Gov Considering Seizing Private Pension Funds

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Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
And they are a bunch of racists!


Let me paraphrase that-

"Look! It's a bunny!"

One sure thing about Righties- their deflector shields go up immediately whenever the truth threatens to intrude...
 

Hacp

Lifer
Jun 8, 2005
13,923
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Seize the pensions, then declare them null. Pensions are what is killing our economy. I think California has a 300billion dollar pension fund? Use that money to pay off the debt.
 
D

Deleted member 4644

You are a fukin tard. There is a huge difference between regulations and "seize".

LOL learn 8th grade reading skillz.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
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Of course you're making the assumption of another extreme stock market crash in the reasonably near future to even make your idea start to seem remotely viable.
The only reason the .gov would do this is because they were running out of other sources of funding. Some say that is already starting to slowly happen but I don't really know enough about the subject to form an opinion but lets assume they are ass out of people to lend them money. Do you really think it would be that hard for the .gov to create some sort of crash in the market that would have people scared as hell to keep their money there? Hell, a large portion are STILL scared to put their money back into the market. Just a few days ago the market crashed a 1000 points over some sort of bullshit computer scam that we are "investigating". If a computer can "accidentally" cause a 1000 point freefall it isn't very tinfoil to think that it could intentionally cause one as well.

Besides the tinfoil stuff, the Fed (who is either the bitch of the executive branch or the other way around, doesn't really matter for this discussion) could easily send the market downward by simply saying the right things. Getting the market to drop is the easiest part of the whole back of the napkin idea.

The reality is new taxes to hurt 401k plans are likely to bring out the pitchforks right then because it would negatively impact so many people in what they perceive as an unfair way.

No way. People would be pissed but you wouldn't see actual pitchforks (or shotguns in this day and age) and riots over a few incremental tax hikes like you would if the Feds flat out stole your 401K. There is a huge difference between the two and the reactions that would result.

Far more problematically though, people would still take time to decide move their 401Ks over to the new plan, which ties into the other massive problem with it. The people with the greatest incentive to switch would all be those who are closest to retirement since they lost the most amount of money and have the least amount of time to recover so the government plan looks the most attractive.

This leads to the obvious glaring problem in your scenario that the government would actually rather quickly end up paying out more than they take in as people retire and take out money from their 401ks, so the scheme would NEVER actually achieve your hypothetical goal of giving the government more money to spend for a reasonable time period.

That is the hard part, offering enough incentive to get a majority of the people to enter into the programs and not just the people close to retirement. I would assume the incentives would be scaled up slowly along with the added "punishments" for not being in the Government plan. If they can get away with mandating that you MUST purchase insurance from a private business I am sure they can figure out how to make 401Ks less attractive (regulation, taxes, penalties, fees, requirements, etc...) while making their program more attractive.

This doesn't exactly fit with your argument that there is a plausible threat Democrats would do this is a way anything remotely like you were claiming.

Like I said, my post took all of 3 minutes to think and type and it seems sorta plausible. If I can come up with something that is sorta plausible in 3 minutes I would wager that the professional bureaucrats can come up with something really plausible with their teams of experts. I didn't intend for my post to be taken as a real plan, just an example to show that its not that difficult to imagine them being able to entice enough people into their new program.
 

actuarial

Platinum Member
Jan 22, 2009
2,814
0
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Seize the pensions, then declare them null. Pensions are what is killing our economy. I think California has a 300billion dollar pension fund? Use that money to pay off the debt.

And then they can call your mortgage, and if you can't pony up the money they can seize your house. Mortgages are what's killing the economy. Use the proceeds of selling the house to pay off the debt.
 

IGBT

Lifer
Jul 16, 2001
17,945
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hay. spread your wealth. this is what you guys voted for. next: your wages will get allocated. you really don't need that fat pay check. your obama will decide what you REALLY need.
 

Aegeon

Golden Member
Nov 2, 2004
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Like I said, my post took all of 3 minutes to think and type and it seems sorta plausible. If I can come up with something that is sorta plausible in 3 minutes I would wager that the professional bureaucrats can come up with something really plausible with their teams of experts. I didn't intend for my post to be taken as a real plan, just an example to show that its not that difficult to imagine them being able to entice enough people into their new program.
It clearly wasn't plausible though. Basically you expect us to buy this scenario without showing how it could plausibly happen. (And we're increasingly clearly moving away from a scenario remotely resembling the government seizing people's pensions.)
 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
40,730
670
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"New requirements" = "seize"? OP fail English? That's unpossible!

If I recall correctly, the last "burdensome requirement" added to 401(k)s was to warn employees not to put all of their money into company stock. The horror! The horror!


Now Obama is planning to send jackbooted thugs into your home to seize your fishing poles and table salt, but your 401(k) is safe.
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
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"New requirements" = "seize"? OP fail English? That's unpossible!

If I recall correctly, the last "burdensome requirement" added to 401(k)s was to warn employees not to put all of their money into company stock. The horror! The horror!


Now Obama is planning to send jackbooted thugs into your home to seize your fishing poles and table salt, but your 401(k) is safe.

