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The People Promoting Seizure Of Your 401(k)

(Editor’s note: This will be one of those very long but very interesting articles full of tidbits of information you need.  Please take the time to read the entire article and/or bookmark for later reading and linkage.  I am attempting to break this topic of retirement security down into manageable yet related pieces.)


On 10.7.2010, Sen. Tom Harkin held a HELP Committee hearing “to examine retirement security in America”.  His full statement from the hearing can be found here.  The full video of the hearing can be found here. One of the main witnesses before the committee was Ross Eisenbrey, Vice President, Economic Policy Institute.  His full statement can be found here.

EPI has published and advocated what we feel would be an excellent national supplemental retirement plan, the Guaranteed Retirement Account, which was authored by Prof. Teresa Ghilarducci, Director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research. In a nutshell, the GRA would mandate employer and employee contributions to a federally administered cash balance plan. The combined 5% of payroll contributions would be invested by a Thrift Savings Plan-like entity in the bond and stock markets, with a guaranteed minimum return of 3% beyond inflation. A $600 tax credit would cover the entire 2.5% contribution for workers earning $24,000 or less, and greatly reduce the effective contribution rate for other lower-paid workers. We calculate that at the end of a normal working life, the average worker would accumulate, along with Social Security, enough to assure a 70% replacement rate of pre-retirement income. – Ross Eisenbrey

On Social Security:

HELP Committee

The trust fund has more than $2 trillion and will be able to pay 100% of promised benefits for another 27 years. Even then, Social Security will not “go broke” but will be able to pay 78% of promised benefits. So the question isn’t how to “save” the program; it will survive without any change. The problem is how to get more money into the trust fund so full benefits can be paid in perpetuity. The goal is, or ought to be, to preserve full benefits and to maximize the retirement income of the tens of millions of households
that depend on Social Security. – Ross Eisenbrey

“For many Americans, the only retirement security they have is Social Security, but that, too, is under siege.  There are those that want to privatize the system, cut back benefits and raise the retirement age.  They say that everyone should just work longer and that retirement is a ‘luxury.’  Clearly, those people do not swing a hammer for a living.  They do not toil in our corn fields or work on our oil rigs.  For Americans who work in these physically demanding jobs, working longer simply is not an option.  A lifetime of hard work takes its toll, and at some point, a person just cannot do it anymore.  – Sen. Tom Harkin on Retirement Security

Would any of this be the case if The Federal Reserve had not devalued our dollar by 96% since its inception in 1913, and given the US Congress a credit card chaining Americans to foreign countries with debt?



THE MAIN PLAYERS

The main players in this little drama are Teresa Ghilarducci and her Guaranteed Retirement Accounts paper, the Economic Policy Institute, SEIU, Retirement USA, and the New School of Social Research.

In his opening statement to the committee, Mr. Eisenbrey stated, “EPI is a non-partisan think tank with a long history of analyzing trends in employment, compensation, and income, as well as advocating for policies to ensure shared prosperity.“  After you look at the board for EIP, will you wonder as I did if they are truly non-partisan?

Economic Policy Institute

Brace yourselves for the quote coming from a document that the Obama Administration and the Dems in Congress are following when it comes to nationalizing and subsidizing retirement accounts.

How Guaranteed Retirement Accounts work

Structure. Guaranteed Retirement Accounts are like universal 401(k) plans except that the government, as befits a large and enduring institution, will invest and manage the pooled savings. – Theresa Ghilarducci, Guaranteed Retirement Accounts, Toward Retirement Income Security

There is a growing interest in a lame duck session of Congress seizing Americans’ 401(k)s (some $8 Trillion dollars) in an attempt to bailout the union pension funds that are insolvent and unsustainable.  My readers might find it interesting as to the who and the what that is behind yet another proposed theft of our money.  I started digging early this morning and found myself shocked and speechless (not my normal state, I assure you).  Let’s start with the author, Teresa Ghilarducci, Professor of Economics at the New School For Social Research and Director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (New School).  As always, bold emphasis is the editor’s attempt to bring your attention to important information.

Teresa Ghilarducci

The New School for Social Research
Professor Teresa Ghilarducci is the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Chair of Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research. Her 2008 book, When I’m Sixty Four: The Plot against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them (Princeton University Press) investigates the effect of pension losses on older Americans and how to stop them. Ghilarducci’s current 2 year project, “Beyond the 401(k): Guaranteeing Retirement Security,” is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. She is a trustee for two Retiree Health Care Trusts: one for the UAW retirees at GM, Ford, and Chrysler and the other for Steelworker retirees at Goodyear. In 2007, Ghilarducci served on Governor Schwarzenegger’s Public Employee Post Employment Benefits. Ghialrducci was appointed by Indiana’s Governor to serve as a trustee for the Public Employee Retirement Fund in Indiana 1997–2002 and President Clinton appointed her twice to served on the PBGC’s Advisory Board, 1996- 2001. She was the Wurf fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School from 2007–2009. She received her Ph.D. in Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. (EPI publications by Teresa Ghilarducci.)

Excerpt from Ms. Ghilarducci’s full bio:

EDUCATION:
Ph.D. (1984) University of California, Berkeley, Economics
B.A. (1978) University of California, Berkeley, Economics

PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS:
Professor, Economics, The New School, 2008-Present
Director, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, The New School, 2008-Present
Professor, Economics and Policy Studies, University of Notre Dame, 2005-2007
Associate Professor, Economics, University of Notre Dame, 1991 – 2005
Assistant Professor, Economics, University of Notre Dame, 1983 – 1991
Director, Higgins Labor Research Center, University of Notre Dame, 1997 – 2007

HONORS AND APPOINTMENTS, NOT INCLUDING THOSE AT NOTRE DAME:
Trustee, GM Retiree Health Fund, May 2006 – present.
Advisory Board Member, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (Presidential Appointment), 1995 -
2002.
Member, Board of Trustees, Indiana Public Employees’ Retirement Fund (PERF) (Governor’s
Appointment), 1997 – 2002.
Member, General Accounting Office Retirement Policy Advisory Panel, Washington, DC, 2002 – present.
Associate, Economic Policy Institute, Washington, DC, 1994 – present.
European Union Visitors Programme, March 20 – April 3, 1995, The Hague, Bonn, Brussels.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Instructor, “U.S. Income and Wealth Inequality,” The Century Foundation Sagner Summer Programs, Williams College, Williamstown, MA. (June 22 – July 2, 1999; June 23 – July 15, 2000; July 1 – July 8, 2001; July 1 – 8, 2002; June 27 – July 6, 2003)
Assistant Director, Department of Employee Benefits, AFL-CIO, September 1994 – May 1995 (during leave from the University of Notre Dame).
In Residence Fellowship, Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, 1987 – 1988.
Research Assistant, Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Berkeley, 1979 – 1983.

As you peruse Ms. Ghilarducci’s bio, it is obvious she is a progressive globalist for a ‘university’ with a very interesting name:

What is the New School for Social Research? From their About page:

The New School for Social Research provides an education grounded in history and informed by a legacy of critical thought and civic engagement. The school’s dedication to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry reaches back to the university’s founding in 1919 as a home for progressive thinkers and the creation of the University in Exile in 1933 for scholars persecuted in Nazi Europe. The interdisciplinary education offered by The New School for Social Research today explores and promotes global peace and justice as more than theoretical ideals.

The New School for Social Research is a second home for students from a variety of geographical, cultural, economic, and political backgrounds. It enrolls more than 1,000 students from all regions of the United States and from more than 70 countries. Here, civic engagement begins in the classroom. Seminar-style classes facilitate mutual respect and intellectual rigor and take advantage of the school’s diversity and location in New York City.

