Posted on 02/04/2025 7:50:07 AM PST by Recovering_Democrat
I see there is an idea being floated by President Trump regarding a "sovereign wealth fund" wherein taxpayer monies, controlled by a federal government entity, would be used to buy interests in private business.
Trump says maybe the SWF would invest in Tik Tok, and other companies.
Someone help me make sense of this: what is this if not socialism, or direct government control of what ought to be a private sector interest.
I don't like this idea.
That’s why I said it’s not a bad idea. This fund could be used to counter the insane pension costs until we figure out how to eliminate that.
The road to Hell starts with “It’s not a bad idea..”
That is just good political strategy.
Make the enemy box themselves in.
In Alberta, we have the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, funded by O&G revenues. Also called the 'rainy day fund', it was set up for a time when Alberta O&G dries up.
Unfortunately, when the socialist NDP came to power, they drained it on typically, useless, left-wing policies. Premier Danielle Smith has started to refund it, with a goal of eventually having $250 billion CDN in the fund.
I can't speak to US Social Security, and how it's managed, but I know that in the past, recent past especially, politicians have used the Canada Pension Plan to fund social change, rather than investing for fund growth.
Unfortunately, politicians, especially socialist pols, often see such pension plans/saving plans, as a source of funding for their grandious plans for social change, draining money set aside for people's future.
I guess the answer is, how well can the pension/savings plan be locked away from the greedy paws of politicians? THAT is the important question.
Maybe good political strategy at the moment but a freedom-crushing behemoth arm of government.
Socialism and Communism are never good ideas. Trump should drop this immediately.
Only if that's what we want to invest in. To your point, at least while a person is working, the 401K investment options are limited to whatever the employer's Benefits dept negotiated with the investment firm (i.e. Vanguard or Fidelety, etc.).
But as soon as a person retires (or leaves the current employer to work somewhere else) he can transfer it to an IRA and have full control on what the money is invested in.
I've heard that some people are able to invest in land within their IRA / Roth IRA (I don't know how they do that).
following....
Read the comment I was responding to.
Rope the enemy into battling against a bad idea that also shoots them in their own foot.
I read or heard somewhere that Real Estate was part of this potentially.
You know DC becoming a ghost town of money sucking Fedzilla may bring about prime real estate available for development in and around DC.
And we know Trump is into Real Estate and Development.
Maybe DC will have a development that doesn’t suck money from taxpayers after it’s all said and done.
Draining a swamp means you might be able to do something with the land that isn’t just for govt use..
And the most expensive swamp land is DC and maybe all those to be emptied out Fedzilla buildings, etc..
Norway or Denmark has this with oil companies. After the initial expense of buying the company, the government supposedly uses that “profit” money to help it’s citizens only. Whether they do or not, is the question.
It is not a bad idea, but like others have rightfully pointed out it could be abused. It needs to have the same safeguards that Social Security has and then... Maybe then it would be beneficial to offset costs. In fact... It could be used to pay down our National Debt. These reserves GROW FAST if you do not eat them up with hiring too much administration and adding sub-departments.
Isn't this the way all private retirement funds are financed?
Or at least the illusion of one, ie Fort Knox.
I hear ya. I was speaking “academically”, not in reality. At least not the current reality.
For all intents and purposes it is. Only the pension system is Federal. And that is because it floats the rest of the Government Pension systems. If you removed the Postal Service from the Federal Pension system, would be insolvent. And the debt would skyrocket (even more) immediately.
When Politicians control it . . . well we know what will happen.
Wake up people do you actually believe even the dumbest senator doesn't know how the system works? Why do you think that the Speaker and Majority leaders are always deep state crooks?
Just imagine what the next Democrat President will do with that fund. Not good.
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