"Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers’ personal retirement accounts — including 401(k)s and IRAs — and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration."

That was the lead sentence in an article entitled, "Dems Target Private Retirement Accounts," published in the Carolina Journal on November 4th. With those alarming openers, the article has gone viral over the last week — at least among those who advocate less government interference in their economic lives.

Unfortunately, the Carolina Journal is only telling half of the story — the baaaad Democrat half. Missing from the Carolina Journal is the baaaad Republican half that suggests replacing voluntary 401K contributions and savings with mandatory retirement savings accounts. This oversight is in keeping with the target market for the Carolina Journal — establishment Republicans who like their partisanship dressed-up in libertarian platitudes. The Carolina Journal is the flagship publication of the North Carolina-based John Locke Foundation (JLF). JLF employs respected (small government is better) scholars, but also raises money by bringing to town neo-conservative (bigger government is better for spreading democracy) luminaries like William Kristol and Frank Gaffney.

The "confiscation" hype in the Carolina Journal article actually comes down to the October 7th Congressional committee testimony of a single scholar, Teresa Ghilarducci. What professor Ghilarducci actually said was: (emphasis added)

I propose that ... Congress let workers trade their 401(k) and 401(k) - type plan assets (perhaps valued at mid-August prices) for a Guaranteed Retirement Account composed of government bonds (earning a 3% return, adjusted for inflation). When the worker collects Social Security, the Guaranteed Retirement Account will pay an inflation adjusted annuity, based on the accumulated funds.

The sufficiently jaded will be quick to recognize that let can easily become must through the Congressional law making process. But, the fact is that nowhere in Ghilarducci's testimony does the word confiscate, or any variations thereof, appear. The Carolina Journal has inserted the word for their partisan marketing purposes.  

What Ghilarducci proposes is that "workers" be enticed to trade their deflated 401K's and IRA's for Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GSA's).  She suggests that one such enticement could be a re-inflation of 401K and IRA account values to amounts in play somewhere prior to the September/October financial meltdown.

Regardless of the spin from the Carolina Journal, Ghilarducci's remarks should not be discounted. What she is really proposing is that workers be tricked into believing that the theft of their wealth through inflation of the money supply by bankers at the Federal Reserve will be less than the theft of their money by fraudsters on Wall Street. That is, that a future GSA dollar will have as much or more value as a current, after tax, crisis ravaged 401K dollar.  Or, as FED chairman Alan Greenspan put it in his Senate committee testimony in early 2005, "We can guarantee cash, but we cannot guarantee purchasing power."

The Greenspan testimony in 2005 was specifically in reference to the other new worker retirement scheme being floated around in Washington: "forced savings accounts."  That was the term Greenspan used.  The concept is hardly new.  Back in 1999, former chairmen of the New York Fed Peter Peterson preferred the slightly more euphemistic "mandatory savings accounts." Peterson is still using term, most recently in the panel discussion held after the premier showing this August of his new foundation's first propaganda movie, IOUSA. 

Peterson and his fellow travelers have a knack for timing. Along with the release of his IOUSA movie just ahead of September's financial meltdown, in July of 2007, he co-authored a report published by the Brookings Institution titled, America's Economy - Headed for Crisis. One of his co-authors was Warren Rudman. Former Senator Rudman is one of our nation's seers. Along with CFR president at the time Leslie Gelb, he co-chaired the "bipartisan" Hart-Rudman Commission. The report, presented on January 31, 2001 contained in its executive summary the following prophecy:

The combination of unconventional weapons proliferation with the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the U.S. homeland to catastrophic attack. A direct attack against American citizens on American soil is likley over the next quarter century.

The several years in the making Hart-Rudman Commission report also called for the establishment of a "National Homeland Security Agency." Indeed, there was reason why a glacially paced bureaucracy in Washington could deliver within a few weeks of the 911 terrorist attacks the thousands of pages of organizational documents that became the foundation of the Patriot Act and its dangerous offspring.

It is with great prudence then that we note that lifelong "Republican" Peterson's mandatory savings concept is also invoked by the Carolina Journal's diabolical Democrat du jour. This is the real money quote in Ghilarducci's congressional testimony:

Should we mandate savings in a recession? Yes, as long as fiscal policy provides for short-term stimulus. No one is proposing we suspend Social Security taxes in recessions. Households need a source of disciplined savings over the business cycles.

