Argentine pension plan has local, global impact

[Dover]

Source: Reuters



BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina's surprise plan to nationalize its private pension system caused chaos on local markets on Wednesday and raised fears about a debt default, sending a ripple effect of fear about emerging-market investments into European stocks and Asian bonds.

President Cristina Fernandez, who has repeatedly criticized financial markets for speculating rather than investing in real production, announced on Tuesday she would send a bill to Congress for the state to take over the $30 billion in funds in the 14-year-old private pension system.

Fernandez defended the plan by saying that she was rescuing pensions from the global market crisis but some investors saw the plan as a sign of desperation by a government facing billions of dollars in debt obligations next year.

The plan is likely to pass Congress and be broadly popular in Argentina, where there is broad-based suspicion of the privatizations that took place during the 1990s when free-market reforms swept Latin America...>

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE49L73H20081022

[Indenturedebtor]

1. What?!?! Social Security isn't for brown people!

Call the CIA, they need a new government stat! :eyes:

[bemildred]

2. "The plan is likely to pass Congress and be broadly popular in Argentina"

Ms Fernandez understands that seeing that those pensioners get what they were promised is way more important than what "some investors" think about it.