Argentina To Nationalize Private Pensions

What this means is anyone's guess. Argentina Proposes Nationalization of Pension Fund:

Argentina's leftist President Cristina Kirchner proposed nationalizing the country's private pension funds in what could be seen as a grab for cash and power amid the global economic crisis.

The proposal, which triggered a steep drop on Argentina's stock market after it was leaked by union officials and reported in the Argentine press, reinforces Argentina's image as a pariah in financial circles and represents a repudiation of a system of private pensions that had been in vogue in developing countries. In 2001, Argentina announced the largest sovereign debt default in history.

Brokers work at the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, in Buenos Aires. Argentine stocks fell by more than 11% in reaction to news that the government plans to nationalize private pension funds.

The government said the takeover of the private system, created as an option to state pension funds in 1994, aimed to protect investors from losses due to the global market turmoil. But economists said the underlying motive would be to provide the government with about $5 billon in annual pension contributions that it needs to plug a gap in financing next year and avert a second debt default.

I personally question the Wall Street Journal speculation on motivation when a socialist new government de-privatizes large funds which have been heavily lobbied for by private firms...

At minimum this would suggest that the privatization and putting retirement onto the stock market roller coaster is finally falling out of favor.

To be continued....

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Argentina can't get away with it

The last time they did this was a prelude to a default. Foreign creditors would be negligent to ignore history this time around.

With that said, the salad days of people banking on the stock market to provide for their retirements are coming to an end.

more on this?

They tried this previously and were stopped?

The insanity of putting an economic stability leveler into the biggest gambling casino of the world has been the ultimate stupid idea I've seen yet. You can bet the minute the stock market starts to recover we'll be hearing all of this again.

I wonder exactly how much retirement funds people from say age 30-50 have in comparison to 50-80?

I'll bet there s a huge decline that is exactly correlated when they started 401ks and it's a ticking time bomb.

Banco Del Sur

Last time around the creditors were American and European banks. Argentina has erased those most of those debts through bonds bought up by Venezuela. I'm not sure it's the same now.