THE GOVERNMENT WANTS YOUR RETIREMENT
Posted by Harley in Banking, The Economy on February 26, 2010
I will soon have another free report for you that will protect you from this power grab but right now it is imperative that you read the following. Do not be fooled by the government speak that they are looking for ways to help you. It’s all about deceiving you into believing they have your best interests in mind.
NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it.” ~ Frederic Bastiat
THE GOVERNMENT WANTS YOUR RETIREMENT
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Neal Boortz@ February 3, 2010 8:51 AM Permalink | Comments (105) | TrackBacks (0)
I’ve been telling you about this for a while now. This, to me, is one of the most dangerous schemes currently slithering through the crevices and dark spots of the Imperial Federal Government in Washington. What am I talking about? What I believe to be plans by the Obama administration to, in effect, seize your retirement funds and use them to finance their deficit spending. Remember … there are more than $3 trillion dollars sitting out there in individual retirement, IRA and 401K plans. Politicians just cant stand the idea of this much money sitting out there in private investments … out of the grasp of politicians. So …. Something needs to be done. And sure enough, something is going to be done. The Treasury Department and the Department of Labor were going to start taking comments on ways to promote the idea converting 401(k) savings and IRAs into annuities or other steady payment streams. Well you can finally take a look at this document for yourself:
Request for Information Regarding Lifetime Income Options for Participants and
Beneficiaries in Retirement Plans
Here, I’ll post a little to get you started:
The Department of Labor and the Department of the Treasury (the “Agencies”) are currently reviewing the rules under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the plan qualification rules under the Internal Revenue Code (Code) to determine whether, and, if so, how, the Agencies could or should enhance, by regulation or otherwise, the retirement security of participants in employer-sponsored retirement plans and in individual retirement arrangements (IRAs) by facilitating access to, and use of, lifetime income or other arrangements designed to provide a lifetime stream of income after retirement. The purpose of this request for information is to solicit views, suggestions and comments from plan participants, employers and other plan sponsors, plan service providers, and members of the financial community, as well as the general public, on this important issue.
That’s a lot of government-speak. Can you read between the lines? What is the real plan here? Behind this nonsense about “lifetime stream of income after retirement” language is a lovely little plan to force you to finance the Democrat’s deficit spending. The plan is to play into the current economic fears. “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Remember the words of Rahm? The Democrats want you to question whether or not Wall Street is the right place to invest your money. Wouldn’t you be safer if the government kept it for you? The government wants you to believe that it can do a better job of investing and managing your retirement than you can. And for a lot of people who believe that government is the answer, they may fine with this. It’s not fine with me, and, I suspect, it’s not all that fine with you.
Don’t believe me? Here is how these agencies present their reasoning:
Accordingly, with the continuing trend away from traditional defined benefit plans to 401(k) defined contribution plans and hybrid plans … employees are not only increasingly responsible for the adequacy of their savings at the time of retirement, but also for ensuring that their savings last throughout their retirement years … In recognition of the foregoing, the Agencies are considering whether it would be appropriate for them to take future steps to facilitate access to, and use of, lifetime income or other arrangements designed to provide a stream of income after retirement.
Here is one of the questions asked in this document from the Treasury Department and the Department of Labor:
13. Should some form of lifetime income distribution option be required for defined contribution plans (in addition to money purchase pension plans)? If so, should that option be the default distribution option, and should it apply to the entire account balance? To what extent would such a requirement encourage or discourage plan sponsorship?
Okay, what is this question really asking? First, it wants to know if the government should FORCE you to contribute money to an income distribution option. Then the second part of the question wants to know if this should be the standard retirement option, unless you choose to also put your money elsewhere.
OK .. I’m a little disjointed here. Let me try to wrap up all of this up in one neat package.
Obama’s budget is setting records in deficit spending. Obama is proposing borrowing every close to the amount of money that the Republicans borrowed in a single year .. but Obama is proposing borrowing that sum EVERY SINGLE MONTH throughout his term of office and beyond.
Earlier this week I told you of a story from the investment press which stated that investors now look at blue chip stocks like Coca Cola as better and safer investments than U.S. Government treasury certificates. China has signaled that it is not in the mood to buy many more U.S. government securities. This is how we finance our debt! If investors and other nations won’t voluntary finance our debt, what does our government do? Well, our government does what governments always do. Fall back on its unique ability to use force to accomplish its goals. There’s a problem here. We aren’t going to force China to buy more Treasuries … so where is the force to be applied? YOU, that’s where.
The government is talking about some form of “lifetime income distribution” and “lifetime stream of income.” (Isn’t this what Social Security was supposed to do?) But just HOW does the government provide this “lifetime” income? Simple … by FORCING you to take all or a portion of your retirement funds and invest them where China won’t go; invest them where private international investors no longer want to go; invest them in Treasury Certificates. Oh yeah … they’ll probably come up with some fancy new name for some fancy new type of T-bill … but the goal and the effect will be the same. You’ll see your money seized by government and used to finance the insane spending plans of politicians .. Democrat and Republican.
