I, like many others, am contributing to a 401k.  After all, you gotta plan for retirement, right?

With the way things are in our crooked government, I’m starting to wonder if I, as well as many others, are just being set up.  If you have saved well for retirement and inflation goes haywire, much of your savings is gone.

In Argentina, didn’t the government steal, I mean federalize the retirement plans, merging them with non-solvent plans to prop up the other plans.  You know, punish those who prepared and saved while rewarding those who didn’t in the name of “fairness?”

The government could also means test Socialist Security and the like.  After all, why should you get the Socialist Security you paid for when you also have a 401k when some poor slug who didn’t work or didn’t save only has Socialist Security?  Let’s mean-tested Socialist Security in the name of “fairness.”

Anyhow, purposeful inflation and means testing are two tricks the government will use to steal from those in the middle class who have to give to those who haven’t.  What other tricks might they use that I haven’t thought about?

Could others who are concerned about this share their thoughts on how they are countering this threat to their assets?  

there have been discussions of confiscating 401K's and other retirement accounts,,YOU don't need that money, the Government will take care of you, Other people need it and we must spread the wealth around..

do some google searching,,its on the table..

We have a measly 50k in my wife's 401k, she's 59 1/2 right now so we can access it without penalties. I'm starting to think that money would work better for us by paying off about 10k worth of credit card and misc.debt that I am paying anywhere from 10 up to 23% interest on.

I'd still have my 401k to fall back on. What you post makes me think I am leaning in the right direction.

be advised - for those contemplating starting additional Roths and such
that the IRS will immediately have their hooks in it and it's 10% free money for sammy on early withdrawal

(depending on the fine print)
quite sure eco collapse doesn't count

IIRC



(eta) before, I was contributing the max, now I have reduced my contributions just enough to get the employer matching.
am redirecting the contributions to get my wife out of debt......

if you have lost your job or aren't making much/any money
cashing out early, and ONLY paying 10% to the mafia government isn't bad.

that's way cheaper than what you are really going to pay.

if you can get it out, you should do so
because it doesn't have long to be there.

Some of the info/rumors you hear is made-up, which is sad because it drowns out the truth, which is scary enough. The .gov seizure of retirement accounts is being discussed and 'studied': link

As was previously mentioned it would be spun as a 'Guaranteed Retirement Account' so no more scary market fluctuations.....or voluntary contributions or choices over investments, etc. In other words Soc Security part II- another ponzi scheme.

Not that long ago I would have thought this kooky tin-foil hat conspiracy non-sense...not anymore

I have heard a lot of rumblings, whispers, rumors, and (somehow) they all end up in a bill that no one reads.

as we speak, they are passing more legislation....

all we need is another "fat-finger" to cement the deal for the safety of the gooberment
they still haven't "uncovered" what caused the fat-finger.
tell me that another crisis won't happen.......

I'm trying to figure out, how do you counter them trying to steal retirements.  Not contribute to any government sanctioned program that has an incentive to invest, such as 401k or Roth?  All they have to do is change the rules and they can steal part or most of it.  Has anyone read any ideas, or maybe heard any ideas from Argentina, about how to protect yourself?  I'm from Generation X and feel certain that the money paid into Socialist Security, both my contributions and the employer contributions (which reduce my wages, so they are really my contributions, too) will be mostly stolen through "means testing."  I'd like to try avoiding getting robbed any more.

IRA's and 401K's are the only large pools of wealth remaining that the government hasn't yet seized from the people who actually worked to amass it.

Why else would the government keep up this crazy spending spree?

They know precisely how much $ the public has socked-away and they'll use it as their reset button.

I'm sure the hammer is about to drop any time now...

I once heard that PMs may be a hedge toward collapse
and I don't mean having them in your on-line portfolio.


do your own research
YMMV

What about real estate? I have flipped several houses and make part of my income from real estate, so its natural for me to look at it as a hedge/income stream.

I like the idea of buying single family homes and selling them on land contracts. You enjoy the ammortized interest, get a good price for the home you sell, and let someone else pay the taxes and upkeep.

Get a down payment that will protect somewhat against them trashing the house.

Couple of negatives are you lose future appreciation and it takes a long time to get your cash back.

Also depending on where you live and how hands on you want to be you could try rentals.

I'm not familiar with all of what you are talking about here but I do agree that real estate seems to be a pretty good way to protect yourself against federal government "retirement help".  Of course, that assumes that you buy low and hold for a long time and do as many of the repairs for yourself as you can.  Don't rely on the property to "make" you money.  Instead, use the rental income to pay the repairs, upkeep, and improvements as well as to pay off the mortgage.  Then, when you get older, start selling the properties to fund your retirement...and selling them slowly over time will gradually get rid of the upkeep work....you are retired so don't want to be working more than you need to right?

Having said all that, I do not have rentals at this time.  Maybe one day but not now.  Currently, I'm paying on my current house (with tons of equity) and just got my offer accepted for a 9 acre piece of land.  I will hopfully sell my current house in a couple years and build a new house on my land.  And, I paid cash for the property so no monthly mortgage payments!!

