Monday, January 5, 2009
Italian Pensions Sapped by Private Funds Bush Backed
"Italy did for retirement financing what President George W. Bush couldn’t do in the U.S.: It privatized part of its social security system. The timing couldn’t have been worse. The global market meltdown has created losses for those who agreed to shift their contributions from a government severance payment plan to private funds meant to yield higher returns."
How ironic. Italy of all places, long known for its entrenched socialism, embraces what many U.S. leaders have been promoting--privatizing social security--and it proves to be a horrific failure.
This won't stop conservatives from trying to foist the same disastrous scheme upon Americans.
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4 comments:
Right, because government knows how to spend and save (hahahah!) our money better than we do.
It seems you need a lesson in reading comprehension as well, majestyx. Investors lost under a privatized system whereas there was never a loss to pensioners over decades when the government ran the retirement program.
You are assuming that the government would have fared better in the same economic climate after the privitization occurred.
It's also pretty easy to do when you just tax people, mainly through property taxes, to make up for shortfalls in guaranteed pensions, as happens in the US. The private sector cannot just take money away from people, unlike the government.
Italy ran deficits, which meant that whatever they collected in taxes, was recycled back into the economy as spending, and then some.
Are you totally clueless???
Can you name the last time that any country operated on a balanced budget framework?
Maybe Peter Schiff can be of assistance. You should contact him, to bone up on your dogma.
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