Europe starts confiscating private pension funds

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 04 Jan 2011, 20:56

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/bel ... sion-funds

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; two others refer to national funds.

The most striking example is Hungary, where last month the government made the citizens an offer they could not refuse. They could either remit their individual retirement savings to the state, or lose the right to the basic state pension (but still have an obligation to pay contributions for it). In this extortionate way, the government wants to gain control over $14bn of individual retirement savings.

The article goes on to detail other pension grabs in Bulgaria, Poland, France and Ireland.

Not good news for those with private pensions.

Mean Mr Mustard · Post by **Mean Mr Mustard** » 04 Jan 2011, 21:06

Cristina did the same to Argentina two years ago.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/am ... Whos_next/

PaulS · Post by **PaulS** » 04 Jan 2011, 22:58

Public or private, pensions will become increasingly irresistible to desperate governments and will be raided sooner or later.
Best to cash you pension into a SSAP or Sipp and invest in something real. You will then have a chance of making use of your own pension pot.

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 05 Jan 2011, 08:18

Spains State Pension Fund should be almost entirely made up of Spanish State Bonds now.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/am ... nd-market/

Best to cash you pension into a SSAP or Sipp and invest in something real. You will then have a chance of making use of your own pension pot.

They can still be raided by the government, and the assets sold as "inappropriate".
These are never badged as seizures, The Argentine confiscation was merely the government ensuring that the assets were managed in the best interests of society....

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 05 Jan 2011, 09:52

PaulS · Post by **PaulS** » 05 Jan 2011, 10:01

DominicJ wrote:
Best to cash you pension into a SSAP or Sipp and invest in something real. You will then have a chance of making use of your own pension pot.
They can still be raided by the government, and the assets sold as "inappropriate".
These are never badged as seizures, The Argentine confiscation was merely the government ensuring that the assets were managed in the best interests of society....

I thought of that, which is why the pension plan bought a piece of land inaccessible from roads - so if we ever were forced to sell, our family would probably be the only ones interested with the result we would be ale to buy for a fraction of the original cost.

More worrying would be some kind of a tax on pension assets...

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 05 Jan 2011, 10:45

Well, thats me told then, clever thinking, own the borders in hand and the core in a pension, without access rights.

Hardly bullet proof of course, but better than nowt.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 05 Jan 2011, 12:02

PaulS · Post by **PaulS** » 05 Jan 2011, 14:15

True, but if the Crown seriously tried to take all land back, that would be a revolution - all houses, all land, from back gardens to historic estates ...
the mind boggles

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 05 Jan 2011, 15:24

They nationalised the charitable hospitals easily enough.

Wouldnt take much to set of a farming crisis, they've waged accidental war on the sector for long enough.
A few more hard pushes and you could throw the sector into chaos.
Step in as the hero, buying struggling farms.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 05 Jan 2011, 17:54

It wouldn't actually be the Crown taking the land back, it would be the government acting in place of the Crown. Moral of the story? Don't vote for a party that believes in nationalisation. There's only one major one that I know of in this country.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 05 Jan 2011, 17:59

DominicJ wrote:Wouldnt take much to set of a farming crisis, they've waged accidental war on the sector for long enough.
A few more hard pushes and you could throw the sector into chaos.
Step in as the hero, buying struggling farms.

That would be the supermarkets you're talking about there. Once they started buying farm land on a large scale, food prices would rocket as they awarded themselves production contracts at fair prices, prices at which their farms could make a profit.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 07 Jan 2011, 16:05

kenneal wrote:
DominicJ wrote:Wouldnt take much to set of a farming crisis, they've waged accidental war on the sector for long enough.
A few more hard pushes and you could throw the sector into chaos.
Step in as the hero, buying struggling farms.
That would be the supermarkets you're talking about there. Once they started to buying in farm land on a large scale, food prices would rocket as they awarded themselves production contracts at fair prices, prices at which their farms could make a profit.

The Co-Op is "Britain's Largest Farmer" apparently

and, at least at our branch, they're not particularly costly.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 08 Jan 2011, 17:33

The Co-op is supposedly an ethical trader. You could hardly apply that label to Tesco.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 08 Jan 2011, 18:38

And as such an ethical trader and farmer the Co-op have banned the use of the bee-killing neonicotinomide pesticides from their land and are speerheading campaigns to save the bees.

Do Tesco care?