Revealed at last: How the US intends to steal its citizens retirement funds

[ceetee9]

Posted by TargeT (here)

Posted by Paul (here)
Annuities are a deal where you hand an insurance company some money, and they in return promise to return an income to you in the future of a certain amount, under certain conditions, say from when you are 65 until when you die.

social security is a pretty good example as well.



If our debt were immediately paid off via some sort of seizure like the one proposed in this thread the dollar would be eviscerated (in purchasing power). I'm sure if something like this did come along it wouldn't go to any debt, I don't think the debt will ever really get touched (other than a possible default).

for some reason it seems like this can will be kicked down the road, possibly for another year or two; I don't think things are "ready" for "the crasH" yet (or maybe that's just what I hope... haha).

Let us hope you are right. But I think we all know that a society and financial system that requires ever increasing growth is unsustainable in a world of finite resources. The question isn't IF the system will crash, but when and how bad.

[ceetee9]

Posted by Paul (here)

Posted by ceetee9 (here)
All they need to do is collapse the economy or have another "recession" like the one in 2008 and, poof, there goes your retirement money over night. I lost over half of my retirement money in 2008 and it is now just getting back to where it was then.

I would recommend not having any money invested in stocks and bonds at this point. At some point, even having money in a bank savings or checking account will become risky ... that point might be next month, or a couple years from now ... hard to say.

The two major reasons I retired early, five years ago, when I was 61 years old, were (1) so that I could transfer the 401K I had with my employer to a self-directed IRA, where I had much wider investment options, and (2) so that I could spend my time where I wanted to. That time and money ended up being "invested" in things that mattered to me ... having nothing much to do with making money. My divorce is finally completely settled, amicably. My home (a cheap trailer) is fully paid for. I've had five years to learn what the heck is going on in this world, outside of the narrow world of Linux kernels. My health is better. My preparations for coming economic changes are better. I've been able to assist family members in various ways. I've been able to support one of the best forums on the Web for almost three years now.

This was a major change in focus and life style, from traditional work for an employer and investing in various financial (aka 'paper') assets, to investing my time and resources into myself and the people around me (to me, the "Web" can be just as "local" as the guy across the street.)

Good for you Paul. I am contemplating doing the same thing now. My contract just ended and I'm less than 2 months away from minimum retirement age. I agree that keeping money in stocks and bonds is probably not wise at this point, but if it all goes south there is probably nowhere your money will be safe--including savings accounts.

All my retirement has been in an IRA for years, yet, as I stated earlier, I lost half of it in 2008 (and I know others who lost even more) so I question if there really is anywhere anyone can place their "investments" where they will be "safe" from the criminals who control this country (and planet).

Perhaps the smart thing for me to do at this point in time is to pay off what little I owe on our house, put some money in tangible assets needed for survival, and spend as much of the rest of my retirement money doing things my wife and I want to do and visiting family and friends around the country before the money grubbing scum decide to steal what's left away from us. Yep, and then, when it's all gone, join the rest of the folks on the government dole and let big brother take care of us. I know that's a completely self-centered, selfish, uncaring and un-American attitude, but, quite frankly, I'm growing so weary of trying to get people to do even a little research into what is going on in this world that I'm about ready to give up and just look out for me and my family.

It's pretty sad when things like a "Gangnam Style" and "Justin Bieber" video can garner 1.5 billion and 850 million views, respectively, but things that are, or at least can be, quite literally life threatening can't muster more than a few hundred or thousand views. I'll bet Paul's thread here won't get more than a few hundred views. If that doesn't give you a clue as to where our priorities lie and how dumbed-down society has become then I guess nothing will. And, yes, I know that is not really a fair comparison because I'm comparing kids interests with adult interests, but I'm quite sure the majority of your adult family and friends would sooner watch sports, reality TV and game shows, and/or bury their heads in the beliefs and systems they've been programmed to believe in since childhood than to "waste" (in their minds) even 30 minutes a week investigating whether what we've been trying to open their eyes to warrants any serious consideration.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by ceetee9 (here)
I guess I'm not understanding what you're trying to say here Paul, but I think we're on the same page--although I don't get where you think I'm comparing unfunded liabilities to present assets. ...

