Nothing that dramatic needs to happen. They can just continue printing money and/or borrowing, causing massive inflation. It’s back door redistribution, as the buying power in you 401k will be drastically reduced.

Under the Automatic IRA Act of 2010, employees of firms with 10+ employees that do not sponsor a retirement plan would be automatically enrolled in IRAs at their workplace. Contributions would be purely voluntary; employees would be free to opt out at any time.

I very quickly read that and am not seeing confiscation anywhere in there.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/111th-congress/house-bill/6099/text

They've already floated the idea of "tax unrealized capital gains", which makes the idea of a 401k unteneble.  You can't possibly pay off gains from a stock/mutual fund that you are not allowed to cash in the first place, so under that line of thinking 401ks wouldn't be possible for most people.  The left isn't just coming for our 401ks, they're salivating at the idea.  People saving money and accumulating wealth is highly offensive to them, and they'd rather kill you and take what's yours than watch you have it.

Americans held $7.9 trillion in all employer-based DC retirement plans in March, of which $5.6 trillion was held in 401k plans.

The Fed and Elected officials have created more "money" than that out of the clear blue sky with just the Covid Stimulus plans.  More likely they will just tax the shit out of it as people withdraw and use it.

That's a good point. Why steal 5 trillion when you can just print 10 trillion.

401ks are invested in company stock, and company debt and US debt ( Treasury Bills )

These investments are only worth what others will pay for them.

As soon as the govt starts seizing these, they become worthless by definition because nobody will buy something that the govt is seizing because they are worthless.

The act would simultaneously make the stock market securities, bonds, and govt debt worthless.

They can just change the tax laws and tax this stuff. FJB's team is already talking about taxing unrealized gains.

But the bottom line is because the fed creates money out of electrons whenever the govt wants it, they don't have to do anything mre than what they have been doing since the money was backed by the full faith and credit instead of gold..

Just make more of it.

You need to get some help, OP.  You are way out of your lane.

Attached File

OP has no idea how 401k's work.

Where does the money go and who is in control of it.  It is not a private investment co. it is the government. Sort of social security 2.0. And while this particle bill I posted does not result in confiscation. The below quote is from 2012. The next logical step would be the government nationalizing  401k and ira's.

"A recent hearing sponsored by the Treasury and Labor Departments marked the beginning of the Obama Administration's effort to nationalize the nation's pension system and to eliminate private retirement accounts including IRA's and 401k plans, NSC is warning."

I heard Congressmen specifically have a law in place that allows Insider trading.

I've always believed that pols 'get wood' at the thought of stealing that much money. Both parties, too.

Somebody in the thread mentioned $6 trillion, I had heard $15 trillion but maybe that was counting Roth IRAs and the like.

Here is a breakdown of most TSP participants and their average TSP balance:
Number of ParticipantsAvg. BalanceAvg. Roth Balance
FERS3,417,433$145,233$13,941
CSRS309,151$153,391$21,379
Uniformed Services1,339,631$27,327$9,342


CSRS stopped being a thing in the 1983, everybody AFTER 1983 is a FERS employee. those people with 150k in their accounts started work 38 or more years ago. They don't need much 401k*they also don't get 401k matching at all, their pensions were the "government pension" people talk about, basically 80% of their pay as pension.

the FERS employees get much more modest pensions(do 30 years get 30% of your salary as pension, do 40 get 40, if you retire after 30 years AND after 65 you get a .1% kicker for every year, (35 years would get you 38.5%). But they got 5% 401k matching and 1% unmatched automatic.  

(blatantly stolen from fedsmith.com (basically federal employee help website)

Here is a breakdown of account balances in the Thrift Savings Plan and the average number of years participants have been contributing to the program in each account balance bracket.
Account BalanceNumber of ParticipantsAverage Years Contributing to TSP

$1 million       21,432      29.63
Total               5,332,741      11.38

(this isn't liking pasting, hoping it works right)


(even with stupidly stable jobs and predictable work environments most people don't take advantage of 401k's. Until 2009 or so you had to actively OPT IN to the TSP. after than it was a requirement to opt OUT of the automatic 3% contribution.)


SO basically most of the federal government employees DONT contribute to their TSP accounts. Problme is who would the government sell those seized assets to when they were done seizing them? simply by selling them they have dropped their price significantly, and are americans going to buy an asset that will be seized shortly? not at fill price. (think of it as a MG, a legal 3rd hole ar15 registered and all is 25-30k right, an illegal MG will cost you what 200-300? SAME thing, the ability to safely hold that asset effects the price. If the government suddenly said "all chevys belong to us as we own government motors" then resold those chevys the price of chevys would tank(sudden supply glut) the price of fords would do same(gotta compete with chevy prices), nissans ect. and instantly the stock market is in freefall. then the economy and we are worse off than we started.

