"In February, the U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), in collaboration with the Department of Treasury, announced a "request for information" to study the Lifetime Income Options for Retirement Plans and asked 'for ideas on how to help reduce the chances that workers will run out of funds during their retirement years.'"
According to the Department of Labor's website this request of information is "not a rule or regulation. It is a pre-rulemaking act by an agency, or in this case two agencies, to collect information and data on a specific topic. This RFI is the starting point for a discussion of whether, or to what extent, the agencies might take some action to address identified problems facing today’s retirees." The purpose of this request for information " is merely a vehicle to engage interested persons in exploring ways that the Agencies and the private sector can work together to ensure that workers have the tools they need to help ensure their retirement savings last a lifetime." And also to "On February 2, 2010, the Department, in conjunction with the Department of the Treasury, published an RFI as a first step towards exploring what steps might be taken to enhance retirement security." So this push for the government taking over retirement accounts will come under the name of security.
The fact is that the government is in massive debt of around 130 trillion dollars. This is larger than the GDP of the world which is fifty seven trillion according to the IMF. The interest alone on the national debt in 2020 will be more than the amount that the U.S. spends on defense and the largest single item in the budget--this is assuming the economy picks back up to where it was previous to the Great Recession. This is why Admiral Mike Mullen, and recently Hillary Clinton, stated that our debt is the biggest threat to our nation's security. And following the article about Obama's anti-colonialism and desire to redistribute America's wealth around the world, having to pay all of this interest to foreign debt holders will do just that and having such a large amount of our debt held by foreigners will help reduce America's sovereignty. (Note that most of the nation's debt is not held by foreigners.) The world's economy is one big bubble. According to the article above, there is about eight trillion dollars out there in retirement accounts. This is a lot of money for the government to pass up considering its level of debt. Of course when the debt becomes a big enough problem, the government will have no choice but to take some of this money under the guise of diverting a "disaster" and providing "security" for our retirement accounts to confiscate them. I would support the government taking over this money to pay down the debt. The fact is that our nation is consuming more than it produces. People want free health care, medicare, social security, GI bill, a military structure that is turning into a welfare system, and a government that can solve all of our problems. One of the short comings of the Tea Party is that no one is willing to touch the social security or the other "sacred cows". People will simply not accept it. Nothing less of a MAJOR change of course will prevent the nation's debt from becoming a very real problem in the coming decade. Well, somebody has to pay for this. So pay up. Not anything to care about at the moment, but something to keep an eye on.
Yes. The Tea Party movement is the final hope, but I think it's a solid hope. If we can come up with a nation of Chris Christies, we have a chance, though we would have an obesity problem.
ReplyDeleteA complimentary article:
http://www.lesjones.com/2010/09/22/scariest-economic-fact-ive-seen-lately/
relatively early in the financial crisis, in '09, one silver lining economists were finding in the crisis was that household debt levels were dropping, implying that folks were tightening their belts in the face of the crisis. Turns out even that silver lining was tarnished: the household debt levels were dropping almost solely because the banks were writing of bad debts from defaulters.
I got this cool video showing all the Marxist in the Obama administration. http://weaselzippers.us/2010/09/20/video-top-20-pro-socialism-sound-bites-of-obama-advisors-allies/
ReplyDeleteThe fact that we have people in charge of our government who openly espouse these beliefs is something. There are people that advocated the de development of America. Check out Cass Sustein. The fact is these people are making fundamental structural changes to our nation that can not be completely undone but will instead slowly lead to the realization of their goal through the momentum these programs have. What are those goals? America's debt alone is greater than the GDP of the world and that does not include the massive debt of the EU and who knows about China. Student loan debt is now greater than the total credit card debt. The housing market is one big bubble that when it busts it will be the nation as a whole that will be dealing with the risk as opposed to the banking sector. Nothing in the global economy is back by anything of real substance. Paper money will become useless and will require something new to replace it: to use overly negative words, government decree and force to prevent a much greater problem and I would support this. There is no way to avoid some future world economic upheaval that won't be as bad as the great depression but will no doubt require a major and fundamental change in how the government relates to individuals and the economies of the world.
America has never before faced a situation where our greatest threat comes from within our government by well-meaning people. These are historic times, more so than the usual, and America is at a cross roads.
Cats and dogs living together!
ReplyDeleteWe are lucky enough to live in interesting times! Let's hope we can do something positive about it. This is the first time in my life where politics is being dominated by a movement which I totally identify with.
ReplyDeleteActually, the times are always interesting, the scenery just changes.
The video would have been funny if it weren't for the fact that those people are in position of power in our government and are advising our President. I am not trying to make any comparison between these people and people like Hitler--these people's plans are too well meaning and will lead to a soft type of oppression of our freedom's like that of a parent and won't lead to a world war, but Hitler and several others like him said exactly what they intended to do out in the open and were laughed at and not taken seriously by those that were in a position to stop them. And we all know that they eventually took power and enacted exactly what they said they were going to do.
ReplyDeleteI like the Tea Party but I realize that it could be false hope. I would be careful about putting too much faith in any political movement. I think a lot of changes will happen in my life time.