All I was attempting to say is that the USG debt is far greater than just the $16.9 Trillion dollars they and their media shills regurgitate on a regular basis and to ignore the debt that they would have us believe is salted away somewhere and protected is just plain crazy.

Unfunded liabilities are not debt. They are future expenses. Don't say that the US debt is far greater than $16.9 Trillion on account of the unfunded future liabilities of the US. It is not.

Of course the "salted away in a lock box" notion is just a distraction. However the US government does reasonably expect future income, out of which it can pay these future expenses. Neither that future income, nor those future expenses (aka "unfunded liabilities") are present assets or debts.

[ceetee9]

Posted by Paul (here)
Unfunded liabilities are not debt. They are future expenses. Don't say that the US debt is far greater than $16.9 Trillion on account of the unfunded future liabilities of the US. It is not.

According to the online free dictionary:

li·a·bil·i·ty (l -b l -t ). n. pl. li·a·bil·i·ties. 1. The state of being liable. 2. a. Something for which one is liable; an obligation, responsibility, or debt.

debt 1. something, typically money, that is owed or due.

According to Meriam-Webster:

liability 2: something for which one is liable; especially : pecuniary obligation : debt —usually used in plural

debt 2: something owed : obligation

According to InvestorWords:

Definition of liability: An obligation that legally binds an individual or company to settle a debt. When one is liable for a debt, they are responsible...

Debt: An amount owed to a person or organization for funds borrowed. Debt can be represented by a loan note, bond, mortgage or other form stating repayment terms and, if applicable, interest requirements. These different forms all imply intent to pay back an amount owed by a specific date, which is set forth in the repayment terms.

If you take out a mortgage or an auto loan it is a liability (debt) that you promise to pay in installments or at some future time. You and the bank determine your ability to pay that liability based on your current assets and income. If you don't think that that liability is a debt (current or future), just see what happens when you stop paying those payments or miss your pay off due date. We can argue over semantics all day long, but the bottom line is a liability is absolutely a debt (expense).

Of course the "salted away in a lock box" notion is just a distraction.

Maybe you consider a $126 Trillion dollar obligation that millions of Americans are counting on to survive a distraction, but I do not.

Let's just agree to disagree on this one.

[Dawn]

Of course this must be why the tremendous efforts are being made to kill off citizens early. The idea of 'longer life' spans no longer holds up in the US where:

1. the 3rd largest cause of death is medical misdiagnosis, drug side effects, and medical testing complications (per this month's Scientific American)

2. Fructose, rancid fats, and MSG are snuck in to almost every kind of factory fresh food available at supermarkets and restaurants without being labeled (all of these are known to cause early liver failure)

3. GMO foods are the rule for most produce, and are even polluting the 'organic produce' that is available... this despite clear scientific evidence that these cause early death and sterility

4. Fluoride is added to the majority of municipal water systems, despite clear scientific evidence that it is poisonious

5. Dentistry still uses metal 'amalgam' as a standard practice, despite clear evidence that the mercury it contains causes chronic illness and early death

So... one way to solve the 'pension debt crisis' is ... to kill off all the pensioners as soon as possible. Pretty clear connection IMHO

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by ceetee9 (here)
If you take out a mortgage or an auto loan it is a liability (debt) that you promise to pay in installments or at some future time.

Balance payments promised for some future date against income expected by that same date.

Don't balance future promises to pay against only present assets.

Am I necessarily bankrupt if I have

• a $200,000 mortgage on my house, requiring a $2,000/month payment,
• a steady job paying $10,000/month and
• just $50,000 in my savings account?

Of course not.

I am not saying that the future promises to pay aren't serious. As someone whose sole source of income is a Social Security check, I might be expected to want the US Government to honor that commitment (though actually, in my case, I'd gladly toss the whole setup, including my income, and be forced back to work at a paying job just to get by.) But even if I could still work, I have neighbors and relatives on Social Security who could not really work ... some account must be made for them.