Stay alert folks. The government has wonderful ways to couch this in language that seams harmless and innocuous. It’s a money-grab. Nothing less.
“The Devil Of Wall Street” ~ Part II
More on Goldman Sachs. It gained notoriety for its speculative practices in the 1920s. In 1928, it launched the Goldman Sachs Trading Corp., a closed-end fund similar to a Ponzi scheme. The fund failed in the stock market crash of 1929, marring the firm’s reputation for years afterwards. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and former Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers all came from Goldman, prompting one commentator to call the U.S. Treasury “Goldman Sachs South.”
Goldman’s arrogance comes from more than just access to the money faucets of the banking system. It manipulates markets. Prior to 2008, it was just an investment bank. In 2008 Goldman was transformed into a bank holding company which gave it access to the Federal Reserve’s faucet; but it remained an investment bank, aggressively speculating in the markets. Now it can borrow incredible amounts of money at close to 0% interest use this money to speculate for its own account and bend markets to its will.
Only now are the powers to be finally recognizing that this must be stopped not only by Goldman but other “BIG” banks as well. The Glass-Steagall Act should be reintroduced into the system and lobbying and campaign contributions should end. No more politics in lending!
“The Devil of Wall Street”
Remember that in the past I’ve told you that Goldman Sachs is the devil of Wall Street, well here more proof. Corruption at its finest. Papers and other blogs have been filled with efforts of the NY Fed and Goldman Sachs to hide the details of the criminal conspiracy of the AIG bailout. Looks like Treasury Secretary Geithner has a golden parachute waiting for him at Goldman Sachs as payoff for his bailout of AIG. One of the chief recipients of this payout was Goldman who got $13 billion, roughly equivalent to its bonus pool for the first 9 months of 2009.
You see the bailout was engineered by the New York Fed while Geithner headed it, to buy out about $30 billion in credit default swaps that AIG sold on toxic debt securities. The New York Fed isn’t subject to citizen intrusions such as freedom of information requests, unlike the Federal Reserve. This impenetrability comes in handy since the bank is the preferred vehicle for many of the Fed’s bailout programs. It’s as though the New York Fed was a black-ops outfit for the nation’s central bank.
Even after the GM autoworkers, bondholders and vendors all received a government-enforced discount (talk about gov’t intrusion), Geithner had the audacity to claim the “sanctity of contracts” in the dealings with these companies like AIG. $170 billion of federal funds went to AIG and the banks feeding at its trough. A little side note, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that state governments face a collective $168 billion budget shortfall for fiscal 2010. If the money used to bail out AIG and the banks had been used to bail out the states instead, the states would not be facing insolvency today.
Has Housing Stabilized?
Posted by Harley in The Economy on February 2, 2010
I don’t think so! - Not widely reported is the fact that very, very few of those that have attempted to use the existing loan mod programs have been successful, and that 50% of those that were successful in getting their loan mod approved are ALREADY late in making their mortgage payments…. meaning they will be kicked out of the loan mod program and forced into foreclosure.
Insiders admit 1-2 million homeowners have stopped making their monthly mortgage payments, yet there’s been NO attempt at starting the foreclosure process on these homeowners. This is Obama’s attempt to slow the housing market collapse, and instead it is only making the bottom that much further away. These are the exact kinds of bogus strategies attempted in the 1930’s that were responsible for turning a serious recession into the Great Depression.
Millions of homeowners have stopped making their payments knowing that Obama’s directives to banks is not to initiate the foreclosure process. When the truth of this calamity becomes clear, the next leg down in housing will be well underway. Add in the next major wave of resets in Option ARMS, Alt A Mortgages, and Prime Mortgages, and the coming downturn in housing will be massive.
Outlook For The Year Ahead ~ Continued
Posted by Harley in The Economy on January 20, 2010
3) Do you think the Obama Administration is too well meaning and intelligent to lead us down a path of destruction? Well, consider this quote from one of the best researched books on the Great Depression, FDR’s Folly, by Jim Powell.
“Why did the smart, well educated, well intentioned New Dealers back policies that prolonged the Great Depression? How could they have gone so wrong? Most of the New Dealers were lawyers . Few among them, including FDR, had any practical business experience. The New Dealers came to believe that their knowledge, combined with their political power, could cure the problems of the world. They thought that by issuing executive orders, passing laws, raising taxes, and redistributing money, they could make society better.”
4) Look at the chart below on the business experience of the Obama Administration, compared to that of each Administration since 1900. Its frightening to realize how little our current leaders know about how the real world operates, especially with the economic conditions we face today.
Almost no one in Obama’s administration has ever had a job outside of government, much less owned a company in the private sector where they were forced to make payroll, or even to use Quickbooks to make sure that the company could pay its bills.
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