That doesn't make sense.  

So republicans would be all pissed off and still vote republican.  Got it.  Maybe even pick up some independent voters that have 401k's they want to keep.  And what... you don't think Democrats have any 401k vote holders that wouldn't jump ship?  The political divide at the moment is close to 50/50.  If only 10% of democrats said "fuck that" and crossed the aisle because they want to keep their 401k that would be a huge shift in a currently deadlocked situation.

Plus, the moment the public actually believes the government is going to start "seizing" 401k they're going to withdraw all of that money to stick under their mattresses - penalty or not.  Some of my money under the mattress is worth more than having it taken and redistributed.  Hint: if that happened the stock market would collapse.  Like for real; mega corporations going insolvent overnight kind of shit.

I also thought I knew how elections worked, and how SCOTUS works, and how the FBI works yet here we are...

This is what made crypto currency an idea and popular

They ARE stealing our savings by devaluing the dollar, that plan is already underway.  If they go after retirement accounts it will be to destroy the middle class (a very likely objective), not necessarily to raise revenue.

Are you kidding, just like with Ozerocare they will exempt all unions and fed workers.

And collapse the entire economy over night.

Liberals are thieves.

Inflation is a hidden tax. I've never bought in to the entire 401k program. I've had smart people explain to me that it's free money, tax deferred so on and so forth. Yeah but a dollar today is only going to be worth .50 in 10,20,30 years and then I have to pay tax on that money at a higher rate because taxes sure as hell ain't going down. Sounds crazy but I think 401k's were invented by hedge funds to generate venture capital.

I've been mixing my retirement savings between 401k and a straight up bank savings account out of fear of this very thing.  I'll pay whatever penalty and cash it out in a heart beat just for spite, with a side of hope the markets DO crash.

LOL.

No it wouldn't. Not even close. If the evil events of 2020 hasn't popped it all off, taxing 401k's SURE isn't going to do it either.

At this point, I don't even think it's possible to win if we even tried to fight back. How would you even organize without getting squashed immediately? That ship has sailed, bro...

Go ROTH, you paid your taxes already.

Unless they push for some major voter reform

Meh, I bet all the 401k's on the planet wouldn't pay for the two "stimulus" bills past recently.

You have no business trying to lecture anyone about reality.

https://www.americanbenefitscouncil.org/pub/e613e1b6-f57b-1368-c1fb-966598903769

<<<<< 100,000,000 people in this country have assets in a defined contribution plan in some form.  Take off the tinfoil and think.

shame on all you greedy people with 401ks.

our new americans from south of the border and the middle east dont have any 401k funds and need a helping hand to jump start their retirement

Op, My Grandfather smoked his whole life. I was about 10 years old when my mother said to him, 'If you ever want to see your grandchildren graduate, you have to stop immediately.'. Tears welled up in his eyes when he realized what exactly was at stake. He gave it up immediately. Three years later he died of lung cancer. It was really sad and destroyed me. My mother said to me- 'Don't ever smoke. Please don't put your family through what your Grandfather put us through." I agreed. At 28, I have never touched a cigarette. I must say, I feel a very slight sense of regret for never having done it, because your fucking thread gave me cancer anyway.

 

ahh, you're assuming that the Gov doesn't forsee this an increase the taxes on cashing out early.

the board just needs to research Argentina .  all you need to know.

inb4 normalcy bias?

^ I fixed step 4.. excellent scary future steps

Step 4:

I don’t believe those number.s for % enrolled  A bit on the low side.  Not huge but off.  


But I guess the message is - take out a loan now and buy yourself those PVS-14s!

Redistribution. Essential to the universal income scheme.

I think I need to step away from this place for a few months. Again.

It's getting way too "Chicken Little" for my comfort.

You realize that if you invest outside of a 401k, you have to pay capital gains taxes as well, correct?  So you can defer taxes, or you can pay taxes now, have less to invest, and still pays taxes on gains later.  

The biggest advantage of the 401k, is for people in a high tax bracket now, who will be in a lower tax bracket later.  Additionally, the match is 100% return on investment.  If someone is offered a match on 401k and does not participate, they are a moron.  You could literally participate in the plan, then withdraw it annually, pay the taxes and penalty, and still be WAY ahead.

