This is nuts. The Government has 60 TRILLION in unfunded SS and Medicare abilities, as is. How the fuck do they propose to generate 3% YOY - after inflation - on XX Trillions in retirement accounts??
Dont buy it ? It's the talk of every media outlet and now spans websites across the globe. Still Don't believe it ? This is a perfect plan to get access to trillions of dollars. The government is broke. I suspect the market is going much much lower - the sheep will be running to the government for another "perceived handout" This nation is weak, once this all pans out ---- Red China will walk in and take use over without firing a bullet.
New Post 11-08-08 09:03 AM This is nuts. The Government has 60 TRILLION in unfunded SS and Medicare abilities, as is. How the fuck do they propose to generate 3% YOY - after inflation - on XX Trillions in retirement accounts?? They will do it buy never passing on your $$ to your estate when die. The Gov will keep it
The same way they make money by selling TIPS. They get to calculate what inflation is. This is a backdoor tax.
People are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. They are withdrawing a portion of their earnings and dumping it in a 401k that is managed by a mutual fund, or a "professional" money manager. All this manager really does is buy the "market" in the form of a basket of stocks and then rides the market up and down without making any "management" decisions, and here you are blaming the Average Joe Investor for being a financial illiterate? Joe the Investor did exactly what he was supposed to do. Now....now, the USG is going to steal what is left from this account -- which was mis-managed by the fund manager -- and hand it over to the SSA who will, in turn, buy bonds from a government that is going to default at some point in the future. Not only will Americans suffer from the stock market collapse but then they will suffer further from the default that is waiting out there. Americans will be broke when they retire, thanks to the USG. And, to boot, SSA is currently about $600B (don't have a source, it's just an estimate based on previous research) in the hole because Congress has repeatedly tapped this fund and replaced it with IOU's so they can build Project X. So now, the USG has a source to unload its debt on and another source for congress to steal from. How long will it be before this source of income has a deficit balance? Since when has the USG proven it is capable of managing its own finances, let alone the finances of others? So here you are telling us what a wonderful job you have done providing for your own retirement but in the same breathe you are willingly surrendering the retirements of others? And you called me a <b>pompus jackass</b>?
Promises, promises - I CANNOT BELIEVE people actually trust politicians!!! If 401(k)'s are taken over, I wonder what the probability is that the gov will f-up like they did with SS....especially given a nice long timeline to do it in. It is an interesting way to recapitalize the country....until the next bust. And we all realize how fragile the whole setup is anyway. Time to pull the money and buy CD's and treasuries and muni's - private recapitalization of the banking and government system. Or, as one poster mentioned - chase them into these products!!
Fuck off you worthless piece of shit. Last I heard you were a goverment employee who couldn't fend for themselves. WHich given your lack of reading comprehension isn't all that surprising. Sorry but the facts are the facts. Most people, including you, are too fucking stupid to manage their own money. Why the hell do you think were in this mess now? Personally, I have no problem just letting poor people rot in fields somewhere but I doubt thats going to fly. And if they can't afford to live then who do you think is going to support them dumbass? No ones saying it's going to happen or an ideal solution to anything. But the facts are clear that since retirement was turned over to individuals 20 years ago it hasn't worked and I see no reason to believe it will get any better. So the bottomline is we are all going to pay for the stupidity sooner or later one way or another. The same way we're paying for your retirement through that cushy gov't pension plan. I'm sure most would take your deal over their 401K anyday.
If you think that strategy will lead to a happy retirement then your just another idiot whose going to need my tax dollars someday to buy food. Look I have mixed feeling on this. On the one hand, I strongly believe in individual rights and freedoms and the ability to succeed at any level. The problem is when you fail it costs me because there's no way in hell the government is going to make you pay for your mistakes, i.e. dying of starvation. Your probably too young to know this but 401Ks and IRAs are a relatively new concept. Up until 20 years ago corporate America took responsibility for peoples retirement. The idea of turning that over to the individual makes a lot of sense on paper, but in reality most are ill equiped to manage their retirement funds and thats a fact. But, even still, your missing the point altogether. My point isn't that gov't should do this, or even that they will anytime soon. My point is that sooner or later, one way or another, gov't will have to support these people because they simply will not have enough money to live on until they die. If you could pull your head out of your ass long enough to think this through you would see that there is no question I am right about this point.