re: Gov't seizing 401K money

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I don't know who Alex Jones is and I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I honestly don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that if the majority of voters aren't heavily invested in tax advantaged accounts, the government will find a way to change the rules.

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I think it is completely silly to consider the notion for more than 3 seconds.

About a 0.0000034% chance of it ever happening. Contribution limits rise and fall and the tax rate on earnings and withdrawals rise and fall with changes to individual tax rates buts as far as seizing the money outright,


No.

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That's only phase 1.

Phase 2: Collect Underpants
Phase 3: ?????
Phase 4: Profit.

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Ah...so that's where this nonsense is coming from.

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No Hungary, Argentina and France have all done massive overhauls and Argentina flat out seized private retirement accounts. It is happening in other places around the world and has been proposed here in the states a few times already. The notion that it warrants our attention and should be watched closely is not a conspiracy theory, it is prudent.

Russian your usually an informative poster but on this your just not informed, have you not read about what is happening in Cyprus either? I would keep my eye on this if I were you.

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would get true bipartisan push back from the American public.

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In my lifetime, I've never seen pushback from the American Public like I saw in 2009-2010 over the Obamacare debate. Mass even elected a Republican to the Senate for Christ's sake.

You see where American pushback got us...

When it's time, you'll get whatever it is the 535+1 want.

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No Hungary, Argentina and France have all done massive overhauls

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So, did they seize private individuals retirement savings accounts? No, they didn't.

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and Argentina flat out seized private retirement accounts.

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You need to read up on why that was done. It did not involve "private retirement accounts." It involved some, but not all, of government insured corporate pension plans which were going bankrupt due to market losses on those funds' investments during the 2008 stock market crash.

The government took over those plan's assets and guaranteed the pensions of the members of the plans.

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Russian your usually an informative poster

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Yes, I am.

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but on this your just not informed

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Yes, I am. It is YOU who is making up your own facts.

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have you not read about what is happening in Cyprus either?

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Of course. I know more about Cyprus than you do. I know the annual GDP of Cyprus is less than one quarter's profit of Apple Corporation.

I also know the idea of taxing bank deposits was the EU's attempt to punish Russia for using Cypriot banks as money laundering ATM's for Russian oligarchs. The amount of Russian oligarch money in Cypriot banks is 3 times more than the annual GDP of the entire country of Cyprus.

Why do you think Putin and his oligarch cronies got so involved in trying to bail out the Cypriot government? It wasn't because the Russians are kindhearted. It's because if the deposit tax had been passed (it wasn't by a 36-0 vote of the Cypriot parliament) Russian oligarchs would have lost over $3 billion of their money in the Cypriot banks. It was the EU's way of telling Russia since they helped break Cyprus' banks, they were going to help pay to fix them. The Cypriot parliament members likely were visited by some flat-head Russian mafia types explaining why it would be in the parliament's best interest to vote down the deposit tax.

It is YOU who needs to get familiar with what is really happening in Cyprus.

I will not post in this thread again unless it is moved to the Poli Board. A thread like this is more political than it is finance related. I've RA'd to have it moved to the Poli Board. We don't need to muddy this board with political discussions. I hope others will also request it be moved.

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LSURussian

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So, did they seize private individuals retirement savings accounts? No, they didn't.

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You need to read up on why that was done. It did not involve "private retirement accounts." It involved some, but not all, of government insured corporate pension plans which were going bankrupt due to market losses on those funds' investments during the 2008 stock market crash.

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Ok this is just not 100%, sorry. Here are some quotes and links:

"Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Argentine bond yields soared above 24 percent and stocks sank the most in a decade on speculation the government will seize private pension funds and use the assets to stave off the second default this decade. "

"President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will unveil a new pension fund plan at 4 p.m. New York time today, the country's social security administration said in a statement. Fernandez will nationalize the system, giving the government control of $29 billion in retirement accounts, La Nacion reported, citing government officials it didn't identify. "

``It's horrible,'' said Jaime Valdivia, who manages $1 billion of assets for Emerging Sovereign Group in New York. ``We're going back to the dark ages. Not even in times of the worst financial stress did the government ever think about taking over the private pension system.''

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So we can have a pillow fight about the wording but the bottom line here is that the government seized the assets of private citizens.

"The proposed expropriation would eliminate individual savings, and convert them into a pay-as-you-go system, with large funds that could be spent almost freely by the Argentine government."

So, again I maintain that seeing this happen, along with the events in other countries, and couple that with the fact that a take over of 401ks has been proposed here before, it is not a stretch or really a bad question to ask is this worth watching. I don't think of this as a poli board thread at all imho. In fact I asked the same question to one of my advisors about a year ago.

One more thing Russian, I still think of you as a good poster but you really didn't need to get all defensive here and attack me on this. You are far more informed (in a general sense) of the markets and current financial issues and I will grant that. With that said I still believe that you just didn't quite represent what happened with this as accurately as you could have for the purposes of the OP. I do agree with most of your feedback on this board and the poli board fwiw.

Its highly unlikely. There would be massive countrywide protests. The whole country would be in total chaos.

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``It's horrible,'' said Jaime Valdivia, who manages $1 billion of assets for Emerging Sovereign Group in New York. ``We're going back to the dark ages. Not even in times of the worst financial stress did the government ever think about taking over the private pension system.''

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Do you realize that companies offload pension plans to the PBGC frequently, and said pensioners typically take a significant haircut on what is paid to them under PBGC guidelines? Or that the PBGC does not actively look to seize pension plans of US entities? I will never say x, y, z can never happen, but you are reaching on this point. Could the govt change 401k guidelines, say as applies to RMD's, and make people start drawing earlier than age 70.5? Possibly. But the other side of grabbing accounts is supporting ever greater numbers of destitute retirees that otherwise might have been self supporting.

For any of you finance wonks... Bank of England & FDIC paper. Not law per se, but possible policy road map if needed.

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