The Meaning of Socialism: Q&A with National Review's Kevin Williamson

European nations begin seizing private pensions

It won't be long before our own politicians are stating that the only way to save Social Security is to confiscate our private pensions, 401(k)s and IRAs. If this sounds absurd then you must have missed the Senate hearings in October that were discussing this very idea. (See the actual video of the Senate hearing here)


European nations begin seizing private pensions

By Jan Iwanik, Guest blogger / January 2, 2011

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 organized 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 Bulgarian government has come up with a similar idea. $300m of private early retirement savings was supposed to be transferred to the state pension scheme. The government gave way after trade unions protested and finally only about 20% of the original plans were implemented.

You can read the rest of the article here.

First we had progressive taxes.... could progressive fines for crime be far behind

Speeding is hardly the worst crime a person can commit and its probably one that most of us break on a daily basis. But in Europe you better take the foot off the accelerator or you could need a second mortgage to pay off the fine. One speeder in Switzerland is facing a $1M fine for exceeding the speed limit by 105 miles per hour. Now I won't say that traveling this fast is safe and maybe in the U.S. you might get your license suspended by why a $1M fine. Well the Europeans want to make sure everyone pays their fair share so the fines are based on the speed as well as the person's net worth. Yes, that's right net worth. So how long before we see this type of fine right here in the good old U.S. of A? If you had asked be 5 years ago I would have said never but now... I'd say California probably has a law just like this one in committee and we don't even know about.

Swede faces world-record $1m speeding penalty
A Swedish motorist caught driving at 290km/h (180mph) in Switzerland could be given a world-record speeding fine of SFr1.08m ($1m; £656,000), prosecutors say.

The 37-year-old, who has not been named, was clocked driving his Mercedes sports car at 170km/h over the limit.

Under Swiss law, the level of fine is determined by the wealth of the driver and the speed recorded.

In January, a Swiss driver was fined $290,000 - the current world record.

Local police spokesman Benoit Dumas said of the latest case that "nothing can justify a speed of 290km/h".

"It is not controllable. It must have taken 500m to stop," he said.

The Swede's car - a Mercedes SLS AMG - has been impounded and in principle he could be forced to pay a daily fine of SFr3,600 for 300 days.