The U.S. Government Plans to Confiscate Your Private Retirement Assests [401(k)s, IRAs] to Fund the National Debt, Including Public Pensions

The U.S. Congress plans to slash social security 'entitlements' at a time when Wall Street has destroyed the home equity and private retirement accounts of potential retirees. Worse, they plan to increase the social security tax, disguised as a “mandatory savings tax.” This added tax would be automatically withdrawn from your paycheck and deposited to a “Guaranteed Retirement Account” managed by the Social Security Administration. Since the savings would be “mandatory,” you could not withdraw your money without stiff penalties; and rather than enjoying an earlier retirement paid out of your increased savings, a later retirement date was being called for. In the meantime, your “mandatory savings” would just be fattening the investment pool of the Wall Street bankers managing the funds. And that may be what really underlies the big push to educate the public to the dangers of the federal debt. - Ellen Brown, IMF-Style Austerity Comes to America, Web of Debt, March 2, 2010

The Coming Obama Retirement Trap Has Started! (Excerpt)

January 28, 2010

Ron Holland, LewRockwell.com - ...I fear that the control, nationalization and ultimate confiscation of trillions in private US retirement plan assets is on the horizon. Reports out of Washington indicate that new retirement annuities may be promoted by Obama aides. This is just the beginning! The question every successful American with substantial retirement assets must ask is "what will you do if our retirement funds are forced to become the buyer of last resort for US treasury obligations?"

Although the historical government solution to unsustainable government debt loads has always been the destruction of the debts by currency depreciation and eventual hyperinflation, there is always an intermediate step used to buy more time for the politicians in power. This action, usually side-stepped and downplayed by the establishment historians who are paid to hide the real facts of history, is wealth confiscation.

In the event of a future financial crisis, Washington might attempt to force your existing retirement funds into the new Guaranteed Retirement Annuity (GRA) or to invest a portion of your non-GRA retirement fund in certain government-preferred investments like treasury obligations. This proposal is first and foremost a government revenue generator, but second a bailout of underfunded, mismanaged and corrupt union retirement plans.

Most unemployed, underemployed union workers in failing union plans, and eventually state and local government employees, will benefit from this attack on the retirement assets of productive, successful Americans working in the private sector. Later, as local and state governments continue to flirt with bankruptcy, the GRA funds will likely be utilized to bailout state and local government plans. These underfunded union programs will be merged into the GRA program with the benefits paid by the confiscated funds of participants or with what the government considers over-funded benefits.

The largest source of liquid private wealth remaining in the United States is the $15 trillion in private retirement funds. Congress writes the laws, so they can tax, penalize, hold your funds hostage and (although they'd never use the word "confiscate") use your assets at their discretion. You will be forced into another Social Security-like scheme under the proposed mandatory GRA, with 5% of your salary confiscated into the program. You will also eventually find your existing retirement funds forced into the government program.

The government, as usual, will use the economic and fiscal problems to expand federal control and redirect the contributions currently going into quasi-private programs back toward the bankrupt coffers of the federal government.

Today over $15 trillion is setting in tax-favored retirement plans, including $4 trillion in IRA accounts (retirement savings make up 35% of all private assets). The politicians are tired of waiting; they need your money now. They want to create a new, third level of mandatory retirement benefits in addition to private plans and Social Security. This will be described as a Guaranteed Retirement Annuity or Account. Different proposals would delay retirement age until age 64, and some even later.

The Guaranteed Retirement Annuity would be structured to allow the government to hold and invest the money. I fear, following implementation of the contributory GRA program, a future legislative action by Congress would be to end the tax deductions and tax-deferred growth of all retirement plans, thus forcing these funds into the government-controlled annuity. Your forced retirement contributions would be pooled and professionally managed by Social Security. Also, beneficiaries would be cheated out of half of any benefits remaining at the death of a participant because Ghilarducci’s plan has 50% of all balances at death reverting to the Feds, not the beneficiaries.