The university has left most of the true history out:

The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by Fabian Socialists (progressive New York academics), and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University. The university and each of its colleges were re-branded to their current names in 2005.

The school is renowned for its avant-garde teaching, housing the well-known, international think tank The World Policy Institute, and hosting the prestigious National Book Awards. Parsons The New School for Design is the university’s highly competitive art school.

Some 9,300 students are enrolled in graduate and undergraduate degree programs, organized into eight different schools, which teach a variety of disciplines, including the social sciences, liberal arts, humanities, architecture, fine arts, design, music, drama, finance, psychology and public policy.[7]

The graduate school of The New School began in 1933 as the University in Exile, an emergency rescue program for threatened scholars in Europe. In 1934 it was chartered by the New York state board of regents and its name was changed to the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, a name it would keep until 2005 when it was renamed New School for Social Research.

Now where have we heard about Fabian Socialists before?  England; Oxford, John Ruskin, Cecil Rhodes, Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, George Bernard Shaw and the London School of Economics, etc.

Founding

The New School for Social Research was founded by a group of university professors and intellectuals in 1919 as a modern, progressive free school where adult students could “seek an unbiased understanding of the existing order, its genesis, growth and present working.”[8] Founders included historian Charles Beard, economists Thorstein Veblen and James Harvey Robinson, and philosopher John Dewey, several of whom were former professors at Columbia University.

The school was conceived and founded during a period of fevered nationalism, deep suspicion of foreigners, and increased censorship and suppression during and after the involvement of the United States in World War I.

In October 1917, after Columbia University passed a resolution that imposed a loyalty oath to the United States government upon the entire faculty and student body,[9] the board of trustees fired Professor of Psychology and Head of the Department James McKeen Cattell for having sent a petition to three US congressmen, asking them not to support legislation for military conscription.[10] Other firings included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana (grandson of the poet) and Leon Fraser. Charles Beard, Professor of Political Science, resigned his professorship at Columbia in protest. James Harvey Robinson, an associate of Beard’s at Columbia and Professor of History, commented on the resignation: “It is not that any of us are pro-German or disloyal. It is simply that we fear that a condition of repression may arise in this country similar to that which we laughed at in Germany.”[11] Robinson would resign in 1919 to join the faculty at the New School.

Founder Charles Beard had, in 1899, collaborated with Walter Vrooman at Oxford to start Ruskin Hall, a progressive institution of higher learning for workingmen. The New School would offer the rigorousness of postgraduate education without degree matriculation or degree prerequisites. It was theoretically open to anyone, as the adult division today called The New School for General Studies remains.[12] The first classes at the New School took the form of lectures followed by discussions, for larger groups, or as smaller conferences, for “those equipped for specific research.” In the first semester, 100 courses, mostly in economics and politics, were offered by an ad hoc faculty that included Thomas Sewall Adams, Charles Beard, Horace M. Kallen, Harold Laski, Wesley Clair Mitchell, Thorstein Veblen, James Harvey Robinson, Graham Wallas, Charles B. Davenport, Elsie Clews Parsons, and Roscoe Pound.[13] John Cage would pioneer the subject of Experimental Composition at the school.

As an aside, Ruskin Hall is named after John Ruskin, professor at Oxford that was a disciple of Plato who took the eugenics concept to the farther reaches, who greatly influenced Cecil Rhodes, who then went on to establish the Rhodes Scholarship at the end of his life.

The New School of Social Research was formally known as the University in Exile.

University in Exile

The University in Exile was founded in 1933 as a graduate division of the New School for Social Research to be a haven for Neo-Marxist scholars from the Frankfurt School who had been dismissed from teaching positions by the Italian fascists or had to flee Nazi Germany.[14] The University in Exile was initially funded by Hiram Halle and the Rockefeller Foundation. It was later renamed the “Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science”, and bore this name until changing to its present one in 2005. The University in Exile and its subsequent incarnations have been the intellectual heart of the New School. Notable scholars associated with the University in Exile include psychologists Erich Fromm, Max Wertheimer and Aron Gurwitsch, political philosophers Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss, and philosopher Hans Jonas.

Philosophical tradition

The New School continues the Graduate Faculty’s tradition of synthesizing leftist American intellectual thought and critical European philosophy. True to its origin and its firm roots within the University in Exile, The New School, particularly its Department of Philosophy, is one of very few in the United States to offer students thorough training in the modern continental European philosophical tradition known as “Continental philosophy.” Thus, it stresses the teachings of Parmenides, Aristotle, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Arendt, Freud, Benjamin, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, et al.[18] The thought of the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School: Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, et al. holds an especially strong influence on all divisions of the school. After the death of Hannah Arendt in 1975, the philosophy department revolved around Reiner Schurmann and Agnes Heller.

An excerpt about the founders of the New School by Ira Katznelson of Columbia University. The entire speech is fascinating as it details names, dates, and philosophies of the exiled professors.

Liberty and Fear: Reflections on the New School’s Founding Moments (1919 and 1933)

Ira Katznelson
Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia University
October 29, 2008

When the New School opened its doors, in what its announcement called “exigent circumstances,” it had two purposes, each bound to the other. Created to oppose outrages against intellectual liberty, the institution sought to promote the study of human affairs in order to renovate democracy. The founders largely shared President Woodrow Wilson’s optimism that a new era of democracy and peace might result from how the war—at a terrible cost, to be sure—had defeated militarism, defended liberty, ended archaic empires, liberated nations, and created new prospects for international law based on progressive principles. Having been spared the demographic catastrophes that beset the European combatants and having experienced no devastation on its own soil, the United States, these progressive scholars believed, was ready for, and open to, an intellectual environment where social studies could seek what the first announcement of the New School in 1919 called “an unbiased understanding of the existing order, its genesis, growth and present working” that could advance domestic social reform and help produce what it called “a searching readjustment of the established order of things.”

Let’s return to Teresa Ghilarducci who has received $935,834 in grants from various institutions, foundations, and private companies since late 1998; all to do with retirement, pensions, or employment for mature people. My personal favorite is the Retirement Research Foundation endowed by John D. MacArthur in 1978.  Mr. MacArthur has joined the Founders in spinning in his grave.

Based in Chicago, the RRF was endowed in 1978 by the late John D. MacArthur. It began making grants in 1979. RRF is one of the nation’s first private foundations that is devoted exclusively to aging and retirement issues. With assets of more than $165 million, the Foundation issues approximately $8 million in grants each year to support programs, research, and public policy studies to improve the quality of life for older Americans.

ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE

So much of the research I run across leads straight back to Chicago, and to some very wealthy and influential foundations.  Ms. Ghilarducci is a board member of the Economic Policy Institute which was founded in 1986 and is based in the District of Criminals.  Please take the time to look at the entire list of Board of Directors.  Are these the people you want setting policy for your retirement account?  Do you have any doubt now that barring NGOs, institutes, and think-tanks from writing legislation for the lazy congresscriminals might be a good idea? Monster readers that are former dems are going to recognize names like Andy Stern, Richard Trumka and Alexis Herman immediately, and pay special attention to Robert Johnson and Robert Kuttner.

Economic Policy Institute (Est. 1986)

EPI Board of Directors

Barry BluestoneBarry Bluestone
Northeastern University
Dr. Bluestone is currently the Director for the Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University in Boston. He has served as a member of the senior policy staff of Congressman Richard Gephardt. Among his many accomplishments he was the Founding Director of U.Mass.-Boston’s Ph.D. Program in Public Policy. (EPI publications by Barry Bluestone.)

