Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Marian Tupy --
Now, in grabbing for retirees' savings, Irish leaders are attacking the very notion of private property. Dublin's new tax is intended to fund the government's "job creation" program while still shrinking its deficits. But even those who have confidence in the ability of governments to create productive employment should be concerned about the ethical dimension of expropriation, which is on par with Argentinian President Cristina Kirchner's decision to nationalize private pensions in 2008, when her government faced bankruptcy.
Now it's true that there's an element of lunacy to the policies forced by the European Union's still unresolved debt crisis, but a 0.6 percent temporary tax on private pension fund assets -- whose contributions earned tax deductions -- doesn't seem on a par with expropriation. Especially when the National Pension Reserve Fund, which was set aside to meet public pension obligations has already been fully raided to meet the black holes in the banking sector.
Tupy correctly focuses on the eurozone as an elite-driven project. But Ireland's problem isn't the single currency per se, but the insane banking sector policies that come with it.
Now, in grabbing for retirees' savings, Irish leaders are attacking the very notion of private property. Dublin's new tax is intended to fund the government's "job creation" program while still shrinking its deficits. But even those who have confidence in the ability of governments to create productive employment should be concerned about the ethical dimension of expropriation, which is on par with Argentinian President Cristina Kirchner's decision to nationalize private pensions in 2008, when her government faced bankruptcy.
Now it's true that there's an element of lunacy to the policies forced by the European Union's still unresolved debt crisis, but a 0.6 percent temporary tax on private pension fund assets -- whose contributions earned tax deductions -- doesn't seem on a par with expropriation. Especially when the National Pension Reserve Fund, which was set aside to meet public pension obligations has already been fully raided to meet the black holes in the banking sector.
Tupy correctly focuses on the eurozone as an elite-driven project. But Ireland's problem isn't the single currency per se, but the insane banking sector policies that come with it.
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