Posted on 02/01/2009 2:02:08 AM PST by Libloather
Teresa Ghilarducci: The 401(k) Retirement System Has Failed
January 30, 2009 03:51 PM ET | Emily Brandon
**SNIP**
Under Ghilarducci's plan, outlined in her book When I'm Sixty-Four: The Plot Against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them, all workers who don't have a traditional pension would be required to contribute 2.5 percent of their income to a government account with a 2.5 percent employer match. A 3 percent return above inflation would be guaranteed by the government. U.S. News asked Ghilarducci about her controversial retirement plans. Excerpts:
**SNIP**
How will GRAs fix the retirement system?
After 30 years of experience with voluntary participation in the 401(k) system, in my opinion, it has failed. The only retirement system that all people have is Social Security and Social Security isn’t enough. We need a universal supplement to Social security so that everyone can retire. Personal savings and employer pensions were supposed to fill in that role. I expect that the government will spend a considerable about of time figuring out a way to have a supplement to Social Security. It might not be my plan, which is mandatory and pays for the subsidy by scaling back the 401(k) system. I see a more gradual introduction of a GRA.
Is a 3 percent interest rate above inflation enough to get people to a secure retirement?
Barely. It is the minimum that the government can guarantee and itself not run the risk of not being able to pay it. If you save 5 percent of your earnings, it is enough to get middle-income workers 70 percent of their preretirement earnings in retirement. Without that supplemental guarantee, they are getting about 40 percent from the Social Security system.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
It is a mega ego trip. Lots of energy directed into all the wrong places
“the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Yeats
Do tell. When?
>>I seem to remember George W. Bush proposing GRA’s
Do tell. When?<<
Oh, back in 2004. He proposed retirement accounts and was savaged by the RATs for wanting to cut Social Security. The idea died - until the RATs dusted it off, wrapped it in a new ribbon and called it their great plan.
Our side never seems to get across to the RATs that they are lying. Saw pieces of Beckel on Hannity’s show (in between Super Bowl commercials) and he was attacking Rush and spinning everything against the PUBs and Bush. No one reminded him of the eight years that the RATs did everything in their power to make Bush fail. Or that Rush was right in what he said.
Just a lot of bacpedaling.
Fabian socialist institution alert.
I’m also thinking about cashing out my meager 401k ($23k)
-anyone know what would the taxes/penalties be on such a move?
Taxes would be at whatever your present marginal rate is, plus 10% penalty. Here are the present marginal rates for taxpayers as of today.
http://www.finance.cch.com/sohoApplets/TaxMargin.asp
This is for federal taxes only. State taxes also would likely apply.
thanks.
Although unknown to most Americans, Teresa Ghilarducci is the intellectual godmother for the Democrats' plans to radically change how Americans save for retirement. Ms. Ghilarducci, an economist at The New School for Social Research, called for the abolition of the tax breaks given to employers for 401k plans and instead proposed the mandatory enrollment of American employees in Government Retirement Accounts (GRA's) that are funded by a 5% mandatory payroll deduction in her book, When I'm 64: The Plot Against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them, published last year.
http://www.gopusa.com/archives/business/2009_01_15_living.html
In fact the radical-dominated House Education and Labor Committee is already floating plans to “merge” privately-owned 401(k)s with the Social Security system (which former U.S. Comptroller David Walker has been warning is little more than a vault of government IOUs). In such a “merger” — spearheaded by House committee chairman Rep. George Miller (a Marxist hailing from California’s Berkeley area) — your tax-sheltered personal investments would be liquidated, dumped into government bonds, and linked up with the cash-desperate Social Security “retirement” system (i.e. as government bureaucrats “spread the wealth,” and you are reduced to standing in line, hat in hand, hoping you get some portion of your life savings back). (Of course, your purchasing power will evaporate after the federal government inflates away the value of your so-called “Guaranteed Retirement Account,” or GRA as it would be named.)