Thomas BuffenbargerR. Thomas Buffenbarger
International Association of Machinists & Allied Workers (IAMAW)
Mr. Buffenbarger currently serves as the President for the International Association of Machinists. When he was 20 years old he was elected for his first leadership position within IAM as a steward of his apprenticeship group. Ever since then he has worked his way up to the Presidency of the organization, learning from the leaders he closely worked with for many years.Anna Burger

Anna Burger
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Change-to-Win
Anna Burger is both a top ranking officer at SEIU, the nation’s largest and fastest growing union, and chair of the Change-to-Win Labor federation.

Larry Cohen
Communications Workers of America (CWA)
Larry CohenServing as the fourth President in the history of the Communications Workers of America’s union, Mr. Cohen has implemented and spearheaded movements that have lead to help workers gain union representation in various sectors. He has also expanded the union’s membership mobilization program to create a network of union stewards.

Ernesto J. Cortes, Jr.
Ernesto Cortes, Jr.Industrial Areas Foundation
As a member for the National Executive Team of The Industrial Areas Foundations Mr. Cortéz has been the recipient of the 4th Annual Heinz Award for his work in Public Policy to make government more responsive by increasing citizen participation in the political process at the community level. His early commitment to community organizing led him to work with Cesar Chavez and the farm worker’s movement among others.

Jeff FauxJeff Faux
Senior Fellow, Economic Policy Institute
Mr. Faux is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Economic Policy Institute. As the founder of EPI in 1986, Mr. Faux has been credited with making EPI the country’s leading think-tank on the political and economic issues facing American workers. He has also worked as an economist for the Departments of State and Labor and Commerce. (EPI publications by Jeff Faux.)

Leo GerardLeo W. Gerard
United Steelworkers of America (USWA)
Mr. Gerard is the President for the United Steelworkers of America. In his first full term he increased membership by sixty percent. The union has strengthened workers’ bargaining leverage by forging strategic alliances with unions worldwide.

Ron GettelfingerRon Gettelfinger
United Auto Workers (UAW)
Serving as President for the United Autoworker’s Union since 2002, Mr. Gettelfinger has advocated for accessible and affordable healthcare for all Americans. He has also led the fight to renew America’s industrial base through incentives to manufacture energy-saving advanced technology vehicles and their key components in the US.

Teresa GhilarducciTeresa Ghilarducci
The New School for Social Research
Professor Teresa Ghilarducci is the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Chair of Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research. Her 2008 book, When I’m Sixty Four: The Plot against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them (Princeton University Press) investigates the effect of pension losses on older Americans and how to stop them. Ghilarducci’s current 2 year project, “Beyond the 401(k): Guaranteeing Retirement Security,” is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. She is a trustee for two Retiree Health Care Trusts: one for the UAW retirees at GM, Ford, and Chrysler and the other for Steelworker retirees at Goodyear. In 2007, Ghilarducci served on Governor Schwarzenegger’s Public Employee Post Employment Benefits. Ghialrducci was appointed by Indiana’s Governor to serve as a trustee for the Public Employee Retirement Fund in Indiana 1997–2002 and President Clinton appointed her twice to served on the PBGC’s Advisory Board, 1996- 2001. She was the Wurf fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School from 2007–2009. She received her Ph.D. in Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. (EPI publications by Teresa Ghilarducci.)

Alexis HermanAlexis Herman
New Ventures
Alexis Herman was the first African American to become the secretary of labor, serving during President Bill Clinton’s second term. In 1989, Herman joined the Democratic National Committee as chief of staff and by 1992 was the CEO of the Democratic National Convention. After Clinton’s election in 1992, Herman was appointed assistant to the president and director of the White House Public Liaison Office in 1993.

Robert JohnsonRobert Johnson
Robert Johnson serves on the Boards of the Democracy Alliance, The Institute for Americas Future, and the Brennan Center for Justice. He was formerly a partner in Impact Artist Management and President of Bottled MaJic Music, a recording label and music publishing enterprise. Dr. Johnson served as a managing director of Soros Fund Management; he’s also worked as Chief Economist for the Senate Banking and Budget Committees.

Robert KuttnerRobert Kuttner
The American Prospect
Mr. Kuttner is the co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect and regularly writes on political and economic issues. He is also a co-founder of the Economic Policy Institute. In 1996 he was the winner of the Paul Hoffman Award for Human Development of the United Nations, for his work on the relationship of economic efficiency to social equality. (EPI publications by Robert Kuttner.)

Donna LenhoffDonna R. Lenhoff
National Employment Lawyers Assoc.
Donna R. Lenhoff, Esq. is the first full-time Legislative & Public Policy Director of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) in Washington, D.C. She represents NELA before Congress and administrative agencies to advance NELA’s Working for Change agenda. Prior to joining NELA in 2006, Ms. Lenhoff was the Executive Director of the National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform.

Julianne MalveauxJulianne Malveaux
Bennett College
Dr. Malveaux is serving as the 15th President of Bennett College. She has worked as an economist, author, and commentator and is now the founder of Last Word Productions. She is an outspoken activist for issues surrounding race, culture, gender, and their economic impacts.

Ray MarshallRay Marshall
University of Texas, Austin
Dr. Marshall has served in two Presidential administrations. First for President Carter as U.S. Secretary of Labor and for President Clinton as a member of the National Skills Standard Board and the Advisory Commission on Labor Development. He has taught at the LBJ School of Public affairs and served as President for the International Labor Rights Fund. (EPI publications by Ray Marshall.)

Gerald McEnteeGerald W. McEntee
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
Mr. McEntee is the President for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). He is one of the co-founders for the Economic Policy Institute and served on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Quality and Consumer Protection in the Health Care Industry during the Clinton presidency.

Lawrence MishelLawrence Mishel
President, Economic Policy Institute
Dr. Mishel is the current President of the Economic Policy Institute. He has contributed to building EPI’s research capabilities and reputation. He is often called upon by members of Congress to provide briefings and testimony on economic issues.(EPI publications by Lawrence Mishel.)

Debra NessDebra Ness
National Partnership for Women and Families
Debra L. Ness is the President of the National Partnership for Women & Families. Before assuming her current role, she served as Executive Vice President for 13 years. Ness has played a leading role in positioning the organization as a powerful and effective advocate for today’s women and families.

Pedro NogueraPedro Noguera
New York University
Pedro Noguera, PhD, is a professor in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. He is also the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education and the co-Director of the Institute for the study of Globalization and Education in Metropolitan Settings (IGEMS). (EPI publications by Pedro Noguera.)

Jules O. PaganoJules Pagano
American Income Life
Dr. Pagano is the Vice President and Executive Director on the Labor Advisory Board of the American Income Life Insurance company. He has also served on the Commission of Professors of Adult Education.

Manuel Pastor
University of Southern California
Manuel PastorManuel Pastor is currently a Professor of Geography and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, where he directs the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE). He served as a member of the Commission on Regions appointed by California’s Speaker of the State Assembly, and in January 2002 was awarded a Civic Entrepreneur of the Year award from the California Center for Regional Leadership.(EPI publications by Manuel Pastor.)

Bernard RapoportBernard Rapoport
Bernard & Audre Rapoport Foundation
Mr. Rapoport is the Founder and Former President, Chairman and CEO of American Income Life Insurance Company. He along with his wife also established The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Foundation in which they make annual contributions for education, health care, and the community of Waco, TX.

Bruce S. RaynorBruce Raynor
Workers United
Mr. Raynor is President of Workers United. Prior to this post, he served as General President of UNITE HERE. He is known for working on numerous southern organizing drives, including the successful J.P. Stevens organizing campaign in the late 1970s and for combining aggressive rank and file organizing and alliances with civil rights and community leaders to build worker power.

Robert ReichRobert B. Reich
University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Reich is co-founding editor of the magazine The American Prospect. He served as the 22nd U.S. Secretary of Labor where he implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act, led a national fight against sweatshops in the U.S. and illegal child labor worldwide. Under his leadership the Department of Labor won more than 30 awards for innovation. (EPI publications by Robert Reich.)