Heh. Apparently it was a slow outrage day, if you know what I mean... but the junkies need their fix, even if it is just some bunk codeine cough syrup instead of IV fentanyl...
 

bradley

Diamond Member
Jan 9, 2000
3,671
2
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Pension Bomb Ticks Louder
California's public funds are assuming unlikely rates of return.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303695604575181983634524348.html

"This month, Stanford's Institute for Economic Policy Research released a study suggesting a more than $500 billion unfunded liability for California's three biggest pension funds—Calpers, Calstrs and the University of California Retirement System. The shortfall is about six times the size of this year's California state budget and seven times more than the outstanding voter-approved general obligations bonds."

http://www.pensiontsunami.com/
 

Patranus

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2007
9,280
0
0
Pension Bomb Ticks Louder
California's public funds are assuming unlikely rates of return.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303695604575181983634524348.html

"This month, Stanford's Institute for Economic Policy Research released a study suggesting a more than $500 billion unfunded liability for California's three biggest pension funds—Calpers, Calstrs and the University of California Retirement System. The shortfall is about six times the size of this year's California state budget and seven times more than the outstanding voter-approved general obligations bonds."

http://www.pensiontsunami.com/

Thats Californias problem not the national taxpayer.

All of this shit is typical liberal bull shit.
Someone makes a bad choice but oh no, they don't have to take responsibility and live with the consequences because government will take from those who made good choices to make you feel all better and since you will not have learned you lesson you will just do it again and again and again.
 

Mani

Diamond Member
Aug 9, 2001
4,808
1
0
More straw grasping. WHen in doubt, play on people's paranoia.
 

umbrella39

Lifer
Jun 11, 2004
13,819
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The sky is falling...

.....and since you will not have learned you lesson you will just do it again and again and again.

What's that? It that akin to learning the lesson of staying banned and not signing up for new accounts like GeneralGrievous, lordtyranus, Zendari and that cool Winnar111 guy did?

Yep, "they" learned their lesson alright /rollseyes
 
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StageLeft

No Lifer
Sep 29, 2000
70,150
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They aren't dumb enough to just come out and seize your 401K but they can rather easily get a large portion of the populace to "voluntarily" hand them over by using the right incentives at the right time.

Just off the top of my head:

Market crashes (nothing doomsday, lets call it 50%), people still haven't recovered from the last crash so now they are really down.

The .gov steps in to "help" and offers a program that gives you pre-crash value of your 401K with the catch being you have to move all of the money into their new "retirement plan" that has a guaranteed rate of return (basically instead of buying stock your buying .gov debt).

Throw in a few taxes to hurt 401Ks and a few tax breaks for the new .gov retirement plan and voila a whole slew of new money for the Federal Government to spend.

Social engineering, it is flat out retarded for them to "force" people to do something that will likely result in the pitchforks coming out when they can simply offer enough incentives to get you to willingly hand it over especially if the people lose even more faith in the market due to another crash and the bullshit computers fucking over people.
I agree this would be a good way to go about doing it even after reading Aegeon's response. It would self-feed; as people went with this it would depress the market further and encourage more to go with it.

Regarding temporal proximity (yes, that term gives an excuse to ignore everything I now write), actual gov seizing via edict or manipulation or 401ks is, I think, many years off worse-case and it may in fact never happen. It's a scant few nations that have done something like this and it is a bellwether for major upheaval.
Thats Californias problem not the national taxpayer.
Really? It seems to me that the massive public pensions, state and federal, which are predicated upon magical returns and an economy underscored by pixie dust and fairytales, are going to have terrible problems and are likely to look in great part to tax payers to feed the shortcomings.

The thing is for most people like you and I our retirement consists of a pathetic social security net plus whatever we get out of the stock market (at least initially during earlier years when equity heavy). If they go to pot so does much of our retirement, but a gov worker relying on a heavy pension if stocks go to pot so does the base of their pension fund's ability to pay, but not its responsibility to pay, so instead of their retirement getting cut at the knees like a normal person's it can be backfilled. Some of that will be government and some, God willing, will be by a trimming of what they are owed (like we have seen now in Greece).
 
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DietDrThunder

Platinum Member
Apr 6, 2001
2,262
326
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Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service
26 CFR Part 1
Department of Labor
Employee Benefits Security Administration
29 CFR Parts 209, 2520 and 2550

SUMMARY: The Department of Labor and
the Department of the Treasury (the
‘‘Agencies’’) are currently reviewing the
rules under the Employee Retirement
Income Security Act (ERISA) and the
plan qualification rules under the
Internal Revenue Code (Code) to
determine whether, and, if so, how, the
Agencies could or should enhance, by
regulation or otherwise, the retirement
security of participants in employersponsored
retirement plans and in
individual retirement arrangements
(IRAs) by facilitating access to, and use
of, lifetime income or other
arrangements designed to provide a
lifetime stream of income after
retirement. The purpose of this request
for information is to solicit views,
suggestions and comments from plan
participants, employers and other plan
sponsors, plan service providers, and
members of the financial community, as
well as the general public, on this
important issue.

http://www.dol.gov/federalregister/PdfDisplay.aspx?DocId=23512
 

Siddhartha

Lifer
Oct 17, 1999
12,502
1
81
Is this another one of those pointless outrages that makes the GOP and their supporters look like asses?
 

Patranus

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2007
9,280
0
0
The sky is falling...



What's that? It that akin to learning the lesson of staying banned and not signing up for new accounts like GeneralGrievous, lordtyranus, Zendari and that cool Winnar111 guy did?

Yep, "they" learned their lesson alright /rollseyes

Nice, the old - Patranus is someone else conspiracy.

Have fun with that.
 

piasabird

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
17,168
60
91
What is a pension?

Most companies have done away with pensions. You only get the retirement money you save!
 

ayabe

Diamond Member
Aug 10, 2005
7,449
0
0
2/10 on this one guys. I heard Proctor and Gamble are rushing new models of adult diapers onto the market as we speak with Onstar that will contact your local tea party rep everytime it detects your soggy bottoms.