While I know all the arguments about housing not being an asset...blah blah blah, I still believe that one of the best retirement funds you can have is a paid for house.   With a paid for house, you really don't need that much money to live on..at least where I live.  Property taxes are pretty low here.  The above 9 acres I posted about costs $13.00 per year in property taxes!  With a house and shop building on it, I expect the property taxes to be about $1000 per year...certainly manageable in the future.

the worst advice on arfcom is in threads like these that bash retirement accounts with paranoia about some future gov't "seizure"

taxes are inevitable, we should deal with it with what we know as current law.  sure, the day may come and gov't renigs, and Roth withdrawals get taxed, for example, but that does not mean folks should give up a current tangible benefit against some possible future change in tax law.

no rational investor can ignore the power of tax deferral.

tin foilers just give others an excuse not to participate/save.  and guess what?  those people end up having to be indirectly supported by savers.

do the right thing for yourself: keep saving to your 401k, IRA, and investment accounts.

You are right, what I describe will never happen.  It is all tin foil fantasy.  NOT!  

How many things have come about over the past 10 years that people never thought would happen?

Didn’t Clinton throw around the idea of combining (stealing) teacher retirements with Socialist Security back in 1992 and the teachers union warn him that he’d lose their support in the next election?

Did you click on the above link provided by Porcine83 that took you to an article pointing out the government is currently kicking around ideas such as grabbing all 401k’s and putting in another mandatory, social security type program?   Again, it is currently being discussed right now.

Didn’t the government make big promises to vets regarding health care and now they are means testing it?

Isn’t Social Security and Medicare in serious financial shape?  

Hasn’t other nations, such as Argentina, tried seizing private pensions?  

This threat is about taking responsibility for ones own self.  I’m pretty darn sure that, of all the money that I’m putting into Social Security, I’ll only see a fraction.  I sure don’t want to expose any more of my assets than I have to.  

So, you tell us, what do we invest in?  Stocks?  Government bonds?  I can’t help but wonder if you sell securities, which would explain your comments.

This post is about kicking around ideas.  If you’d like to contribute, fine; I encourage it.  Tell us why the premise of this argument is incorrect.  Alternatively, tell us what you feel is best to invest in and why.  

This is one reason I won't convert my traditional IRA to a Roth. I don't trust the government not to change the rules. I'd rather have the tax savings now.

failure to do tax planning is simply giving your money away to Uncle Sam, plan and simple.

but if you think you know it all and it makes more sense to you to limit yourself to buying gold/PM, cash in your mattress, guns in the ground, or blowing all your cash on preps and "barter" goods instead of doing a bit of everything and have money work for you, carry on.

No, I don't know it all, which is why I'm asking for opinions here.  I'm lookin for ideas.

I do know that five years ago when certain nuts were buying gold, I had my money in the stock market.  I'm gonna bet you did, too.  I don't know about you, but I'm wishing five years ago I would have taken all my stocks and put them in PMs as I would have been much better off.  I wish the minute the Republicans nominated McCain as President, I would have bought a bunch of guns and ammo to resell.  I wish that back in 1994 I wouldn't have done like someone I know did, who mortaged his house and ran up his credit cards buying "assault weapons" by the case.  He is now a millionaire.  And I ain't even gonna talk about those Confederate bonds my great, great daddy bought for an investment.  

It is highly likely.....but not a certainty.

The only way to hide your "retirement" money would be to do so illegally.

Not hide, but protect.  For example, if you have have your choice of $100,000 in a retirement account OR $100,000 in an rental house and heavy inflation hit, the retirement home is a solid asset that you could raise the rent on, while the retirement account would get eaten by the inflation.

If two years ago, you have $100k in GM bonds OR $100k in gold, which would you have done better with today?

I agree in that the only way to "hide" retirement is illegally.  Suggesting violating the law is a CofC violation.  After all, only the government is allowed to flaunt the law and the Constitution.  

I'm curious about ideas to protect.  For example, so far we have PMs and having your house  paid for as strategies to cope with retirement and protect your assets.  Suggestions like these are what I'm hoping for.

the value of PMs are a tiny portion of what is available to invest in

your examples have all the benefit of perfect hindsight and timing, and all super risky single events.

mortgage the house to speculate on firearm prices? Confederate bonds? c'mon, are you serious?(oh wait, i forget i am posting on arfcom)
at least there was liquidity in the .com sector in 2000.  

short education, lookup asset allocation
and for example its application, MPT,
wikipedia link edit: links/comment added

Alot depends on the individual..theres not one "correct" answer. Plus there is no reason to not have several types of investments, no need to argue a specific thing is best, only time will tell. Also what works in my state may not work in your state, real estate markets are very different for example. I am self employed so there are no employer contributions to a retirement account, and I am pretty comfortable working with real estate.