Clutching Their Ideals Bitterly, Right-Wing Media Personalities Wage Partisan Warfare
Bulldog Reporter | November 11, 2008 | Staff
Posted on 11/11/2008 10:42:09 AM PST by La Enchiladita
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2130183/posts
[snip] “They’re going to take your 401(k), put it in the Social Security trust fund, whatever the hell that is,” Limbaugh woofed. “Trust fund, my rear end.” A slight problem with Limbaugh’s report: Obama and the Democrats have proposed no such thing, the Times reports. [end]
Congress mulls major 401(k) changes
Investment News | 08 oct 08 | Sara Hansard
Posted on 10/09/2008 6:13:51 AM PDT by rellimpank
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2101292/posts
Congress mulls major 401(k) changes (The Obama Retirement Ripoff of 2009)
Investment News | 100708 | Sara Hansard
Posted on 10/09/2008 11:25:48 PM PDT by Fred
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2102082/posts
House Democrats contemplate abolishing 401(k) tax breaks
Investment News | 10/12/2008 | Sara Hansard
Posted on 10/16/2008 8:32:17 PM PDT by Keyes2000mt
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2107721/posts
House Democrats Aim to Remove 401k Tax Breaks
All American Blogger | 10/22/08 | Duane Lester
Posted on 10/22/2008 9:42:21 AM PDT by Bodhi1
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2112274/posts
House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks
Workforce | 10/22/2008
Posted on 10/22/2008 11:59:13 AM PDT by ncfool
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2112409/posts
House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks
Workforce Management | October 16, 2008 | Sara Hansard
Posted on 10/22/2008 6:05:30 PM PDT by Chgogal
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2112720/posts
Democrats to kill 401(k)s for … privatized Social Security?
Hotair
Posted on 10/23/2008 6:52:48 AM PDT by indianyogi
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2113105/posts
Biden: “Their pensions go first”
AP via Google News | October 23 2008 | Steven K. Paulson
Posted on 10/24/2008 9:46:03 AM PDT by magellan
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2114230/posts
House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks
Workforce Management | October 16, 2008 | Workforce staff
Posted on 10/24/2008 2:04:09 PM PDT by RetiredArmy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2114445/posts
House Democrats contemplate abolishing 401(k) tax breaks
Crain Communications Inc. | October 12, 2008 | Sara Hansard
Posted on 10/26/2008 4:08:30 PM PDT by Salman
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2115960/posts
McCain suggests Democrats will tax 401(k) contributions, Dems say that’s ‘ridiculous’
Cleveland.com | 10/30/08 | Stephen Koff
Posted on 10/30/2008 6:11:41 PM PDT by Libloather
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2120253/posts
McCain suggests Democrats will tax 401(k) contributions
Cleveland.com
Posted on 10/30/2008 7:22:24 PM PDT by pelican001
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2120317/posts
House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks!!!
Workforce Management | Oct 16, 2008
Posted on 11/03/2008 3:44:16 PM PST by Im4realamerica
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2124088/posts
Hearing on 401(k) plan grows to urban legend
(MSM preparing people for government seizure of 401K!)
MSNBC | Nov. 7, 2008 | John W. Schoen
Posted on 11/07/2008 5:33:43 AM PST by FocusNexus
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2127778/posts
Obama’s retirement plan proposals
- Retirees and workers with 401(k) savings may see changes
South Bend Tribune | 11/09/08 | DAVID PITT
Posted on 11/09/2008 5:53:17 AM PST by Libloather
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2128708/posts
Dems Target Private Retirement Accounts
Carolina Journal | November 04, 2008 | Karen McMahan
Posted on 11/11/2008 7:00:44 AM PST by MelSmith
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2130011/posts
Dems Target Private Retirement Accounts
Carolina Journal | November 04, 2008 | Karen McMahan
Posted on 11/13/2008 6:20:06 PM PST by Lorianne
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2131791/posts
Targeting Your 401(k)
The Wall Street Journal | 11/14/08 | editorial
Posted on 11/14/2008 10:44:12 AM PST by shortstop
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2132194/posts
Calls grow to overhaul 401(k) retirement plans
(don’t read if you have high blood pressure)
Los Angeles TImes | 11/15/08 | Jim Puzzanghera
Posted on 11/15/2008 7:39:37 PM PST by randita
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2132895/posts
Dems Target Private Retirement Accounts
Carolina Journal Online | November 04, 2008 | Karen McMahan
Posted on 11/18/2008 4:45:37 PM PST by Clintonfatigued
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2134324/posts
Dems Target Private Retirement Accounts
Carolina Journal Online | November 04, 2008 | By Karen McMahan
Posted on 11/29/2008 11:41:32 AM PST by DivaDelMar
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2140081/posts
Plenty more here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/401k/index
Change = theft bump...
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