This is not about whether these promises to pay are serious or not. It is about when the payments are due, versus when the income to pay them might reasonably be expected.

We (some members of this forum) went through this discussion with the Detroit bankruptcy, when Detroit was claiming bankruptcy because their future pension promises exceeded their present liquid assets.

Sure, Detroit is in really deep doo doo, and the US government is in serious doo doo as well, but alarmist cries over the imbalance of future liabilities versus present assets is bogus, serving only to hide the real problems.

[gripreaper]

I’ve been fairly silent lately for a reason, but this thread is too close to my heart not to help clarify some basic tenets and postulates adherent in the thinking of most people.

First, ALL money enters commerce as a debt through the Federal Reserve window, has a term (usually 30 years), interest rate attached to it, and is tracked by a CUSIP# as it deteriorates and ages to its eventual return to the Fed. It is “just a promise to pay” and is NOT an asset or attached to any asset AT ALL. The only thing which gives it any value at all, is the “good faith and credit” of the people, in other words, what energy and labor we produce from year to year to support them and keep them in commerce.

So, these public debt instruments must be “serviced” as they move through commerce, the ONLY variables available to these debt instruments is their velocity, how much additional debt enters commerce to offset the interest due, and how much energy those working can generate within the term of the instrument.

So, the notion of “parking” ANY debt instruments in an annuity or savings account only serves to slow down the velocity of the return of these instruments to the Fed, and exacerbates the problem of needing increased amounts of debt instruments to enter commerce to offset this slowing in velocity, thus “kicking the can” down the road.

You can only kick the can down the road for so long, or increase the amount and velocity of the money supply for so long, before it’s an inevitable zero sum game. There eventually becomes too few dollars chasing too much debt, and no amount of increased instruments or velocity can sustain the ponzi scheme. There is too much debt "parked" on the sidelines due back at the Fed and not enough new debt to re-hypotecate the debt parked in savings.

So, for those who still believe in ownership, assets, and savings, these notions are fallacious and do not exist in the true nature of how monetary policy works. The only thing you have is legal title, the right to possession, as long as you continue to give your energy to support the system “in good faith” and keep the ponzi scheme going, so that your neighbor is willing to transfer the trajectory of debt instruments and their velocity through your hands in exchange for possessionary rights to the assumed asset.

As long as there is a “greater fool” out there who is willing to sign a debt agreement, and funnel the moving debt instruments due back at the Federal Reserve through you, and you can manipulate their velocity by transferring the obligation to someone else, then those debt instruments have no security against their maturity.

All of the debt instruments “parked” on the sidelines in savings accounts are maturing rapidly and are due back at the Fed. The amount of additional debt instruments necessary to re-hypoticate and kick this can down the road, is gargantuan. Most of these instruments have been leveraged and pledged and sold and resold. This is an example of how the trajectory and velocity is being manipulated by the few at the top who want all of these instruments to “pass through” them, where they can leverage them, slow down their velocity by transfer of debt service, and thus “park” as much as they can.

They too will lose. The largest disappearance of these alleged assets, just numbers on a computer screen, paper backed by nothing, leveraged to 100 times their original CUSIP, and bet against their inevitable collapse, is estimated to be to the tune of close to 2 quadrillion.

How much new debt instruments does it take to kick this can down the road? How much “good faith” is left to support this ponzi? Who is left who wants to buy treasuries, the “hot potato” which no one wants to hold? When will the music stop? It only takes a 2% move in interest rates for the whole ponzi to collapse. It does not take much of a slowdown of new debt entering commerce to collapse the ponzi scheme.

The only thing you have control over, is what tangibles you have on hand to support life in the near term. The rest of it is an illusion. Do it before the music stops.

[ceetee9]

Posted by Paul (here)
Am I necessarily bankrupt if I have

• a $200,000 mortgage on my house, requiring a $2,000/month payment,
• a steady job paying $10,000/month and
• just $50,000 in my savings account?

Of course not.

The problem with your argument is the government does not have an annual income that is five times its annual debt. In fact, the federal spending for 2013 was $3.5 Trillion dollars and it only collected $2.8 Trillion dollars in revenue and those Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid payments still have to be paid month after month. Clearly, these numbers do not match your premise.