At some time during the next decade, a global run on treasury debt and the dollar will also likely take the American stock market down past lows not seen since the financial meltdown crisis in 2008 and 2009. The 50% to 75% stock market pullback during the actual bankruptcy of the Washington debt and paper dollar will send shock waves through retirees and current plan participants as their private retirement plan balances plummet. At this time, Washington will "come to the rescue" and guarantee all private retirement plan market values back to pre-crisis levels. The gullible American public will overwhelmingly support this effort by switching their dwindling funds into the Guaranteed Retirement Annuity managed by the government.

They will find that their retirement funds in the mandatory Guaranteed Retirement Annuity will be used to purchase much of the rollover of treasury debt not repurchased by the Federal Reserve System. The taxpayers will be forced to become the buyer of last resort in the final collapse of Washington treasury obligations.

Have you ever noticed how lucky democratic political leaders are when public opinion needs to change? Economic, political and foreign policy crises, actions and responses have the unique ability of molding public opinion almost always behind the government. It will be the same when the global run on Washington treasury debt and the dollar happens. Asset values will tumble, and suddenly Washington will have the perfect solution to solve your loss in portfolio values and the debt crisis. It can only ride into law on a first-class national crisis. As we’ve mentioned, somehow the politicians are always able to find one when they need one.

The loss of triple-A status for Treasury bonds is the most likely trigger. A terrorist attack or a military disaster like the collapse of Pakistan or an Israel/Iran conflict and disruption of oil shipments could close American markets just as we saw in 2001.

That would create a financial crisis overnight. Any of those events would take place in an atmosphere of deep public worry and fear. That’s when Washington would come to your rescue and guarantee to restore your retirement funds back to a "pre-crash" level. However, in exchange you would need to "voluntarily" move your retirement assets into your new Guaranteed Retirement Account.

The final forced takeover of existing retirement plans will be Washington's response to a crisis; yet this will be just another revenue generator for Washington and a payback for the unions, just like the planned nationalization of health care.

Don't expect a broad public reaction to the stealth nationalization of your hard-earned benefits. The target of this takeover will be successful, productive Americans who make good annual incomes or who have been frugal and built up substantial retirement benefits in qualified plans. This redistribution of wealth will be welcomed by a majority of the American public, and there will be no public outcry like with nationalized health care.

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people take away the rights of the other forty-nine." ~ Thomas Jefferson

Most unemployed, underemployed union workers in failing union plans, and eventually state and local government employees, will benefit from this attack on the retirement assets of productive, successful Americans working in the private sector. You are a minority, and the mob rule of democracy warned about by Thomas Jefferson is just doing what it has always done, but this time with you as the target.



If you have over $200,000 in retirement funds, you can expect future controls, wealth taxes, and probable excess distribution penalties in addition to current regulations. The best way to reduce the risks of the coming retirement threat is to take your funds out of these qualified plan programs which will soon be under revenue and political attack.

Remember, these retirement proposals are just in the discussion stage, but progressives are promoting this confiscation agenda to the Obama Administration as a new source of revenue for a bankrupt federal government desperate for additional sources of revenue. When the next economic or stock market crisis hits, your retirement assets will be at risk from this type of confiscation effort regardless of whether the Democrats or Republicans are in control...

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Warren Buffett's Letter to Uncle Sam [the U.S. Taxpayers]

Warren Buffett praised the U.S. government's efforts to bail out the economy during the financial crisis two years ago, preventing an economic collapse. In a letter published by the New York Times, Buffett wrote that all corporate America's dominoes were lined up and were ready to topple at lightning speed in the aftermath of Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008. The U.S. government's decision to buy up assets that many investors considered to be toxic had helped pull back the economy from the brink of collapse. Buffett commended the architects of the bailout program including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and praised U.S. President George W. Bush for leading the program even as Congress "postured and squabbled." - Reuters, Warren Buffett Praises Bailout Efforts, November 17, 2010

November 17, 2010

Dear Uncle Sam,

My mother told me to send thank-you notes promptly. I’ve been remiss.

Let me remind you why I’m writing. Just over two years ago, in September 2008, our country faced an economic meltdown. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the pillars that supported our mortgage system, had been forced into conservatorship. Several of our largest commercial banks were teetering. One of Wall Street’s giant investment banks had gone bankrupt, and the remaining three were poised to follow. A.I.G., the world’s most famous insurer, was at death’s door.