Linda SanchezRep. Linda T. Sánchez
U.S. House of Representatives
Rep. Linda Sánchez, a Democrat, has represented California’s 39th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2003. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley and in 1995, her Juris Doctor degree at the University of California, Los Angeles. She was an attorney specializing in labor law prior to her public service career.

Andrew SternAndrew L. Stern
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Mr. Stern was elected President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in 1996 after being a member and working his way up since 1973. He has been an aggressive advocate for practical solutions to achieve economic opportunity and justice for workers. He also fights to make globalization benefit not only big corporations but working people as well.

Richard TrumkaRichard L. Trumka
AFL-CIO
Mr. Trumka was elected President of the AFL-CIO in September 2009. He had served as the AFL’s Secretary-Treasurer since 1995. In 1982, he was elected President of the United Mine Workers.

Randi Weingarten
Randi WeingartenAmerican Federation of Teachers
Randi Weingarten is president of the 1.4-million-member American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, which represents teachers; paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; higher education faculty and staff; nurses and other healthcare professionals; local, state and federal employees; and early childhood educators. She was elected in July 2008, following 11 years of service as an AFT vice president.

Raul Yzaguirre
Raul YzaguirreArizona State University
Raul Yzaguirre is presidential professor of practice in community development and civil rights at Arizona State University. Yzaguirre is one of the most widely recognized national leaders in the Hispanic community, having served as long-time president and chief executive officer of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR).

Guaranteed Retirement Accounts, Theresa Ghilarducci

RETIREMENT USA

In addition to EPI’s setting policy and issuing briefing papers, they have established a coalition called Retirement USA.

From SEIU’s website:

SEIU partnered with The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare and the Pensions Rights Center to launch Retirement USA, an initiative working for a new retirement system that, along with Social Security, will provide universal, secure, and adequate income for future retirees.

Why do we need the Retirement USA Initiative?

Because the system we have now has failed most Americans—a harsh reality that EPI Vice-President Ross Eisenbrey spelled out at the launch of the initiative yesterday:

“Only half of full-time workers have a retirement plan through their employer, and coverage is much lower for part-time workers. Participating in a plan doesn’t mean a worker is adequately preparing for retirement. The median 401(k) account balance was only $25,000 in 2006—$40,000 for workers approaching retirement age. In other words, half of those who had a 401(k) were nearing retirement with less than $40,000 in their account.”Account balances have fallen by a third since late 2007, leaving many older workers unable to retire just as our economy is shedding millions of jobs. The failure is broad and deep. It’s not just a few people falling through the cracks: most of us are already in the ravine. In the private sector, only two in 10 of us have a secure pension. Three in 10 have only a 401(k) or similar savings plan-and the rest of us are totally out of luck.”

The Retirement USA principles will be used by SEIU and its partner organizations in this initiative as a framework for evaluating how well proposals would fulfill the goals of universal coverage, and secure and adequate income. The principals would include concepts such as:

  • Pooled assets that are professionally managed;
  • Shared responsibility among employers, employees and the government;
  • Payouts only at retirement;
  • Benefits that could move with you even if you change jobs

“The financial crisis and the economic recession have shone a spotlight on the inadequacies of today’s system,” said Stephen Abrecht, Director of Benefits and Capital Stewardship for SEIU. “The time to act is now.”

Retirement USA’s Steering Committee?

  • AFL-CIO
  • EPI
  • National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
  • Pension Rights Center
  • SEIU

Do you really want these people anywhere near creating a viable and profitable retirement scenario for ANY of us?

Teresa’s government held plan sounds quite a bit like the privatized plan that the left keeps screaming about.  The only difference is the government is once again in the middle with more paperwork, rules, regulations, and public sector employees.

Who manages the investment? The accounts will be managed by a unit of the Thrift Savings Plan with its own trustees, who in turn will hire commercial money managers. The trustees will be independently appointed, half by the president (subject to Senate confirmation) and half by Congress. They will have terms structured in a similar fashion to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Similar to the Fed; aren’t you feeling all better about having your money stolen to be skimmed and redistributed?  The next question would be how many more faceless, nameless, unelected bureaucrats are going to have control of your money?  They already know exactly how the money flows with the Office of Financial Research.

WHY are we still having this conversation?

I need a drink…

Everybody REMEMBER TO VOTE AND DRIVE YOUR NEIGHBORS TO THE POLLS.

6 Responses to The People Promoting Seizure Of Your 401(k)
  1. thedametruth
    October 12, 2010 | 2:44 pm

    At the risk of redundancy, once again, Monster, excellent job!

  2. DiamondTiger
    October 12, 2010 | 11:10 pm

    The People Promoting Seizure Of Your 401(k) via Logistics Monster – (Editor's note: This will be one of … http://tinyurl.com/23rl9vc

  3. no-nonsense-nancy
    October 13, 2010 | 10:38 am

    Wow DT, that is long. Thanks you for all of your hard work on it. Does this look a little like government takeover of health care only this is retirement? Will we be finding “nice” little tidbits of terror in it like in the health”care” bill? The fact that all of those socialists are involved in that school makes one shudder. Were those those professors from Germany of the “paper clip” program? Am I correct?
    I say fight this with all we have.

  4. devildog6771
    October 20, 2010 | 7:22 pm

    This is a great post. I admire your persistence and research. I try to do as much research as possible on my posts and it is extremely time consuming. I know you have really done your homework!

    Have you noticed lately that when you do a search, the engines seems to come back less substance than before? Also. it seems that the results are slanted!

    I would be very interested in your thoughts.

  5. Larry
    October 30, 2010 | 5:23 am

    Great Work! If they get this through lame duck session wouldn’t it have to go into effect immediately? Many I know would cash out, regardless of penalties if they knew this bill was going through, including myself. Or would we have time from bill passage to when it goes into effect? Scary stuff!!

  6. [...] think-tank including but not limited to a faculty member of the New School for Social Research (remember those folks promoting seizure of your 401(k)?), and one of our favs, Drummond Pike, founder of the Tides [...]

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THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT PIECES TO READ ON THIS SITE:

Tea Party Patriots Vs. The Master Class

Still have that sinking feeling in your midsection every time you think about the District of Criminals, The Fed, Bernanke, etc.?  Are you still not sleeping well at night because you know something is “so wrong” but the scope of the problem is just getting larger each day?

Remember when we spoke about giving up every last penny of our wealth to get rid of the bloodsucking elites that are killing our childrens’ futures?

After reading this commentary, you will have the concise MATH, (there’s that word again), and course of the nation that  explains why you feel like a hamster on crack, and can’t sleep at night.  The numbers do not lie.

This piece is long, it’s brutal, and it will make you weep, but I urge you to read every single word because it will resonate. Remember it when the epitome of the elite class gives his State of The Union Address, and then it will be time to get the little gray cells working because I refuse to allow these bastards to keep raping us into indentured servitude.

America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship

Copyright 2010 by Stewart Dougherty, with all rights reserved.

FOREWORD: At certain times, focusing on the big picture is important not just for investment success, but for personal welfare, and even survival. We believe such times are here. It is estimated that 98% of Americans have never held a gold coin in their hands. Yet 100% of Americans regularly handle Federal Reserve Notes. From a contrarian standpoint, the financial message from those two statistics is clear. Even so, gold is much more than money or an investment medium; it stands for liberty and throughout history has facilitated escape and ensured freedom. Never having touched a gold coin is the monetary equivalent to never having breathed fresh air, felt the warmth of sunshine, looked up at the stars or risen from the gutter. Fiat Federal Reserve Notes are becoming nothing more than sewage decomposing in the vast, toxic septic tank of predatory Washington politics, epic Federal Reserve arrogance and error, blatant Wall Street fraud and outright Master Class plunder. Below, we outline America’s troubling and compounding predicament, and urge you to think about how to protect yourself from its consequences, both financially and personally.

