Category: Libertarianism

From Reuters:

Poland said on Wednesday it will transfer to the state many of the assets held by private pension funds, slashing public debt but putting in doubt the future of the multi-billion-euro funds, many of them foreign-owned.

The changes went deeper than many in the market expected and could fuel investor concerns that the government is ditching some business-friendly policies to try to improve its flagging popularity with voters.

The Polish pension funds’ organisation said the changes may be unconstitutional because the government is taking private assets away from them without offering any compensation.

(Emphasis mine)

This was done to shore up their sovereign debt. If Poland is successful, I wonder how long before other nations decide to nationalize those assets.

With the looming pension and Medicare crises at home, how secure do you think your retirement investments are?

And feel the need to use it. Not to invade the evil polluting corporations armed with automatic weapons (seen on TV), but to do routine Clean Water checks. From Reason:

Chicken is a small roost, boasting all of 17 full-time residents and lots of seasonal mine workers, according to the Dispatch. The EPA wouldn’t explain why it has suddenly shifted to an armed team to check for Clean Water Act violations. According to the Dispatch, one Senate staffer was told the EPA sent an armed team because they were told by Alaska State Troopers there was “rampant drug and human trafficking” in the area. A spokesperson for the troopers denies they told the EPA any such thing.

Because, y’know, the EPA needs its own heavily armed agents to take water samples in the dangerous part of Alaska. And we’ll use the magic term drugs to explain.

If a man neglects to enforce his rights, he cannot complain if, after a while, the law follows his example.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

H/t reader David for sending in this quote.

So the government can’t threaten to shut down a paper because it’s leaking details of government abuses.

The British government, which has much more authority over the press, demands the return of the Snowden materials. Then it goes to The Guardian’s offices to make sure the hard drives containing the information are destroyed.

This new aggressive surveillance state is bad enough, but you’d think that the people who have gone to great lengths to monitor email would have an understanding of the Interwebz and that you can’t stop the signal.