“Don’t tax you, don’t tax me. Tax that fellow behind the tree.” (Russell B. Long)

Before the crash some 700,000 Greeks who worked in jobs deemed hazardous to health were allowed to retire on a full pension at the age of 50 (women) or 55 (men). The 580 categories of job includes radio and TV presenting because of ‘toxic bacteria in microphones’! You couldn’t make it up. Ultimately the cost comes out of taxes. Welcome to the world of strong trades unions and weak governments. Welcome to the European Union.

German tax-payers are indignant because they know that some of the debt will fall onto them when the basket-case of the Greek economy goes into meltdown. Although they shouldn’t feel too virtuous. It’s Greece today, but Germany is also over-generous with its union-organized brothers. What happens when all the dominoes fall: Spain, Italy, France, Germany, the UK? Although different, the United States also has problems with its own pension and healthcare obligations, as 78 million baby boomers retire.

All these countries are in denial over their obligations to the elderly – take them into account and the real government debt shows up vastly greater than official figures – many greater than six-fold. With pensioners living longer, and consequential health-care costs set to soar, international creditors are now very wary of government debt. It won’t be long before government credit-ratings take a nose-dive, sending up interest rates, and making the debt problem even more acute.

Apart from devaluing the currency, there’s only one thing governments can do – target  the poor benighted taxpayer. The economics of the UK public sector is a case in point. According to the UK Audit Office, in 2008-9 the average British worker paid £516 towards the pensions of retired teachers, civil servants, the health service and the military – a total of nearly £15 billion. That is more than private sector workers pay for their own pensions, always assuming they have one; here is another group that is getting angry.

However, the ordinary worker can’t be bled dry because they make up the bulk of voters. So this only leaves the middle classes and the high net worth individuals. The writing is on the wall. To pay for residential care for the elderly the UK government is proposing an extra 10% death tax on all estates of more than £500,000. This is on top of the inheritance tax levied at 40% on estates worth more than £275,000.

The message is there for all  high net worth individuals to see. These geese that lay the golden eggs, I call them Golden Geese in my upcoming book, must fly away, for sooner or later those that remain will find their wings clipped, and they will have become Sitting Ducks.

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