[jbharris317]

How the Government could Steal your Retirement Funds
A stock crash could be the crisis the Feds need to get you to beg them to take your money
Aging baby boomers are understandably anxious about their retirement plans. After watching stocks soar during the 80’s and 90’s they’ve endured the worst returns since the Great Depression in the 00’s.
Finally, after five long years the Dow has clawed back to 14,000 which it hasn’t seen since 2007. But with shocking unemployment, record food stamp enrollments, rising taxes and exploding federal deficits many investors expect another severe market crash is coming.
And they are probably right.
Since no disaster should go to waste the Federal Government will “ride to the rescue” to save all the baby boomers IRA’s, 401(k)’s, pensions and similar retirement plans. After enduring the loss of -40% of their retirement funds in the 2000-2002 decline and another- 40% in the 2008-2009 debacle this next crash will be the “straw that breaks the camel’s back”.
Millions of distraught investors will literally beg Uncle Sam to “bail them out” like he did the big banks in 08’-09’. It won’t matter that Uncle is flat broke and has no way to bail anybody out. He’ll simply speed up the printing presses and create new “money” out of thin air.
A new Federal Agency will be created similar to the FDIC (The Federal Retirement Insurance Corporation or FRIC possibly?). Investors will sign over the money in their retirement plans to the Government in exchange for Government guaranteed notes that pay an attractive rate of interest. And since money is no object Uncle may even throw in a “bonus” as an inducement to entice citizens to sign over their life savings.
What a Deal!
The Government gets a huge new pile of genuine cash to redistribute in exchange for IOU’s that ultimately will prove worthless. But, until that day of reckoning comes, as it surely will, investors with retirement plans backed by “The Full Faith and Credit of The United States” can sleep soundly.
What should you do now?
If you’re a student of history you may not be too thrilled with Uncle’s promises and “Guarantees”.
The Native American’s had over 100 Federal Treaty’s that were stamped signed and “Guaranteed” by the U.S. Government promising them they could live on their land forever. At least until gold, or oil or some other valuable resource was discovered on their land. Then Uncle had to “reluctantly renegotiate” the Treaty for his own benefit of course.
More recently Uncle ordered private bond holders in GM and Chrysler to hand over their money so it could be redistributed to The United Auto Workers in exchange for pennies on the dollar. In addition over 19,000 Delco managers had their pensions cancelled or reduced for the same reasons. All this was done in the name of “saving the auto industry”.
No, Uncle doesn’t have a very good track record of keeping promises when it suits him to break them.
However, if you don’t want to play along with Uncle you should consider moving your retirement funds to precious metals, like physical gold and silver. The specifics of how to do this are beyond the scope of this article, but plenty of info exists elsewhere on how to accomplish this.
Hopefully, I’m all wrong. But with the Government desperate for a huge pot of free money Americans $19 Trillion dollars in retirement savings is a juicy plum ripe for the picking!

[kaleb]

I worked in finance for awhile… it seems more plausible to me that a crash would provide the pretext for the feds to begin ‘protecting investors’ by mandating a certain percentage of investors be in ‘safe’ investments like (surprise!) US treasuries (at least for the tax-benefit retirement vehicles like 401k, 403b, IRA’s etc).

It’s like social securitizing the some 18 tril in private retirement thats floatin out there just taunting the thieves…

[gutzmank]

More likely they’ll just do what’s being done in Cyprus: take the money.

[mfigaro]

After Justice Roberts’ opinion, what are the practical limits on the federal government’s power to confiscate through taxation?

[Author]

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