Many of our largest industrial companies, dependent on commercial paper financing that had disappeared, were weeks away from exhausting their cash resources. Indeed, all of corporate America’s dominoes were lined up, ready to topple at lightning speed. My own company, Berkshire Hathaway, might have been the last to fall, but that distinction provided little solace.

Nor was it just business that was in peril: 300 million Americans were in the domino line as well. Just days before, the jobs, income, 401(k)’s and money-market funds of these citizens had seemed secure. Then, virtually overnight, everything began to turn into pumpkins and mice. There was no hiding place. A destructive economic force unlike any seen for generations had been unleashed.

Only one counterforce was available, and that was you, Uncle Sam. Yes, you are often clumsy, even inept. But when businesses and people worldwide race to get liquid, you are the only party with the resources to take the other side of the transaction. And when our citizens are losing trust by the hour in institutions they once revered, only you can restore calm.

When the crisis struck, I felt you would understand the role you had to play. But you’ve never been known for speed, and in a meltdown minutes matter. I worried whether the barrage of shattering surprises would disorient you. You would have to improvise solutions on the run, stretch legal boundaries and avoid slowdowns, like Congressional hearings and studies. You would also need to get turf-conscious departments to work together in mounting your counterattack. The challenge was huge, and many people thought you were not up to it.

Well, Uncle Sam, you delivered. People will second-guess your specific decisions; you can always count on that. But just as there is a fog of war, there is a fog of panic — and, overall, your actions were remarkably effective.

I don’t know precisely how you orchestrated these. But I did have a pretty good seat as events unfolded, and I would like to commend a few of your troops. In the darkest of days, Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner and Sheila Bair grasped the gravity of the situation and acted with courage and dispatch. And though I never voted for George W. Bush, I give him great credit for leading, even as Congress postured and squabbled.

You have been criticized, Uncle Sam, for some of the earlier decisions that got us in this mess — most prominently, for not battling the rot building up in the housing market. But then few of your critics saw matters clearly either. In truth, almost all of the country became possessed by the idea that home prices could never fall significantly.

That was a mass delusion, reinforced by rapidly rising prices that discredited the few skeptics who warned of trouble. Delusions, whether about tulips or Internet stocks, produce bubbles. And when bubbles pop, they can generate waves of trouble that hit shores far from their origin. This bubble was a doozy and its pop was felt around the world.

So, again, Uncle Sam, thanks to you and your aides. Often you are wasteful, and sometimes you are bullying. On occasion, you are downright maddening. But in this extraordinary emergency, you came through — and the world would look far different now if you had not.

Your grateful nephew,

Warren

Warren E. Buffett is the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a diversified holding company.

The world's richest give billions to remake the world in their image: In May 2009, word leaked to the press that the two richest men in America, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, had organized and presided over a confidential dinner meeting of billionaires in New York City. The crowd at the inaugural event added up to a list that would make any charity – or any conspiracy theorist – swoon. Left to right: Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett, Eli and Edythe Broad, Ted Turner, David Rockefeller, Chuck Feeney, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Julian Robertson, John and Tashia Morgridge, Pete Peterson

'Commoners' Bailing Out the 'Aristocrats' in a Crisis of Their Own Making
Tracking the Bailout and Stimulus Programs
“Five Myths About the Federal Reserve” in Washington Post



In the shocking video above, Howard Dean declares that it is the job of the government to redistribute our wealth. Not only that, he says it in such a way that indicates that he believes that such a notion should be obvious to anyone with half a brain. Well, while it is true that the United States has become a highly socialized nation, the reality is that this is not what the founding fathers intended. The founders intended for us to live in a land where we would have enough freedom and enough liberty to be able to work hard and enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They did not intend for a gigantic federal government to take huge amounts of money from one group of people and give it to another group of people. In any nation where a large-scale redistribution of wealth is happening, the incentive to work goes right out the window. Pretty soon you end up with an entire class of people that have learned how to "make a living" by being a parasite of the government, and that is not good for any economy. - Shocking Video of Howard Dean Declaring That It Is the Job of the Government to Redistribute Our Wealth, The Economic Collapse, February 9, 2011

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