You are on to something. It will just be in degrees. There have already been proposals to Federalize IRA/401k type accounts in the guise of "protecting" the account holder from adverse market conditions. The government would take all of the private account balances and replace them with a government guarantee of a low, but allegedly safe, rate of return. I think some of the EU countries have flirted with this idea, as well.
You know, a lot of foreign central banks have their gold reserves on deposit in New York at the Fed. Maybe it has to be transferred to the Treasury in a crisis? Just saying.