They'll try to say it's social security anyway, they'll just roll it into that and tell you they'll take care of it when you need it think get what you need back

Actually, they've found a way to steal the money in which nobody will notice or be able to do anything about. They'll simply invent more money until the 401ks are without value. It is far simpler to do, and nobody will notice until it is far too late.

The palace class, whoops I mean political class here in California have been discussing that for years now.  The discussion centers on taking every Californian's 401k, IRA, and fold those into CalPers and make those eligible for pensions.

It's not that they are interested in helping the savers, it's just that they are interested in saving CalPERS and the government workers who are in that retirement fund. Kamala is one of those who favor something like this.

We're probably one stock market crash away from that happening, but there's still federal laws to be dealt with.

OP you have 0 idea what you are talking about.

This is a huge problem that we have as conservatives because there's an issue that needs to be addressed that gets buried in bullshit.

Here's the breakdown:

Janet Yellen has discussed taxing unrealized gains in TAXABLE accounts. Make no mistake this is an economy killer.

That isn't what you said though is it?

You said the left is absolutely 100% going to steal your 401k.

Thats bullshit fear mongering. I'm not going to write an essay debunking it right now but the cliff notes are

THATS NOT HOW A 401K FUCKING WORKS.

Our side has a serious fucking problem with taking real issues that need to be addressed and COMPLETELY ALTERING what is being said and using bullshit fear tactics, that once someone looks into what is being said we look like COMPLETE AND UTTER FOOLS.

Let me show you how this works:

"I heard that Biden is going to confiscate our 401k's!" "No he just wants to tax capital gains a little earlier" "oh thats not that bad that guy who told me that is an idiot" Now that person is okay with taxing unrealized capital gains which is 100% a big fucking deal.

You are KILLING not only your own but OUR credibility when you misrepresent real problems and push them beyond the realm of possibility.

We seriously need to be better than this.

This is the equivalent of the Kulak class in the Soviet Union.  People who might be called "strivers" who believe by hard work and conservative habits they can create a life at least modestly better than otherwise.

Whether it is by taking 401k's or other means I believe that the Left is setting the stage to demonize this class in the US and most certainly take those assets.  It's where the bulk of the money is, same rationale as why banks are robbed.

The only way to combat high inflation is with high living ....    Milton Friedman


I am not saying anyone should go and clean out  their savings doing this,  but Milton was right,  buy things now such as consumable and durable goods which you can use or even sell later .  They will only be more expensive in the future kids and given where our economy is heading a lot more expensive ..


If anyone thinks the actual inflation rate is the official 2.5% the gov says it is ..  well they are in  rude surprise.  A few more rounds of COVID stimulus which is sure to happen with lefticrats and rhinos at the helm will all but insure we have absurd inflation in the next 4 years .  I am talking the kind of inflation that will make people pine for the rates of the 1970's  .  We have too many FSA assholes to keep this ship a float the way it is currently.


I am betting  that .gov writes off those student loans really soon though ...  Guess who gets to pay for em ....

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/09/26/161841771/how-income-divides-democrats-republicans-and-independents

Screech about NPR, but the data is publicly available. You're pretty far off base with the "most liberals are poor" assessment which pretty well undermines everything else.

"They're coming for your 401k" is more propaganda from the rich to try to turn your focus downward so you stop wondering why we've seen wealth continue to flow to the top instead of trickling down, despite massive tax cuts over the past 50 years. Nothing scares the Koch/Walton types more than when people stop seeing the poor as an enemy.

More like you have no idea how liberals work.  There is no floor for how low they will go, how batshit crazy they will act, and how ludicrous of laws they will conceive of to rob us of our wealth, well being, and lives just to satiate their appetite for vengeance.

This.

But that being said, by the time they get around to seizing 401ks, it’ll be obvious we are circling the drain.  We won’t be wondering whether or not it’s happening. We’ll be neck deep in the shit and your 401k probably won’t be first and foremost in your mind anyway.

doubt it will happen, WAY easier to just print money, and by print I mean add ones and zeros to the money supply, they literally just click a few buttons and send money out to the big banks or as we have seen in 2020 they just deposit money into peoples bank accounts. Its the modern day equivalent of dropping money from a helicopter.

But you should never have all of your eggs in one basket, and all the more reason to have a well diversified portfolio of assets. 401k, IRA, stocks, bonds, gold, real estate, maybe even a little bitcoin.

Because it isn't "fair" that we have $5 trillion.

"They" aren't rational people. It really is time we quit rationalizing their thoughts.

Taxing unrealized capital gains isn’t a 401k or IRA play, it’s a play for regular brokerage accounts and capital holders (could apply to real estate as well).

In before ar-jedi.

Speaking of, haven't seen him post in a while