Taking over your 401k??
Bear in mind the union pushing this is the SEIU. Their president, Andy Stern, is among the most frequent visitors to the White House, if he isn't the most frequent himself.
I'm fond of the saying "what can't go on, won't go on". I know this blog hasn't been around long enough for more than a few people to have looked at it, but I use it a lot in my first long post, "The Economic Mess That Changes Everything".
As you know, Fed.gov has (i.e., "we have") serious monetary problems. For the social programs they intend to put in place, they will need to borrow more money than actually exists in the rest of the world. China doesn't believe we're trustworthy for our debt, so they're reluctant to buy. Once you get down below around #10 in the world list of GDPs, we need to sell more bonds in a month than their entire annual GDP, so our need to sell bonds pretty much excludes every GDP below around #5. So they see they can force those bonds down our throats by selling them into the 401k savings.
It's pretty much the only thing they can do, other than monetize our own debt (like the German Veimar Republic or Zimbabwe) and buy them ourselves (total collapse). If "things that can't go on, won't go on"; the corollary must be "things that have to happen will happen", and I think that applies to nationalizing our 401k accounts. "For our own good". It has happened elsewhere in the world; it can happen here.
If you try to leave the country, you pay a big tax penalty. If you empty out your 401k to get it out of Fed.gov's reach, you pay a big tax penalty. So Fed.gov benefits if you try to protect yourself, and they benefit if you leave the money there and let them seize it. Moral of the story: if you write the rules, you always win.
It might buy us a couple more years before total collapse. The only wild card is that the EU is in the same boat (#2 GDP), and pretty much all of the world. China is not safe. No one is. If every house of cards is collapsing, do they somehow hold each other up?
There is a way out of this. Massive spending cuts and massive tax cuts. Slash the Nanny state to 1960 levels. Cut Federal spending by 50% and cut taxes radically. There will be pain, but there will be pain on the path we're on. Gerald Celente of Trends Research Institute, one of the most successful trend predictors working today predicts tax riots and US cities burning by next winter. We are on that course already.
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