According to the the Heritage Foundation in an August 2013 article (Federal Spending by the Numbers...):

Following four years of trillion-dollar deficits, the national debt will still reach nearly $17 trillion and exceed 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) at the end of the year.

So unless you're using some kind of new math I don't understand or the government drastically reduces its spending and/or dramatically increases taxes, we are heading off the fiscal cliff (i.e., bankrupt). And since there is not a bottomless pit of money on which the vultures in Washington can feast and it is quite apparent that the American people are not willing to give up, or take any major hits to, their entitlement programs there is little hope that we will prevent this train wreck that is about to happen. So if that is being an alarmist (rather than a realist) then so be it.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by ceetee9 (here)

Posted by Paul (here)
Am I necessarily bankrupt if I have

• a $200,000 mortgage on my house, requiring a $2,000/month payment,
• a steady job paying $10,000/month and
• just $50,000 in my savings account?

Of course not.

The problem with your argument is the government does not have an annual income that is five times its annual debt. In fact, the federal spending for 2013 was $3.5 Trillion dollars and it only collected $2.8 Trillion dollars in revenue and those Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid payments still have to be paid month after month. Clearly, these numbers do not match your premise.

According to the the Heritage Foundation in an August 2013 article (Federal Spending by the Numbers...):

Following four years of trillion-dollar deficits, the national debt will still reach nearly $17 trillion and exceed 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) at the end of the year.

So unless you're using some kind of new math I don't understand or the government drastically reduces its spending and/or dramatically increases taxes, we are heading off the fiscal cliff (i.e., bankrupt). And since there is not a bottomless pit of money on which the vultures in Washington can feast and it is quite apparent that the American people are not willing to give up, or take any major hits to, their entitlement programs there is little hope that we will prevent this train wreck that is about to happen. So if that is being an alarmist (rather than a realist) then so be it.

I entirely agree that the US Federal government is spending more than it's taking in, and increasing its debt load unsustainably. I never said otherwise, and I did repeatedly say that the US has serious problems.

But my argument did NOT compare all government spending with all government revenue collection. My example demonstrated that committing to future payments on debt in excess of present assets is not, in and of itself, necessarily a problem.

Let me extend my example as follows. Let's say I have:

• a $200,000 mortgage on my house, requiring a $2,000/month payment,
• a steady job paying $10,000/month,
• a $15,000 per month cocaine habit, and
• just $50,000 in my savings account.

Then am I bankrupt? No, not yet. But I'm heading that way, due to the monthly expenses exceeding the monthly income, not due to the future debt payments exceeding the present savings.

Please quit confusing different concepts.

[ceetee9]

Posted by Paul (here)
But my argument did NOT compare all government spending with all government revenue collection. My example demonstrated that committing to future payments on debt in excess of present assets is not, in and of itself, necessarily a problem.

Well, maybe it's not a problem in your world and, obviously, it isn't in the USG's world YET, but it is in most everyone else's world.

I don't know how much borrowing you've done in your life, but I've done a lot and I've been in situations where my commitment to future payments of debt exceeded my present assets and income (at the time) and I've never had a bank say, no problem, here's more money. In fact, in one instance I can recall I went to my bank asking for merely a consolidation of loans to reduce my current payment burden which exceeded my, at that time, income and their answer was a resounding NO. I was over-extended and they weren't interested in helping me. I even tried to reason with them by saying, so you'd rather I default on my current loans to YOU where you do not have enough collateral equity to pay off those debts than work with me to reduce my monthly payment load so that I could continue making payments and eventually pay off my debt and you would get all of your principal plus interest back. And they still said they were not interested in helping me. And that's precisely what is going to happen to the USG when those who own our debts have leveraged themselves out of the dollar sufficiently that they feel comfortable enough to call those debts due.

So while I'll agree the USG is not "technically" bankrupt, unless a miracle happens or it has some trillionaire uncle who can bail its ass out, or some other feat of magic occurs, for all intents and purposes, it is bankrupt.

But I think we're beating a dead horse here.