Several financial writers have speculated that the US Government might try to rescue the dollar, by confiscating individual retirement accounts. The most common theory is that you would be forced to buy a government-backed annuity, in exchange for your IRA/401K assets.
Has anyone heard anything about this?
This would be unprecedented-but the $15 trillion now in IRAs must be tempting to Geithner.
Of course, it would require a lot of skullduggery-could this happen?
Here is what FactCheck.org has to say:
If you want to save time by not reading it, the answer is “No”.
Let me guess, you heard this idea in an email?
How exactly would seizing $15 trillion in assets shore up the dollar? If anything, it would do the exact opposite as people lose their faith in the soundness of the American system.
This premise is hilarious.
In today’s headlines, right-wing blog spreads misinformation and fear.
In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
I am sure this is going to happen. It will be part of the same declaration setting up the white slavery camps and just before the portraits of Mao and Lenin are hung in every classroom.
Do these “several financial writers” have names?
No, no, you have it backwards. The government is going to continue to rob from young people to support the livestyles of older persons.
Cite?
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/122635
Looks like someone’s making stuff up. :rolleyes:
In this morning’s news, goldbug websites spread financial disinformation and fear.
And the Generalissimo is still holding on in his valiant effort to remain dead.
Ah yes, Franco is still dead, but what about Tito?
No, actually the government is going to continue to steal the money the older people paid into the SSI fund and replace it with IOUs that they are too broke to redeem. If it had been left in place the SSI fund would be fine.
I’d say this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, but I’m a public librarian and I hear amazingly stupid things all the time. Definitely the dumbest thing so far today, though.
Believe it or not, I can find a grain of truth in this. This first link quotes a BusinessWeek article, “The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Iwry, who are spearheading the effort.” The link to the original BusinessWeek article is broken, but I think it may be referring to this Bloomberg article from BusinessWeek.
It, along with this New York Times article, discusses the idea that the US Treasury Dept is suggesting that people secure their retirements by converting part of their 401(k) and IRA accounts into annuities, which would offer guaranteed monthly income for life. Now, this is by no means “confiscating” your money, but one way that you can hedge against the ups and downs of the market.
Can’t we wait until Obama has confiscated all the guns before we start talking about him taking everyone’s 401k’s? Afterward, we’ll begin the Death to Every Firstborn signing statement he’s working on.
This is my field and I know where the story derives from, but I wouldn’t credit it with even a grain of truth.
Obama has asked a number of his advisors to explore ways to enhance retirement security outside of the Social Security system. One of the ironies of our current retirement system is that we yearn for the days when everyone had a pension, yet individuals rarely use their retirement assets to purchase their own pension. Any of us could choose to go through just about every major retirement provider to exchange a lump sum for a guaranteed income for life.
One step that people ranging from Roger Ferguson to Bill Gale at Brookings have supported is to make the option of an annuity available for all retiring participants in 401k plans. There is also some talk about making a lifetime payout for a portion of the balance a negative election. In other words, if you don’t say no, then it is assumed that is what you want. I see this as a positive step. If I had my way every statement on retirement investments will have not just a balance, but an indicator of what that will translate to in lifetime income at various ages. This is an acknowledgment that for younger workers they can’t rely on Social Security alone and need to understand their need to save on their own.
Didn’t the government confiscate gold at some point? Thought I read about this here somewhere. I’ll dig.
It’s not like members of Congress would suggest anything rash liketaxing someone’s bonus at 100% or removing tax breaks from 401K’s. That would just be crazy talk.