[lbo-talk] forced saving

Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org
Wed Jul 20 13:47:08 PDT 2005


One of the more interesting aspects of forced savings plans in both Singapore and Chile is that it allowed the government to direct a quite substantial amount of capital into domestic development. In Singapore especially, it de facto socialized a large chunk of societal wealth under the control of the government, albeit through "investment funds" whose members were politically appointed.

This socialist aspect of both these supposed "free market" stars is one of the embarassing secrets rarely talked about by the rightwing.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Devine" <jdevine03 at gmail.com> To: "LBO" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>; "Pen-l" <pen-l at sus.csuchico.edu> Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 4:23 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] forced saving


>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
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
>



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list