Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!
View past Libertarian pings here
Posted on 02/17/2010 5:40:59 PM PST by Kaslin
You did the responsible thing. You saved in your IRA or 401(k) to support your retirement, when you could have spent that money on another vacation, or an upscale car, or fancier clothes and jewelry. But now Washington is developing plans for your retirement savings.
BusinessWeek reports that the Treasury and Labor departments are asking for public comment on "the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams."
In plain English, the idea is for the government to take your retirement savings in return for a promise to pay you some monthly benefit in your retirement years.
They will tell you that you are "investing" your money in U.S. Treasury bonds. But they will use your money immediately to pay for their unprecedented trillion-dollar budget deficits, leaving nothing to back up their political promises, just as they have raided the Social Security trust funds.
This "conversion" may start out as an optional choice, though you are already free to buy Treasury bonds whenever you want. But as Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker Web site reports: "'Choices' have a funny way of turning into mandates, and this looks to me like a raw admission that Treasury knows it will not be able to sell its debt in the open market — so they will effectively tax you by forcing your 'retirement' money to buy them."
Moreover, benefits based on Treasury bond interest rates may be woefully inadequate compensation for your years of savings. As Denninger adds, "What's even worse is that the government has intentionally suppressed Treasury yields during this crisis (and will keep doing so by various means, including manipulating the CPI inflation index) so as to guarantee that you lose over time compared to actual purchasing power."
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
You’re surprised?
I am far from underestimating the depravity of fools.
Inflating away citizens assets is more sinister than just taking them, in my opinion. By letting inflation do the dirty work, they can blame it on “greedy business” or their political foes. If they take it there is nowhere to hide politically.
The result is the same, only for some reason folks won’t muster the same outrage with government fueled inflation as this 401k story.
I also think newt is grasping at straws trying to find another shot at greatness that he squandered last time.
They’ll inflate before they take.
Maybe a little brass in there too?
It’s coming, and it won’t be long. Americans are seething and reaching the boiling point. Wait until all of these unemployment checks stop coming. Desperate people do desperate things.
No it won’t.
Too many are clueless.
They’ve been talking about this since before the election ‘08.
I dumped everything Nov. 5th and spent it all.
Surely nobody is silly enough to still have money in their 401K’s. What? They didn’t steal enough from you last year? Get it out! Get the money out of your money market. Starve the beast.
If the government takes my 401K, at my age I willing to give them somethings else.
BS
Any Congressman who would vote for such a thing would earn my eternal enmity.
now slim, dont ferget about plastics & fine wood ‘furniture’ too...
most folks i know really never thought they would see a dime of SS or would live to triple digits if they did...
an in yer face grab at this point is nothing short of armed robbery and should be dealt with with as much force as can be brought to bear at any and all points possible...
i literally have nothing of monetary value to lose at this point, most of it would be worthless in the comin kenyan economy anyways, so might as well get a lil 'satisfaction' and hopefully give the future generations a fightin chance to read the Constitution...
Go ahead. Try it. I’ll shoot anyone that goes after MY money which is the result of MY labor.
Want to treat me as a slave? Fine. Then deal with my wrath. The stupid pinhead moronics idiots of the left in this country haven’t done their homework and thus lost the checklist of fascist takeover - get rid of their guns.
I’ve got plenty with ammo.
“Our government built......awesome wonder weapons, put men ...on the moon. “
WTF? Creative people invent and build and develop wonder drugs. Our government can’t pour p!$$ out of a shoe. Our government can only mandate.
Our government thinks there are 57 states. Our government only recently realized, after more than 200 years, that our Bill of Rights are merely a set of things that it can’t do to people. Our government is so fugging ignorant that it intends to replace these “negative” rights with positive “rights”. Our government can’t even pronounce “Corps men”. Even Coonasses can pronounce “Corps men”. Our government looks like a robot watching a tennis match when he talks.
One could call this Marxism turned upside down or as scholars would state that the true form of Marxism has been bastardized for the sake of the elitist. We are to be beholden to those above us making them fat and happy not taking away from their way of life. And the Elitist understand history, and they do not like Revolutions. The American Revolution was bad enough, but the French Revolution was the icing on the cake. (wink)
“Do you honestly believe they care? Half of them WANT a revolution so they can purge us out.”
Then all I have to say to them is: BRING IT ON!
“My IRA literally is all I have. They take that, they will get lead in return.”
Yup.
“We the people are going to do absolutely nothing.”
What’s the “We” crap? Speak for yourself. There is nothing more dangerous than a man who has nothing to lose. A few million of us would be formidable. The PTB should keep that in mind.
“No it won’t.”
I think you will be surprised.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.