Thanks to the endless barrage of feel-good propaganda that daily assaults the American mind, best epitomized a few months ago by the “green shoots,” everything’s-coming-up-roses propaganda touted by Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, the citizens have no idea how disastrous the country’s fiscal, monetary and economic problems truly are. Nor do they perceive the rapidly increasing risk of a totalitarian nightmare descending upon the American Republic.

One stark and sobering way to frame the crisis is this: if the United States government were to nationalize (in other words, steal) every penny of private wealth accumulated by America’s citizens since the nation’s founding 235 years ago, the government would remain totally bankrupt.

According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent report on wealth, America’s private net worth was $53.4 trillion as of September, 2009. But at the same time, America’s debt and unfunded liabilities totaled at least $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion), or 225% of the citizens’ net worth. Even if the government expropriated every dollar of private wealth in the nation, it would still have a deficit of $66,600,000,000,000.00 ($66.6 trillion), equal to $214,286.00 for every man, woman and child in America and roughly 500% of GDP. If the government does not directly seize the nation’s private wealth, then it will require $389,610 from each and every citizen to balance the country’s books. State, county and municipal debts and deficits are additional, already elephantine in many states (e.g., California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York) and growing at an alarming rate nationwide. In addition to the federal government, dozens of states are already bankrupt and sinking deeper into the morass every day.

The government continues to dig a deeper and deeper fiscal grave in which to bury its citizens. This year, the federal deficit will total at least $1,600,000,000,000.00 ($1.6 trillion), which represents overspending of $4,383,561,600.00 ($4.38 billion) per day. (The deficit during October and November, 2009, the first two months of Fiscal Year 2010, totaled $296,700,000,000.00 ($297 billion), or $4,863,934,000.00 ($4.9 billion) per day, a record.) Using the GAAP accounting method (which is what corporations are required to use because it presents a far more accurate and honest picture of a company’s finances than the cash accounting method primarily and misleadingly used by the U.S. government), the nation’s fiscal year 2009 deficit was roughly $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion), or $24,700,000,000.00 ($24.7 billion) per day, as calculated by brilliant and well-respected economist John Williams. (www.shadowstats.com) Fiscal Year 2010’s cash- and GAAP-accounting deficits will likely be worse than 2009’s, given government bailout and new program spending that is on steroids and psychotic.

Putting Fiscal Year 2009’s $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion) deficit another way, 17% of America’s private wealth, accumulated over a period of 235 years, was wiped out by just one year’s worth of government deficit spending insanity.

Given this, is it any surprise that Treasury Secretary Geithner has announced that the release of the nation’s FY 2009 supplemental GAAP financial statements has been delayed? Remember, this is the same Secretary Geithner who bullied people to cover up the sordid details of the AIG, or more accurately, the taxpayer-funded, multi-billion dollar, Santa Claus bailout and bonus bonanza for Goldman Sachs. Do you really think this government, characterized as it is by fiscal and monetary secrecy, lies, chicanery, cronyism and stonewalling, wants the people to know what is actually happening? Obviously, it does not, so it hides from the public the inexcusable facts.

It is estimated that the top 1% of Americans control roughly 40% of the nation’s wealth. In other words, 3 million people own $21,400,000,000,000.00 ($21.4 trillion) in net private assets, while the other 305 million own the remaining $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion). 77,000,000 (77 million) Americans (the lowest 25%) have mean net assets of minus $2,300 ($-2,300.00) per person; they live from paycheck to paycheck, or on public assistance. The lower 50% of Americans own mean net assets of $27,800 each, about enough to purchase a modest car. Obviously, it would be impossible to retire on such an amount without significant government or other assistance. Meanwhile, the richest 10% of Americans possess mean net assets of $3,976,000.00 each, or 143 times those of the bottom 50%; the top 2% control assets worth more than 1,500 times those in the bottom 50%. When you combine these facts with Wall Street’s typical multi-million dollar annual bonuses, you get an idea of wealth inequality in America. Historically, such extreme inequality has been a well-documented breeding ground for totalitarianism.

If the government decides to expropriate (steal) or commandeer (e.g., force into Treasuries) America’s private wealth in order to buy survival time, such a measure will be designed to destroy the common citizens, not the elite. Insiders will be given advance warning about any such plan, and will be able to transfer their money offshore or into financial vehicles immune from harm. Assuming that the elite moves its money to safety, there would then be $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion) in American debt and liabilities supported by only $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion) in private net worth, for a deficit of $88,000,000,000,000.00 ($88 trillion). In that case, each American would owe $285,714.29 to balance the country’s books.  (Remember to multiply this amount by every person in your household, including any infant children.)

If the common people suspect that something diabolical was in the works, a portion of the $32 trillion in non-elite wealth could be evacuated as well prior to a government expropriation and/or currency devaluation, resulting in less money for the government to steal. What these statistics mean is that it is absolutely impossible for the government to fund its debt and deficits, even if it steals all of the nation’s private wealth. Therefore, the government’s only solutions are either formal bankruptcy (outright debt repudiation and the dismantling of bankrupt government programs) or unprecedented American monetary inflation and debt monetization. If the government chooses to inflate its way out of this fiscal catastrophe, the United States dollar will essentially become worthless. You can be absolutely certain that a PhD. in economics, such as Dr. Bernanke, is well aware of these realities, despite what he might say in speeches. For that matter, so are Chinese schoolchildren, who, when patronized by Treasury Secretary Geithner about America’s “strong dollar,” laughed in his face. One day, perhaps America’s school children will receive a real education so that they, too, will know when to laugh at absurd propaganda.

The government has announced that during the fiscal years from 2010 through 2019, it will create an additional $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion) in deficits, an amount that is almost certain to be understated by trillions given the country’s current economic trajectory. The government assumes that this vast additional deficit will be funded by others, such as the Chinese, as it is a statistical fact that the United States will be incapable of funding it.

Furthermore, with the budgetary equivalent of a straight face, the Office of Management and Budget reports in its long-term, inter-generational budget projection that the United States government will experience massive, non-stop deficits for the next 70 (SEVENTY) years, requiring the issuance of tens of trillions of dollars of additional debt. The OMB does not project even one year of surplus during the entire seventy year budget period.

These deficits and debts are now so gargantuan that they have become surreal abstractions impossible even for sophisticated financiers to begin to comprehend. The common citizen has absolutely no idea what these numbers mean, or imply for his or her future. The people have been deluded into thinking that America’s arrogant, egomaniacal, always-wrong-but-never-in-doubt fiscal witch doctors and charlatans, including Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, Geithner and Ponce de Bernanke, have discovered a Monetary Fountain of Youth that endlessly spits up free money from the center of earth, in a geyser of good will toward the United States. Unfortunately, this delusion is false: there is no Monetary Fountain of Youth, and contrary to the apparent beliefs of the self-deified man-gods in Washington, D.C., the debt and deficits are real, completely out of control, and 100% guaranteed to create catastrophic consequences for the nation and its people.

When government “representatives” deliberately sell into slavery the citizens of a so-called free Republic, they have committed treason against those people. This is exactly what has happened in the United States: the citizens have been sold into debt slavery that they and their descendants can never escape, because the debts piled onto their backs can never, ever be paid. Despite expensive and sophisticated brainwashing campaigns emanating from Washington, claiming that America can “grow” out of its deficits and debt, it is arithmetically impossible for the country to do so. The government’s statements that it can dig the nation out of its fiscal hole by digging an even deeper chasm have become parodies and perversions of even totally discredited and morally disgusting Keynesianism.

