from confiscating private wealth, period? They're outta money. That's excuse they're using for confiscating private pension funds. It's not increased income taxes that frighten wealthy people. It's the fact that they're targets now. Nobody but them has any real money. What they have, it's real, they've got it. Their wealth is not based on borrowed money that they don't have, that they're not paying back. It's real. And the government doesn't have any real money. Their only source of money is to print it, tax it, or take it from somebody else. They've gotta take it from wherever it's real and they feel like targets. And that's when they start shuddering when they see polls that say people say, "Yeah, yeah, have the rich pay more."
It's been a long time, early nineties, 19, 20 years, that Jesse Jackson first floated the idea. I haven't seen anything like this in America officially from anybody since other than the state of California, but the European socialists are now doing it. It's only a matter of time before somebody floats the idea here. And then you'll hear the whole Democrat Party chime in, "Oh, yeah, it's only fair, it's only fair. These economic times, so many people should have so much more than they could ever possibly need." You know the rhetoric and how it will flow.
And actually, ladies and gentlemen, I stand corrected. It was 1988 that the Reverend Jackson first suggested taking over pensions when he ran for the presidency. Wait a minute! Reverend Jackson also ran in 1984. I think it was 1988, though. Yeah. He called it "Invest Pensions in America." What he was advocating was the investment of pension funds in federally guaranteed securities. He would "use the capital to fund public housing, roads, and other public works projects" that we're already broke spending money on, but somehow the money doesn't go there.
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