To many in Europe, the Continent has two big economic problems: Huge debt, and high inequality between the rich and the rest.
Now some politicians are advocating a plan to solve both.
The idea, first floated by a German economic policy group, calls for imposing a 10 percent tax on the wealth of the richest Europeans and forcing them to lend money to their governments.
The plan calls for placing a one-time 10 percent levy on the total assets for those with more than $309,000 in assets (or couples with more than $611,000). In addition, it calls for a “forced loan” program, in which the wealthy lend money to their governments that could be paid back over time.
Stefan Bach of the prestigious the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin, which floated the plan, said that: "In many countries the sovereign debt levels have increased considerably, and at the same time we also have very high amounts of private assets that, taken together, considerably exceed the total national debts of all [euro-zone] countries."
In other words, the wealth of the wealthy is more than enough to plug government budget holes.
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