During the State of the Union speech, the President floated the idea that Americans should invest their retirement savings in the Government of the United States presumably to remove their savings from the ravages of market forces. This is the MyRA program.
Does anyone think that the Government can do anything better than the private market? May I refer you to the Healthcare.gov debacle, and you can fully understand my skepticism.
Let’s face it – the government of the United States is broke. Otherwise, why is the debt limit being raised without much resistance from either party? The can continues to be kicked down the road, but that road will eventually run out. Sooner or later, financial institutions will refuse to loan the United States Government any more money, and that is when the fertilizer will strike the rotating air moving device.
What will most likely happen is something similar to what I wrote 11 months ago in the post “Cyprus in the US?”.
The Government of Cyprus has decided a one-time tax (i.e., legalized confiscation) of funds from any account over 100,000 Euros is necessary to raise funding to secure a 10-Billion Euro bailout package from the European Union.
Of course, many of you will poo-poo the idea of our government seizing our assets to pay off the national debt like what Cyprus is doing. Folks, I will tell you right now that I believe that the groundwork is being laid to do just that. Consider the following:
The ObamaCare legislation authorizes the IRS to confiscate funds directly from your accounts if you do not have a health plan that meets the requirements of the ObamaCare mandate. This has been upheld by the Supreme Court because ObamaCare is now classified as a tax.
The Supreme Court has already heard cases concerning Eminent Domain which state that private property can be seized and used for the public use. I can fully see where these laws & decisions could be used and extended to bail the government out of the financial mess that generations of irresponsible Congresscritters have put us in. After all, the government is for the public good, right?
And what property would that be? Our 401Ks, Regular & Roth IRAs, and any investments that we would have. I have it on good authority that the politicians are salivating at the billions of dollars tied up in the tax-deferred savings accounts, and would love nothing more to get their hands on that money to fund whatever special project they have.
A post over at Joe the Plumber’s website Joe for America also describes that our savings are at risk. It states that the model that EU regulators used to confiscate American’s retirement savings as reported by Reuters is being considered by our Government:
In a nutshell, and in Reuters’ own words, “the savings of the European Union’s 500 million citizens could be used to fund long-term investments to boost the economy and help plug the gap left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says.”
…
The solution? “The Commission will ask the bloc’s insurance watchdog in the second half of this year for advice on a possible draft law “to mobilize more personal pension savings for long-term financing”, the document said.”
Mobilize, once again, is a more palatable word than, say, confiscate.
And it goes on to state that Congress has been considering these actions since 2010 and as recently as 2012! Follow the links in the post for more information than what I could possibly write about in this post.
I can fully believe that our Government will grasp at the apple of promise of more money. After all, over the objections of multiple citizens at multiple townhalls, the Affordable Healthcare Act was passed with the promise that Government knows best. As we all are finding out by personal or reported experiences, it’s not all that it was promised and sold to the American people.
As stated in the following paragraphs:
A few years ago the government of the United States of America nationalized nearly 1/6th of our economy when they took over the health care system with forced mandates. In the process they essentially took control of $1.6 trillion in yearly industry revenues.
But that’s nothing compared to private savings. The total amount of retirement assets in America, including 401k, IRA and savings accounts is around $21 trillion. With our national debt coincidentally approaching the same, the government sees big money and potentially a way out of our country’s fiscal disaster.
This will start voluntarily with the MyRA and other state-sponsored programs. But when not enough Americans are making it their patriotic duty to turn over their funds to their government, they’ll mandate compliance with the stroke of a pen just as they did with the Patient Affordable Care Act.
And just like Obamacare it will be enforced by the barrel of a gun. Failure to comply will mean confiscation without recourse and prison time.
Be afraid, my friends, very afraid…
Look at what our Executive Branch is doing by Executive Orders, and Congress is doing with legislation, and it becomes rapidly apparent that our Government is out of control. We The People must elect leaders that will restore this country to the Freedoms that our Founders envisioned!!
Otherwise, you had better figure out what your Plan B is, and that’s going to become your Plan A.
Tom's Place 