Argentina Seizing Pensions

Pension seizing starts in earnest -

So, over $29bn of Argentine civic savings are to be used as a funding kitty for the populist antics of President Cristina Kirchner. This has been dressed up as an anti-corruption and efficiency move. Aren’t they always?

Argentine sovereign debt was trading at 29 cents on the dollar today, pushing the yield to 25pc. Tempted?

Credit Default Swaps on Argentine bonds reached 2,900. Do we have a Latin Iceland on our hands, but with 100 times the population? Or several, Pakistan, Ukraine, Hungary? …… Switzerland? Australia? Britain?

The funds being targeted are known as AFJPs or retirement accounts, but how long will it now be before Mrs Kirchner cracks down on the entire $97bn pool of private pensions? There are a lot of much-needed hard currency assets in those portfolios.

The Real Effect

Banks will start to claim ownership of 401k and pension funds (private and public) and begin "looting" them. (Read as taking your cash and continue to "invest" as they double-double down) and the government moves to “protect” them by seizing them. I would assume they would be placed in a new 'secure conservatorship'.

And if the political will is not present for the banks to do it, they will defer to the government to finish the job.

When you remove the concept of property rights from a society, any sort of property posession becomes scandalous and subject to theft equitable redistribution. For a fee of course, perhaps 80%?

Watch for increased calls of legal reformation to prevent"loopholes", "evasion" and "protests" of individuals that refuse to "pay their fair share of taxes" by allowing the banks to consume their life savings. Of course this will preclude massive rioting, as who wants to work their entire lives to end up destitute at the hands of corporate elite?