Not only does Ghilarducci promote Peterson's call for mandatory savings, she also fesses up to the crime that is our Social Security system.  Social Security is not the mandatory retirement savings plan it was sold as to the American people. It is simply another tax. Ghilarducci admits the bait and switch in one breath and in the other proposes the next bait and switch. Except, this time it will be different.

So, shock! Democrats and Republicans alike are now proposing a new mandated retirement savings plan. Like offering voters a choice between growing the government at 4% or 6%, all that is really being debated is whether our new "savings" tax will go through the federal government or not, before these protection racket proceeds are turned over to the crime syndicates in New York and London for ultimate management and control.

Make no mistake. This false debate between two false choices is not the invisible hand of Adam Smith. It is the invisible hand of a criminal conspiracy set up to defraud Americans of their wealth and the fruits of their labors. The fingerprints of the conspirators are all over this one. 

The Carolina Journal's femme fatale, Ghilarducci is the "Irene and Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of Economic Policy Analysis at The New School for Social Research Department of Economics." That would be the same Bernard L. Schwartz who was the CEO of Loral Space Systems. The John Birch Society and others sought to have Mr. Schwartz and President Clinton investigated on charges of treason for having conspired in the Chinagate scandal to deliver secret Loral missile technology to China in exchange for donations to the Democratic Party. That investigation for possible treason was usurped when longtime philanderer Bill Clinton was suddenly exposed for having an affair with the young Monica Lewinski. Chinagate was effectively buried by the mass media frenzy around Monicagate.

Mr. Schwartz left Loral in 2006 to found his own private investment firm and fund the work of change agents like professor Ghilarducci. Along his career path he also has found time to serve as a member of and major donor to the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR). That would be the same CFR for which Mr. Peterson serves as Chairmen Emeritus.

Now of course, the top leadership and donors of the CFR, like "Democrat" Mr. Schwartz and "Republican" Mr. Peterson, never talk on matters of mutual interest. And, even if they did, men of their stature would never collaborate on a scheme to force American workers and employers to divert a portion of their incomes to investment houses controlled by themselves. No, these are good people with your best interests at heart.  Trust them.

If we can sell you on this, have we got an investment savings plan for you!

Sidebar: When the great buzzing confusion of the con men involved in this reform process is over, look for these potential outcomes:

1) 10% penalty for early withdrawal of funds in 401K's and IRA's will be raised along with qualified age to avoid penalty.

2) Waiting period, of 30 days or more, before early withdrawal proceeds are paid out, will be introduced.

2) Rules for "hardship" withdrawals will be tightened.  Loans from 401K's will be further restricted or eliminated.

2) "Safeguards" will be put in place to restrict which friends of the government will be allowed to feed off 401K and IRA participants.

3) Discussions of saving the Social Security retirement plan will wane as everyone accepts that Social Security deductions are what they have always been: a tax.  As alluded to by Alan Greenspan, Social Security obligations will be met by the inflation tax.  Dollars received by SS beneficiaries will be created out of thin air.  These debased dollars will buy far less than beneficiaries expected.

4) Mandatory savings plan will be introduced.  Workers will have 2-4% of their pay automatically deducted from their paychecks.  Companies of certain size will be required to match contribution.  This will be a second Social Security tax increase by another name.  Only undecided question:  Will the confiscated funds go to Washington first before being cycled over to co-conspirators on Wall Street, or will they be sent directly to the money trust conspirators. 

Exposure is the greatest obstacle confronting the swindlers in the crime syndicate putting this retirement plan scam together.  Time to stand up and do your part to get the truth out.  Get involved now with the concerted action programs of The John Birch Society.

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Darrin

November 29, 2008

68.199.154.96

Votes: +5

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The time to stand up for ourselves is upon us!

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

The time to act and stand up for ourselves has come upon us!
Our forefathers knew it would one day happen and that we would have to stand up against it.
Will you stand up in the face of Tyranny or let everything we love so dearly be lost forever??!!
Your choice people!

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