The people no longer have elected representatives; they have elected traitors.

The enslavement of the American people has been orchestrated by a pernicious Master Class that has taken the United States by the throat. This Master Class is now choking the nation to death as it accelerates its master plan to plunder the people’s dwindling remaining assets. The Master Class comprises politicians, the Wall Street money elite, the Federal Reserve, high-end government (including military) officials, government lobbyists and their paymasters, military suppliers and media oligarchs. The interests and mindset of the Master Class are so totally divorced from those of the average American citizen that it is utterly tone deaf and blind to the justifiable rage sweeping the nation. Its guiding ethics of greed, plunder, power, control and violence are so alien to mainstream American culture and thought that the Master Class might as well be an enemy invader from Mars. But the Master Class here, it is real and it is laying waste to America. To the members of the Master Class, the people are not fellow-citizens; they are instruments of labor, servitude and profit. At first, the Master Class viewed the citizens as serfs; now that they have raped and destroyed the national economy, while in the process amassing unprecedented wealth and power for themselves, they see the people as nothing more than slaves.

America’s public finances are now so completely dysfunctional and chaotic that something far worse than debt enslavement and monetary implosion, terrible curses unto themselves, looms on the horizon: namely, a Master Class-sponsored American dictatorship.

Throughout history, the type of situation in which America now finds itself has been a fertility factory for tyranny. The odds of an outright overthrow of the people by the Washington and Wall Street Axis, or more broadly, the Master Class are increasing dramatically. The fact that so few people believe an American dictatorship is possible is exactly why it is becoming likely.

Dictatorships have blighted history and ruined lives since the beginning of civilization. In recent times alone, tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu, Amin, Hussein, Mussolini, Tojo, Kim, Pinochet, Milosevic, Tito, Batista, Peron, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Marcos, Somoza, Mengistu, Bokassa, Sese Seko, Franco, Ho Chi Minh, Mao, and Castro have power-sprayed blood onto the screen of time and ravaged mankind with murder, torture and human oppression. A full catalog of history’s tyrants would require a book of hundreds of pages. In the past 100 years alone, over 200 million human beings have been annihilated by wars, ethnic cleansings and government assassinations. Just when we think that civilization has been able to rise above tyranny’s inhumanity and disgrace, a new dictator appears on the scene to start the process all over again. Every time this happens, fear and submission paralyze the vast majority of the affected masses, leading them to “follow orders” and lick autocracy’s blood-stained boots.

History has proven to tyrants that oppression works. In fact, it is easy to control a populace, once you control the money, markets, military (including police), media and minions (the recipients of welfare, social security, free health care, government jobs and the like, who are dependent upon the state and likely to be compliant). This is exactly where the United States is today.

Recent American events paint an ominous picture of a Master Class that is now in total control.

When 90% of the American people vehemently rejected the $700,000,000,000.00 ($700 billion) TARP bailout plan, the Master Class put it on a fast track and approved it anyway.

When a clear majority of the American people said no to a government takeover of Chrysler and GM, the Master Class poured billions of taxpayer dollars into those corporate sinkholes and took them over anyway.

When the people said no to multi-trillion dollar crony bailouts for the bankers and insurers whose corruption had caused global financial mayhem, the government pledged to those elite insiders more than $13,000,000,000,000.00 ($13 trillion) of the people’s money anyway.

When the people expressed astonishment and anger that Wall Street planned to pay itself record 2009 bonuses, in the midst of America’s worst-ever fiscal and financial crisis caused by them, Wall Street stuffed its pockets with taxpayer-supported bonus money anyway.

When the people said no to a proposed $40,000,000,000.00 ($40 billion) bailout of AIG and its elite trading partners such as Goldman Sachs (an amount that subsequently exploded to $180,000,000,000.00+ ($180+ billion)), the Master Class went underground, covertly misappropriated taxpayer money and made the payoffs anyway.

When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were nationalized at enormous taxpayer expense, the government approved $6,000,000.00 individual pay packages in 2009 (150 times the average American wage) for the CEOs of both failed companies anyway.

When a clear majority of the people said no to nationalized health care, even after being bombarded by a multi-million dollar, lie-drenched propaganda campaign designed to bamboozle them, the House and Senate passed nationalized health care bills anyway.

When more than seven million American workers lost their jobs and were subsisting on unemployment benefits and food stamps, federal government employees, who now earn DOUBLE what private sector workers earn, were given another round of pay and benefits increases anyway.

When private sector workers’ 401Ks and IRA retirement plans plummeted in value due to economic collapse and endemic Wall Street-orchestrated market corruption (including systemic front running, flash trading, naked short selling and other manipulations), government “defined benefit,” lifetime-cost-of-living-adjusted pension plans, despite already being underfunded by $2,000,000,000,000.00 ($2 trillion), were made richer than ever anyway.

The long, shameful litany of events signaling the total divorce between the Master Class and the people of the United States doesn’t stop there. It goes on and on.

The message from the American Master Class to the American people is simple and clear:

We Defy You.

Governments that openly defy the people are either already totalitarian or in the process of becoming so. Monetarily, the United States clearly functions as a totalitarian dictatorship already, with a Federal Reserve that operates in secrecy, creates limitless amounts of debt and currency at will, and showers trillions of dollars upon favored Master Class insiders with zero transparency or accountability whatsoever. The Federal Reserve is so shameless about its dictatorial powers that it flatly refuses to provide details about multi-trillion dollar bailouts and rescues of privileged elites, in open defiance of Congress and the people. The fact that they get away with these blatant acts of defiance demonstrates the true extent of the Master Class chokehold on America.

If the Master Class were a benign despot and if its policies and programs actually worked, that would be one thing. But that is not the case. Rather, its programs are in a complete shambles.

Every single government entitlement program in the United States is bankrupt. This includes Social Security ($17,500,000,000,000.00 underfunded; $17.5 trillion); Medicare Part A ($36,700,000,000,000.00 underfunded; $36.7 trillion); Medicare Part B ($37,000,000,000,000.00 underfunded; $37 trillion); Medicare Part D ($15,600,000,000,000 underfunded; $15.6 trillion), Government and military pensions ($2,000,000,000,000 underfunded; $2 trillion), Food Stamps (current underfunding difficult to measure because the number of recipients is exploding; hundreds of billions underfunded versus original projections, minimum); and the list goes on. The above underfunding amounts are NET of projected tax receipts over the next 50 years. But the current recession has invalidated virtually all long-term budget and tax receipt assumptions, meaning that the true underfunded amounts are now greater than current, already mind-boggling estimates.

While the above statistics are terrifying enough to any citizen with a functioning brain, what is Twilight Zone-eerie and a far more serious cause for alarm is the casual indifference with which the Master Class is now making the country’s dire and irreparable fiscal circumstances even worse.

The nationalized health care program will cost at least $1 trillion over the next ten years, and most likely multiples of that. It is being crammed down America’s throat by a bankrupt government that does not have the money today and will not have the money tomorrow to pay for it. Worse is the fact that the same government that has bankrupted each and every existing social program now intends to directly or indirectly control the health care of all citizens. Based on the government’s existing track record and the health care program’s enormous complexity, invasiveness and cost, the probability that it will become a national fiscal and humanitarian catastrophe is roughly 100%.

