Free Republic

The Squeeze: An Economic Theory Premise of the book: A western country is running low on funds to keep their economy, with its soon-to-be totally dependent peoples, rolling along. Ruling from the shadows is an evil governing body, let's call them, hmmmm..."The Squeezers," that come up with what they believe to be a brilliant plan. The Plan: They make a law so impossible to follow and difficult to understand that it is always open to interpretation, totally fluid. The Care Institutions are forced to follow the law and in doing so the Squeezed who have been saving, working and watching...

Government Sets Its Sights on Private Retirement Accounts: “Giant Effort to Redistribute the Wealth of America’s Older Citizens” Mac Slavo November 20th, 2012 A new effort by the Obama administration, Congress, the Treasury Department and labor unions aims to fundamentally alter how Americans plan and save for retirement. Warnings have been popping up over the last several years about the possibility of re-appropriating the $3.5 Trillion sitting in private retirement and spreading those funds around to Americans who are deemed less fortunate. This couldn’t possibly happen in America, right? At one time, most Americans also believed heath care mandates that...

Americans hold about $17.9 trillion in retirement assets. These are found in the form of 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts and pension funds.That money is not your own. If it were, you would be able to access it without penalty. But that is not the case. Taxes and onerous fees are tacked on if you take the money when you need it as opposed to when your “benevolent” government masters believe you should have it.Congress established retirement programs like IRAs and 401(k)s in order to prop up the stock markets for the big banksters and make themselves look good. Americans have...

It may be time to take the tax hit and withdraw funds from private retirement accounts before they are forced into long term T-bonds. The Obama administration is reportedly quickly moving on plans to nationalize private 401k and IRA retirement accounts, and replace them with government sponsored annuities(aka Treasury bonds that the Treasury currently can’t sell to anyone but the Fed). National Seniors Council Director Robert Crone warns: “This whole issue is moving forward very quickly. Already there is a bill requiring all businesses to automatically enroll their employees in IRA plans in which part of every employee’s paycheck would...

A recent hearing sponsored by the Treasury and Labor Departments marked the beginning of the Obama Administration’s effort to nationalize the nation’s pension system and to eliminate private retirement accounts including IRA’s and 401k plans, NSC is warning. The hearing, held in the Labor Department’s main auditorium, was monitored by NSC staff and featured a line up of left-wing activists including one representative of the AFL-CIO who advocated for more government regulation over private retirement accounts and even the establishment of government-sponsored annuities that would take the place of 401k plans. "This hearing was set up to explore why Americans...

"Let it crash!" "Give them what they want and they'll see what happens!" "Surely, once the left's programs are implemented and the economy crashes, people will come to their senses." Since the election, many on the right have echoed this meme. They are convinced that widespread poverty and lack of opportunity will bring a resurgence of the America many of them knew growing up. Grandma and Grandpa's America. Perhaps these people forget that Roosevelt was re-elected three times during a depression that he helped prolong -- a depression that featured soup lines and starvation in a population that actually wanted...

So I have a modest nest egg in my 401(k). It's in growth stocks, and I've had almost 13% rate of return this year. I've pretty much made up all I lost in the last big crash. I'm concerned that if Obama is reelected, or if the election is undecided for weeks or months, that the market may tank. If the former, the downturn would likely be somewhat permanent. I can transfer funds between investment types with no fees and do it online. If I did it today, I believe the funds would be transferred by tomorrow. Was thinking of...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkTxVqqf25A&feature=g-vrec

It's been a third of a century since benefits consultant Ted Benna helped bring attention to a new but obscure provision of the federal tax code known as 401(k), which was meant to provide a tax break for folks with deferred income. As co-owner of the Johnson Cos., Benna was redesigning the retirement program for Philadelphia-based Cheltenham National Bank when he realized that the provision allowed employers to use salary deductions as tax-deferred contributions to employee retirement plans. To be sure, Benna was not the only one looking at the possibilities afforded by the 401(k). Among other firms, healthcare-products giant...

401k Withdrawal Petition Template Posted by Ann Barnhardt - August 23, AD 2012 7:22 PM MST This was drafted and sent in by a reader, and I think it is a great template for anyone who wants to petition their employer to let them out of their 401k. I would recommend sending it via certified mail - let them know you're dead serious, and try to get as many of your co-workers to do the same as you possibly can. *****MAKE CERTAIN THAT YOU REPLACE THE BRACKETED AREAS WITH INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOU AND YOUR COMPANY. FAILURE TO DO THIS...

