New Path to an Old End

When did it become incomprehensible that a government would reach into your savings account and grab itself a fistful of cash when it has been reaching into your paycheck and grabbing fistfuls for decades?

Why do people feel the savings set aside is somehow sacred when the paycheck is fertile hunting grounds? They are, it seems to me, one and the same--a government helping itself to the productivity of its workers.

Last year the debate over a "wealth tax" was a top story in the UK. Knowing full well that a stagnant economy could never touch the staggering debt enjoyed by that country, UK politicians brought the wealth tax up to debate. Taking it one step further than debate, EU bureaucrats have decided that a tax on savings deposits in Greece would be an excellent way to help finance Greece's ever present extended hand for charity.

And then the uproar.

It isn't as if government hasn't been taking the money out of the people's pockets forever. It strictly represents a new strategy to pick that same pocket a bit deeper.

We all know what the EU was thinking...domestic Greek wealth is less than hearty while foreign entities, notably the Russian mob, has been taking advantage of Greece's lax banking regulations for years. Why not hit the Russians where it hurts at the same time helping mitigate the pain on the Greeks.

Don't sweat it folks, its only the Greeks and the Russians. At least today.

There is not enough annual income among the wealthy to even scratch the surface of the debts piled up by benevolent bureaucrats here and elsewhere. Without a serious attempt to roll back spending one of two things must occur; an increase in tax rates that dips ever lower into income scales, or the type of pickpocketing employed by the EU on Greek savings.

They want money and they have none of their own. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and the government has needs.