“Cap and Trade” is a multi-trillion dollar tax scam being foisted onto the American public without a legitimate debate or popular referendum. You might be surprised to learn that “Climate Revenues” are already included in the federal budget, starting with $79,000,000,000.00 ($79 billion) in fiscal year 2012, which begins only 20 months from now. During fiscal years 2012 through 2019, the government expects to collect $646,000,000,000.00 ($646 billion) in “Climate Revenues,” a completely new tax category. Have any of your elected traitors told you that they have enacted $646,000,000,000.00 ($646 billion) in “Climate” taxes beginning twenty months from now and continuing forever? These “Climate Revenues” are based on junk science, lies and hysteria, and have been pimped by greed-diseased parasites who seek to make billions from operating and manipulating the Cap and Trade “marketplace.” Favored elitists such as Hank Paulson, Al Gore, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, among others, have positioned themselves to profit from the nation’s upcoming Cap and Trade tax misery and economic debilitation.

The reality is that the giant Ponzi scheme called the United States of America is running out of money. In any Ponzi scheme, money must constantly be poured into the top of the funnel in order to pay the redeemers at the bottom. As the number of redeemers has grown, tax receipts have fallen far short of covering their withdrawals, a problem that has now become an outright government funding emergency further aggravated by the fiscal, financial and economic crises.

If the Washington and Wall Street Axis were not legally able to create and distribute counterfeit American money, the Ponzi scheme would have collapsed already. Trillions of new, out-of-thin-air, printing-press and electronic “dollars” have bought the Axis additional time, but new sources of revenue must immediately be found to keep the scam alive. Congress is fully aware of this reality. Outright tax increases would be bad politics during a recession that is morphing into a depression, and also bad for 2010 re-election campaigns, so they cannot be implemented. Therefore, Congress continues to advance the health care and Cap and Trade agendas, which are nothing but taxation Trojan Horses festooned in righteousness and sanctimony, despite overwhelming popular opposition.

If the nationalized health care program is passed, revenues and fees will kick in immediately in 2010, whereas costs will not begin to accrue until 2012 and later. The government plans to spend the revenues immediately to forestall a total fiscal collapse. Nationalized health care has absolutely nothing to do with health care; it has to do with creating an immediate revenue stream to help fix the current government funding crisis. Similarly, Cap and Trade has nothing to do with fixing the environment. It, too, is nothing more than a massive tax increase similarly designed to address the government’s epic funding shortfall, with thick slices of pork thrown  in for privileged insiders and deceitful propagandists like bloated “Father of the Internet” and now “Savior of the World” Al Gore.

The last thing the Master Class wants is for the people to understand the disastrous state of the nation’s finances. Master Class brainwashing tells the people that it is “negative” and “pessimistic” to look at the facts, despite the fact that psychological health is characterized by the ability to identify and deal with reality. The Master Class wants the people to put on Bozo the Clown happy faces and let sugar plums and green shoots dance in their brains as they write one check after another to pay for Cap and Trade, nationalized health care, and a mind-numbing assortment of other taxes and fees.

On Sunday night, November 30, 2009, North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Il (a name that says it all, even better than Made-off’s), an international poster child of Master Class psychological illness, devalued his country’s currency by 99%. This vicious tyrant, who has given birth to a national hell on earth, is chauffeured in Mercedes Benz limousines, drinks the finest imported whiskies and dines in imperial dignity on foods prepared by personal chefs while his citizens starve to death on the streets or, at best, eke out a subsistence living. Kim became paranoid that the people were actually figuring out how to improve their pitiful, impoverished lives in tiny ways, so he decided to wipe them out. The people were given one week to exchange their money at a rate of 100 old Won for 1 new Won. Any lifetime family savings in excess of roughly $700.00 were simply confiscated by the North Korean government. To keep the people in line, the military and police were put on high alert, fully prepared to kill or arrest any protesters.

On January 9, 2010, Venezuela’s strong man Hugo Chavez devalued his country’s currency by 50%, overnight and without warning, causing immediate inflation, shortages of food and supplies, and general financial chaos throughout the nation.

While you might be shaking your head in pity over the plight of the citizens of North Korea and Venezuela, ask yourself this: could this not happen in the United States?

On April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, an Obama hero, outlawed gold ownership overnight by signing Executive Order 6102, which gave the people three and one-half weeks to surrender all privately-owned bullion to the government for a price of $20.67 per ounce. On January 30, 1934, nine months after collecting the people’s gold, Roosevelt devalued the dollar 69% overnight, by raising the gold price from $20.67 to $35.00 per ounce.

Since its founding in 1913, the Federal Reserve has devalued the dollar by 98+% thanks to endless money printing and debt creation, a corrosive and impoverishing process that is now accelerating. In the past year, the Fed has engineered $20+ trillion in bailouts, subsidies and guarantees for well-connected and lucky scavengers and opportunists, an amount equal to roughly 40% of the total private wealth created in this country since its inception. All because a few elitist government man-gods with an almost perfect record of error and failure have deemed in their imperial wisdom that it shall be so. The citizens, whose hard-earned wealth is being systematically destroyed by this continual, government-decreed monetary debasement were never invited to the debate or given a say, which is par for the course for dictatorships. This massive de facto devaluation now hangs over the people’s wealth like a great monetary sword of Damocles.

Conceptually, whether it is a 50% overnight devaluation in Venezuela, a 69% overnight devaluation in the United States, a 98% devaluation in America over time, or a 99% overnight devaluation in North Korea, what is the difference? The fact is: there is no difference; monetary debasements are all the same. In each and every case, the people’s wealth is stolen via government edict, while the people stand by helplessly and in shock.

So one must ask: For whom does the bell toll? A foreign “them,” or a domestic us? Who is to say that you will not be told tomorrow morning that, effective immediately, in accordance with some perversely named mandate such as the “American Monetary Security, Wealth Preservation and Terrorism Prevention Act,” enacted by emergency for “the safety of the nation and the financial well being of the citizens,” all existing currency and bank balances will be redenominated in “New Dollars,” at a conversion rate of 1 new for every 100 old currency units? Would this not simply be another, almost predictable act of defiance toward the American people by the Master Class? And if that happened, do you honestly believe that the Master Class would not have been alerted in advance and allowed to make special preparations for itself ahead of the devaluation? Do you think they intend to go down in the same ship as the people they defy? If such a currency devaluation were announced, what could you do about it? March on Washington? But how would you get there if your money had been wiped out?

Despite what you may hear from State Media, which includes virtually all establishment news organizations, particularly financial ones (e.g., CNBC), America is on the precipice. No bankrupt nation in history has ever defended or preserved the freedoms of its citizens. In fact, it has been the exact opposite: in desperation, bankrupt governments have routinely plundered their citizens’ wealth and imposed totalitarian controls. What will make things different for the United States, the largest debtor nation in all of recorded civilization?

The United States government cannot ever, possibly pay its debts, is pathologically incapable of controlling its spending or curbing its hunger for both domestic and international empire and persistently refuses to tell the American people the truth. If America’s citizens were told the truth and given the benefit of true leadership, as opposed to the guile and dishonesty of an endless array of political liars and hacks, perhaps they could rally and defeat the problems that afflict them. But instead, they are fed by the Master Class a steady diet of narcotic propaganda that deludes, confuses and enervates them. The truth cannot set people free if it is never told, and that is the essence of America’s gathering tragedy.

In a future article, we will detail specific developments you should watch for to chart the course of America’s ominous and potentially deadly national storm. The current, grave situation is already a clear call to action. When the signals become even more urgent, it will be late in the game to take protective action, and possibly too late. Citizens should begin to prepare now not just for financial survival, but for the personal security of themselves and their loved ones should a Category 5 economic and political hurricane rip into the nation, something that becomes more likely every day.

