Flashback: Congress Introduces Legislation to Limit Citizens' Ability to Tap into Their 401K’s

Fearing the Bottom Will Fall Out If Interest Rates Rise

May 22, 2011

Bob Chapman - The amount of money and people withdrawing from 401K’s has been staggering, and Wall Street and government do not like it one bit.

There are those who have been fired, run out of benefits, and have to cash in part or all of their retirement. The villainous ones are those still employed, who have taken up to three loans, many of whom have bought gold and silver with the proceeds.

That said, Senator Herb Kohl, Senator Mike Enzi have introduced legislation to limit citizens to tapping into their 401K’s, called “SEAL 401K Savings Accounts.” The bill would reduce and limit the number of loans workers may take from 401K’s and give participants more time to pay back loans after losing their jobs. In addition, employers would have the option to reduce the number of loans for their plans.

At the end of 2010, 28% of participants had loans outstanding, a record. The average loan balance was $7,860, and 58% of plans permit participants to have two or more loans at a time. If participants are fired or lose their jobs, 70% default on their loans.

Workers generally may borrow as much as 50% of their vested account balance up to $50,000. The loan must be repaid in five years, unless the money was used to purchase a primary residence. The average interest rate is 1% over prime.

We find it of more than passing interest that Mr. Kohl is not running for reelection next year.

If you are going to borrow from your 401K’s, do it now, ahead of this legislation that could interfere with the purchase of gold and silver shares, coins and bullion. This is the main reason for this legislation, to stop you from protecting your assets. Of course, such loans involve selling holdings in the 401K’s, and that puts downward pressure on stock and bond markets, or takes incoming funds destined for those markets away from those markets.

One aspect of a new and improved federal regulatory scheme is the seizure of 401(k) retirement plans and the subsequent government-administered disbursement of the funds.

In Chapter 3 of the Annual Report on the Middle Class released in February by Vice President Biden and the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, the Obama administration calls for enhancing the “retirement options” for the middle class by imposing “new regulations to improve the transparency and adequacy of 401(k) retirement savings.”

Read the entire article: 2010 - Obama Administration Plans to Seize 401(k) Retirement Accounts

[Here is your proof, as we have been telling you over and over again, get out of your 401Ks and IRAs before you have nothing more than a promise to pay from a bankrupt government.]

...In the US, the Fed probably will buy $1.6 trillion in Treasury and Agency debt over the next year, although we see the Treasury currently tapping government pension retirement funds to fund the lack of US debt extension, and that license could be used to relieve the Fed of some of the burden. Needless to say, that is not a permanent solution.

If that tactic is employed, private pensions, as we have warned for the past two years, could become a victim of the government as well. At the same time, the world economy is again slowing, and that does not bode well for borrowers either...

Once it becomes visible through the veil of government propaganda that conditions are deteriorating, real interest rates will rise, sending bonds down and the stock market will follow. What else can they do with no recovery, a falling dollar, 22.2% real unemployment, 10% inflation, a minus GDP and exponential creation by the Fed and the Treasury of money and credit.

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