[lbo-talk] forced saving

Jim Devine jdevine03 at gmail.com
Wed Jul 20 13:23:29 PDT 2005


I tend to read on the run and I finally finished reading a "forum" in the June issue of HARPER'S. Conservative Republicans Peter Peterson and Glenn Hubbard hobnobbed with liberal Democrat Paul Krugman (to use the standard political labels).

The most interesting part is that all three of them advocated "forced saving." To quote Peterson, "we have reached a point in this consumption-obsessed country [the US] where if we want people to save, we're going to have to make it mandatory. We're going to have to do what Singapore and Chile and Australia did." Hubbard agrees, while Krugman's main addition is that it should be called a "tax." I'm afraid that this may be the wave of the future.

It would be interesting to hear what the experience of Singapore, Chile, and Australia was.

As for me, I think it's time to dust off an old slogan, "no taxation without representation." If they're going to force us to save, we the citizens should have say over how it's invested. And it's _real_ not _financial_ investment that should be done. -- Jim Devine "Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" -- Richard Feynman



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