In this video I give you a rundown of a portfolio that I think will hold up in any adverse market collapse. The premise boils down to 3 major equity/asset categories: 1)Energy %25 2)Precious Metals %25 3)Defensive (ie Walmart, JNJ, McD,etc) %50 This is a simple, straight-forward approach to protect your capital and wealth in this tulmultuous time. Part 1: Just a recap, here are the companies I give a green thumb to: Energy: 25% of Portfolio 1) Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) 5.5% yield 2) Calumet (CLMT) 10% yield 3) Uranium Participation Corp (URPTF) 0% yield or Cameco Corp (CCJ)...

America is heading into a retirement crisis, an economist says. Most retirees haven't saved enough money to retire and Teresa Ghilarducci blames America's entire system for retiring. It’s been 30 years since the Individual Retirement Account model became the standard way for Americans to save for retirement. But many people who saved for three decades watched a lot of that money disappear during the financial crisis. And now, more than half of American workers have saved less than $25,000 for their golden years, and about 30 percent have saved less than a thousand dollars. Overall, the system is failing, says...

The NFA is collusion with the Banksters, government and judiciary have achieved their goal. The entire concept of "customer segregated funds" is officially, completely, legally dead. Guys, it is OVER. I know that many of you are still cowering in normalcy bias, unable to deal with reality, unable to face the world as it is, but you have GOT to snap out of it. The marketplace is DESTROYED. You CANNOT be in these markets. All legal protections are now officially gone. Do you remember how I told you about the Ponzi scheme that imploded in 2007 called "Sentinel Management Group"...

Two years ago, in January 2010, Zero Hedge wrote "This Is The Government: Your Legal Right To Redeem Your Money Market Account Has Been Denied" which became one of our most read stories of the year. The reason? Perhaps something to do with an implicit attempt at capital controls by the government on one of the primary forms of cash aggregation available: $2.7 trillion in US money market funds. The proximal catalyst back then were new proposed regulations seeking to pull one of these three core pillars (these being no volatility, instantaneous liquidity, and redeemability) from the foundation of the...

Here is some good news from the Center for Disease Control: by 2050, life expectancy in the U.S. will be 87.5 years.  Or at least we thought this was good news. According to a Northwestern Mutual study, it turns out that only 56 percent of American are financially prepared to live to age 75, and even fewer are prepared to live to 85 or 95. Women are expected to live even longer than men but they're even more in danger of outliving their finances. In fact, only 45 percent of those surveyed have any plan regarding their financial life, down from...

Duplicity: More than 30 years ago, lawmakers made a deal with Americans: Set up a retirement nest egg and we'll let you fill it with tax-free money. A financially troubled Washington now plans to break its word. Nothing brought ordinary Americans into the world of investing like 401(k)s. Named after a subsection of the Internal Revenue Code, these retirement savings accounts have become a wildly popular alternative to traditional employer pensions, and are today owned by a sizeable majority of Americans at or near retirement. Through 401(k)s, an employee — not the company he or she works for — decides...

Per Stuart Varney, the "Government" is considering ways to tax some or all of your 401K to raise approximately $462M. This would be a new tax on top of whatever taxes you would already owe. Interesting.

Uncle Sam, in a desperate attempt to fix its $16 trillion-plus deficit, is leering over Americans’ retirement nest egg as its new bailout fund. Capitol Hill politicians are assessing tax changes that could let the Internal Revenue Service lay claim to a portion of the $18 trillion sitting in 401(k) accounts and other tax breaks used by middle-class workers, including cutting the mortgage tax deduction. A commission looking for ways to close the deficit, and, noting the extent of 401(k) tax breaks, recommends an examination of the system as one way to prevent government bankruptcy. Besides 401(k)s, other possibilities include...

Uncle Sam, in a desperate attempt to fix its $16 trillion-plus deficit, is leering over Americans’ retirement nest egg as its new bailout fund. Capitol Hill politicians are assessing tax changes that could let the Internal Revenue Service lay claim to a portion of the $18 trillion sitting in 401(k) accounts and other tax breaks used by middle-class workers, including cutting the mortgage tax deduction.

As growing numbers of baby boomers face retirement with inadequate savings, some state officials are considering a novel proposal to rebuild America’s ailing retirement system — having state pension funds run retirement plans for companies. Because more companies are ditching their own pension plans or not offering retirement benefits at all, the idea would be to give companies a way to offer a firm pension without having to run the plan themselves. On Monday, the labor economist Teresa Ghilarducci, who developed the proposal, held a public forum at the New School for Social Research with New York City’s comptroller, John...