Personally I do worry about the future value of the dollar and the stock market, but if I had a regular job where my employer contributed I would definately put a small amount into a retirement account, why not. I have a hard time seeing gold as a good investment, unless you are selling it.

Single family homes..its a huge buyers market, just bought a 1600 sqft 3bdrm 2 bath brick home in a good neighborhood for 17k, it sold three years ago for 110k. It needs some work, 7-8k in materials and my own labor and it will be a nice house.

What will it appraise for in this crazy market? Its paid for who cares! I can rent it for $6-700/month, sell it on a land contract for 50k @ 9% and just get my check in the mail every month, or live in it. Obviously it will not be worth 100k again anytime soon, but I am pretty comfortable that it will beat a 401k as an investment vehicle.

Diversification.  You want some RE, some stocks or stock mutual funds (spread across many sectors of the economy as well as overseas), some bonds or bond funds, some PM's, etc.

In theory .gov could change the tax laws so that Roth IRA distributions are taxable income.  In theory .gov could also repeal 922(o) and devalue a whole lotta transferrable machine guns.  I don't see either happening any time soon.

Or maybe they don't "re-tax" Roth and they go the easier route: putting an auto 45% tax on traditional accounts that have yet to be taxed.
All the rules can change, but you're betting on taxes staying lower than higher by the time you retire –– I am not, however.

Invest (A)––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-Retire (B)

Remember, in retirement savings (in regards to taxation), you are projecting the events between Point A and Point B.
The typical factors you are considering - we know these well::
Your income NOW vs. your income LATER
The tax rate NOW vs. tax rate LATER
It is enough to assume events and facts here, let alone the extraneous ambiguity of all that is hypothetically possible.
I feel like you are better off to consider the circumstances that are the most concrete before influencing your decisions with too many "if's".

I like real estate, too, but IMO, now is not the time to buy.

Let real estate hit rock bottom and then buy.

2015 at least....

What are you basing this projection on?  Not that I'm disagreeing, just other "experts" are looking for the bottom in 2-3 years.

Real estate priced in gold or silver won't hit bottom for at least five years.

Priced in US dollars, 2-3 years may be correct.

Purposeful inflation sounds wonky on many levels so I can't speak to that.

As for confiscating our 401k money, they won't.  There would be immediate revolution even from the meekest .gov-loving sheep.  

As for Social Security, if you are under 40 and expect to get much of anything, you are a fool.  You might and probably will, but planning on it is folly.  I doubt there will be a means test for SS benefits, though there will most certainly be higher taxes later on resulting in the .gov taxing back your SS.  

As for a defense against such a plan, it would be the same defense against most plans.  Don't put all your eggs in one basket.  Diversify.

Real estate as an investment just depends on where you live. Alot of areas may have some dropping to do..Michigan is pretty much beat to crap already, todays prices offer an excellent return on your investment and I am not sure how much lower they can drop.

I think it really depends on the forclosures...alot of reo inventory not on the market yet, and x amount of properties still in the forclosure process. But when forclosures stop representing such a large chunk of the total properties for sale prices will stabilize in a hurry (IMO). Granted that day could be a long way off.

I would be more worried about missing the boat than having prices drop a little after my purchase, Just being a very good shopper can go a long way towards covering you if the market continues to drop.

by the time they notice, it will be too late.
then again, some may never notice

(like Gump, not only do they not know nothin', they don't even suspect nothin')

We are from the government and we are here to help. LOL! A lot of folks do have their heads in the sand. Unfortunately after a couple of weeks of listening to one of these mutual fund guys on the radio advise everyone to get back in the market, I did . He would keep on about how the market is going up and the economy is recovering. I follow the news enough to have known better.Most of my money was in MM. Unfortunately we had not saved a lot during our working years.  To make a long story short I lost over 2k in the 3 weeks I was back in, mainly due to that FAT FINGER routine. No doubt Wall St. is as corrupt as they come. I should have known better. Yet nobody does any time for all these TRILLIONS of dollars being lost. I think it was like when we played marbles as kids. If you made a bad shot you called slipsies, which ment the shot didn't count. No harm no foul. Like all these politicians who don't pay taxes and cry slipsies and don't do any time for it. I wonder what would happen if we tried that. Scary!
  I would not put anything passed this government. Remember the townhall meetings? Remember how concerned citizens were treated. The disrespect. Haven't we all heard of some of the dictators this bunch admires. Does history repeat itself? Doesn't doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results a sign of insanity. In the future will we need to dig up a time capsule to find out about The US Constitution. I put nothing pass this bunch. I just need to do a little tax investagating myself before I start pulling money out of my 401. If that is the way to go remember ,taxes are going to go up.

   I think the answer to this particular question is based on your locality. A local realtor that I've recently talked to says the general concensus in our area is for the bottom in real estate market to be in 3 to 5 years.

   As for retirement plans, I too have read the reports of government seizures and started drawing down my own IRA last year and going to other hard assets. Does it matter if your money is held in a Roth or a conventional IRA if government seizures of retirement accounts do happen? That's what Id like to know.