Readers will remember Ann Barnhardt’s blunt warning in November last year about the rampant dishonesty, corruption and fraud in US markets. So seriously did she take it that she closed down her company, Barnhardt Capital Management, and advised her clients to exit the markets immediately.
She’s getting even more blunt about the current situation. Unfortunately she doesn’t make it possible to link to specific posts on her blog, but if you follow the link and scroll down to the entries for August 3rd and 4th, 2012, you’ll find all the details. In order to make it easier, I’m going to copy some highlights here.
The 401k Confiscation: The Ghilarducci Plan Part 1
Posted by Ann Barnhardt – August 4, AD 2012 1:23 PM MST
Teresa [Ghilarducci] is a member of the faculty at The New School in New York City, which is a Socialist University. Now, you might say, “Ann, ALL universities in this country could rightly be called “socialist” nowadays”. True dat. But the New School makes Berkeley and Columbia look like Oral Roberts University and BYU by comparison. No, the New School is LITERALLY a socialist university. It was originally called the “University in Exile” and was begun by a bunch of Neo-Marxist scholars who were thrown out of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in the early 1930s. Yeah. Remember my post about how Marxists purge intellectuals? But the other, somewhat humourous angle is that these guys were such extreme Marxists that they made Hitler and Mussolini UNCOMFORTABLE. Wowzer. So, they emigrated to NYC, where they would Fit. Right. In. Dude.
So, Teresa is now a big-wig at the “Too Freaky For Mussolini” (that kinda rhymes) New School. She writes this paper called “GUARANTEED RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS: Toward Retirement Income Security” … Nutshell? Federal government seizes all 401(k)s and IRAs and replaces them with US Treasury Bonds. In other words, you would be FORCED to effectively loan all of your retirement accounts to the government, and continue loaning 5% of your income to the regime MANDATORILY. This would now be called a GRA, or Government Retirement Account, administered by the Social Security administration. Your “contributions” to your GRA would be automatically deducted from your paycheck, just like SocSec. Participation would be mandatory, but in the purely voluntary sense of the word, you understand. (I haven’t found the muslim exemption yet, but I’m sure they’ll write that into the final bill. The government employee exemption is already there on page 17 of Teresa’s paper.) You would not be able to tap your contributions under any circumstances. No early withdrawal, no loans. When you die, only a tiny fraction of your GRA balance would go to your heirs, and even then, it would be transferred into THEIR GRA accounts, which they could then not touch until retirement.
But the real point of this can be found on the top right of page 12 under the header “Why not simply expand Social Security?”
“If subsidies for 401(k)]style plans and IRAs can be reallocated to Guaranteed Retirement Accounts, why not use this money to shore up and expand Social Security? This is certainly an option.”
This is an admission that there is no “lock-box” in effect on the GRA money, and it would be a FLIPPING FREE FOR ALL. The 401(k) and IRA assets in the United States are currently pegged at over SIX TRILLION DOLLARS. The Obama regime would instantly “borrow” against that money and burn through it in the blink of an eye in the Ponzi Scheme method of SocSec. It is widely thought that the first group to be bailed out by GRA siezure money would be . . . wait for it, wait for it . . . unions. SEIU is massively underfunded on its retirement obligations. So, yes, the Obama regime would seize YOUR retirement money and redistribute it to Andy Stern and the kids over at the SEIU to bail their corrupt, lying, cheating, scheming, communist butts out. No wonder Andy Stern is the most frequent visitor to the White House.
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The 401k Confiscation: The Ghilarducci Plan Part 2
Posted by Ann Barnhardt – August 4, AD 2012 1:22 PM MST
The bill for this is already being written, and TRUST that it isn’t being written by anyone ACTUALLY in Congress. No, it is being written by flaming Communist Teresa Ghilarducci and her orcs over at The New School (too Freaky for Mussolini).
. . .
My advice? Simple. GET YOUR MONEY OUT, OUT, OUT OF 401(K)s and IRAs NOW. Take the penalty. Pay the tax. Whatever. Just get your money home. Because if the regime gets its hands on it, YOU WILL NEVER SEE A SINGLE PENNY OF IT AGAIN. It will be gone forever. I have actually been preaching this for over a year now, but since I have lots of new readers, you need to hear this. I am dead serious when I say that the safest place for your wealth right now is in gold and silver coins buried in a mayonnaise jar in your back yard. DEAD SERIOUS. No joke. No funny-ha-ha. Dead. Serious.
Spread the word.
Here is Teresa Ghilarducci herself explaining her scheme. She starts out claiming this is voluntary and then states at the 14:15 mark that it is mandatory. Remember, these are exactly the same people who said that ObamaCare would drop insurance premiums and that everyone could keep their existing insurance and doctor. These people are evil Marxist liars who will say ANYTHING in order to impose their fascist will. This is what Marxists do. They lie without conscience or hesitation.
If you can’t stand to listen to this witch, fast-forward to the 13:50 mark. Listen from 13:50-14:18.
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On 401ks
Posted by Ann Barnhardt – August 3, AD 2012 7:26 PM MST401k plan of attack:
1. STOP MAKING CONTRIBUTIONS if you haven’t already.
2. Liquidate it. Pay the “penalty”. Would you rather pay a penalty or have it all stolen? Or possibly replaced with a “government savings account” comprised of Treasury paper which will probably default or be confiscated long before you are ever allowed to “tap it”, and will NOT be able to be passed to your heirs should you croak, but will instead be resorbed back into the collective?
. . .
3. If you can’t liquidate it, take out a loan on the balance. Take out the maximum possible loan, and then set up the repayment schedule on the longest possible term.
There’s more at the link.
I don’t agree with all Ms. Barnhardt’s opinions: but anyone who’s honest enough to counsel her clients to get out of the market, then close down her company, essentially doing away with her own income in the process, is worthy of respect. I strongly advise readers to give careful attention to what she says, then research the matter further before drawing your own conclusions – and acting on them. I certainly shall.
Peter
I think this comes under "financial oppression." Just read it in John Mauldin's Endgame.
I think she's right except for one thing – can such a confiscatory law get passed? It would require concurrence of House, Senate, President, and probably Supreme Court. That could happen, but not instantly.
"Can such a confiscatory law get passed?" They passed ObamaCare despite public sentiment, then the Supreme Court upheld it through fantastic mental gymnastics. It still has not been repealed.
I do believe that if Congress (emphasis on "Con") really stole old folks' retirement accounts, that those same old folks would hunt down and shoot anyone Congresscritter who voted for confiscation. And I would help pass the ammo!
chicopanther
Ahem. Argentina did this in 2008, they claimed it was to protect the poor innocent citizens from losing their retirement funds on the global stock market.