Prediction #3 - You Can Never Retire

The Government Will Take Over US Industry With Your Retirement Account

The trial balloon passed with flying colors. The timing was right, the response was perfect. The temptation is obvious. October 7, 2008 just a scant month prior to the Presidential elections and experts are testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, it's all about money.

What people heard was discussions about  eliminating tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts. Confiscating workers’ retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration.

Did you hear the word confiscation in that last paragraph, you sure did. There was a bit of news about this hearing but as planned it was overshadowed by election news. Several  commentators focused on this and they are correct, it sounded like: 'Do you think this money would go untouched? Those funds will end up in the general coffers, you know where that goes and congress will just keep on spending more. '

They are correct, the cards showed me more.

WHAT THE CARDS SAY - the prediction.

I see a dark room with many men around a table, drawing straws - for a dark prediction. 

I see retirement  legislation that entices with false rewards, I see scores of millions joining the plan moving, transferring and adding to government retirement accounts. I see hundreds of individual mutual funds transferring hundreds of millions of shares, like, IBM, CISCO, Microsoft, Wells Fargo and on and on shares to the Social Security Administration.

I see the government needing cash, cash held in the equities.  I see the daily float drop, drop with the stock prices.

Now we find the truth, the soul of the prediction, the darkness...As good stewards of its citizens retirement funds, and,  owning 30% of IBM or a majority of Microsoft and 100% of GM, the government will do the right thing, they will make sure the firms are socially conscious. They need a board seat, how about 2?. The government decides which companies to control, which to own and which to lay fallow. They can influence how the company they now CONTROL relates to labor Unions, management salaries, decides which new drug to test, which cars to manufacture, which additives are in your food, what airline you will fly and what life insurance plan you can purchase.

Yes the government could take over all what are now major public firms, all in the guise of your retirement. They just can't hold on to all that cash.

October 7,2008
 Testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, Ghilarducci proposed that the government eliminate tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts, such as IRAs, and confiscate workers’ retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration.

The current retirement system, Ghilarducci said, “exacerbates income and wealth inequalities” because tax breaks for voluntary retirement accounts are “skewed to the wealthy because it is easier for them to save, and because they receive bigger tax breaks when they do.”

Teresa Ghilarducci Testimony