With respect to personal finances, in virtually every national currency devaluation and major political upheaval in the past, gold has represented sanctuary for the affected people. Gold has not just preserved wealth, but personal freedom as well. While governments can devalue fiat currencies, they cannot, by edict, devalue gold. Yes, they can try to manipulate its price, but unless all governments join in the collusion, ultimately the price will return to market. The market for gold is global, and demand exists in all nations and among all peoples. Should the government attempt to confiscate gold, it will be an outright admission that the financial system is collapsing, and the people will know better than to hand over to a corrupt government their only means of survival. The most important point is this: devalued currencies never rise again. Once they are destroyed, they are gone forever, and those whose wealth had once been denominated in them are wiped out. As you have no doubt heard before, not one fiat currency has survived over time, and that is an indisputable fact. More significantly, no fiat currency has ever suffered the abuse that has been inflicted upon the United States dollar, meaning that it is at extreme risk. Gold has been money for 5,000 years. It has not merely survived, it has prevailed over each and every fiat currency collapse throughout history. Given this, the most important financial question a person can ask him- or herself today is: How is my wealth denominated at this time? And given its denomination, is my wealth likely to be safe in current and evolving circumstances?

One thing is certain: as the epic David and Goliath monetary battle unfolds, between the people fighting to defend their hard-earned wealth on one side, and a Master Class that greedily and pathologically wants to plunder them on the other, the price of gold will become extremely volatile for a period of time. Volatility will, in fact, tell you that the War on Wealth has officially been declared, and will be your signal to do whatever you must to protect what is yours. As the government Goliath and its Master Class allies short tonnes of bullion into rigged futures markets in a desperate attempt to make gold look dangerous and risky, the Davids will be coming forth not just in the United States but from all corners of the globe, buying 10 grams here and one ounce there. There are 6.8 billion Davids, versus one diseased Master Class that numbers in the small millions. There is no way the Master Class can defeat the people, if the people finally rise up and say “No More of Your Plunder. No More of Your Cold and Soulless Financial Oppression. No More of Your Cynical and Godless Exploitation.”

If you find the above argument compelling, you should consider how to protect yourself from Executive Orders that could be issued at any time, under any pretext, and that could be extremely hostile to your financial and/or personal health and well being. One simple way to start is to purchase one ounce of gold for yourself and each member of your household, and much more if you can afford it. That is not financial advice; it is merely the common sense generously communicated to you by history.

Stewart Dougherty

Stewart Dougherty is a specialist in inferential analysis, the practice of identifying historic and contemporary patterns and then extrapolating their likely effects upon the future. Dougherty was educated at Tufts University (B.A., magna cum laude), and Harvard Business School (M.B.A. and an academic Fellow). He can be reached at stewartdougherty@cs.com. He is not affiliated with or compensated by those he references or recommends. He does not offer investment or trading advice, and nothing in this article should be construed as such. This article represents the author’s personal opinions, and nothing more. The reader has the author’s permission to share, print, forward or post this article provided that the content is not changed and the author is acknowledged.

(H/T Mike)

Big Brother’s Lock On Your Money Is Complete

I wrote about it; I tried to warn people, but after the healthcare fight we just went through, I think most people just wanted a breather from battling the fascists in Washington (to our long-lasting detriment).

Now we have the financial reform bill that includes the new federal agency Office Of Financial Research, and the Bureau of Consumer Protection keeping track of every single financial transaction you could possibly imagine; including your bank balance, and when you walk to the ATM to take cash out.  I wasn’t lying, but I do think I was one of very few writing about it.

The fascists have the banks, the insurance companies, the credit card companies, the car companies, OUR healthcare, and now Americans’ financial transactions.

Senate Democrats Pass Bill Allowing Govt to Collect Addresses, ATM Records of Bank Customers

(CNSNews.com) – Senate Democrats united to pass a financial regulatory bill that allows the government to collect data on any person operating in financial markets at any level, including the collection of personal transaction records from local banks, including customers’ addresses and ATM receipts. (emphasis mine)

The Senate voted 59-39 on Thursday to pass the bill – the chief aim of which is to more-heavily regulate the financial industry – sending it to a conference committee in the House of Representatives, where differences between the House and Senate versions will be ironed out.

The bill, if it becomes law, will create the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and empower it to “gather information and activities of persons operating in consumer financial markets,” including the names and addresses of account holders, ATM and other transaction records, and the amount of money kept in each customer’s account.

The new bureaucracy is then allowed to “use the data on branches and [individual and personal] deposit accounts … for any purpose” and may keep all records on file for at least three years and these can be made publicly available upon request.

*break*

Shelby slammed the new consumer bureaucracy, saying that it was meant not to protect consumers but to “manage” them by monitoring their behavior.

“Mr. President, make no mistake, behind the veil of anti-Wall Street rhetoric is an unrelenting desire to manage every facet of commerce under the guise of consumer protection.

“They may be interested in protecting consumers, but they are more interested in managing them,” Shelby said.

Shelby also criticized the idea that Americans need government to watch over their every financial move, saying that it was better to allow people the freedom to make their own choices and fail than to never allow them the freedom to choose at all.

“Mr. President, I have faith in the American people and their ability to make good choices,” said Shelby.  “Granted, we do not always choose well.  But I believe that a poor choice freely made is far superior to a good choice made for me.”

“I am afraid that the architects of this bill do not share this sentiment,” he said. “Nor do they share my faith in the American people.”

Shelby further said that the ability of the Federal Reserve to collect such detailed information about the most basic of financial transactions was the beginning of an effort by government to regulate every financial action of every American citizen.

“This new consumer bureaucracy is intended by its architects in the Treasury to begin the process of financial regulation with the intent of changing the behaviors of the American people,” said the senator.

Shelby appears to be correct. The bill allows the bureau to collect any and all information on any person operating in the financial markets.

As it reads: “[T]he Bureau shall have the authority to gather information from time to time regarding the organization, business conduct, markets, and activities of persons operating in consumer financial services markets.”

Meanwhile, depending on the conference version of this bill, you may be able to fund a new federal agency that takes idle appropriations, invests them, and keeps the profits.  Those profits are ‘not considered the government’s property’. I am still trying to ascertain who that money actually belongs to because it is not yours anymore.

4.15.2010

Obama Turns Financial Reform Into A Political Fight

I am currently reading this bill and wanted to drop an interesting tidbit on you. For those interested in reading the 114 page Manager’s Amendment, go here. I am only a couple hundred pages into this POS but starting on page 60, a new government office is to be established. The “Office Of Financial Research” will be part of the Treasury, and will have a Director appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. This office will also have a data collection center to keep track of all financial and nonbank financial institutions so as to be able to report to Congress on companies that ‘threaten’ the economy. It is unclear how big or how many new government employees this office will create, but considering how events are unfolding now with Obamacare, I’m assuming pretty large.

The interesting tidbit pertains to the Financial Research Fund that is to be established and the ability of the Office that is providing Congress with reports to invest monies they aren’t using. Let me know if you think that’s a conflict of interest, and if you would like to know exactly how much money that is?

“Funds obtained by, transferred to, or credited to the Financial Research Fund shall be immediately available to the Office, and shall remain available until expended, to pay the expenses of the Office in carrying out the duties and responsibilities of the Office.”

The above quotes are from Chris Dodd’s markup draft. I went to the actual amended bill (Amendment No. 3739 of Bill S. 3217) that was passed and found the pertinent information starting on page 62, with the investment and non-governmental monies section on page 78. It’s still in there.

At this point, the underground economy is about to get a bit larger.

UPDATE: More information on the Office Of Financial Research, here.

Words Of Wisdom....

The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.

- Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson And American Sovereignty

"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 1823

It is the sacred principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter to which the American people will henceforth pledge their allegiance.

- President George Bush (41) addressing the United Nations

Which will it be America? US Sovereignty or UN Slavery? - The Monster

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