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I do not contribute to my retirement accounts anymore. It may be an error on my part, but giving an entity that is more than $100T in debt (unfunded liabilitie

by jes 11y ago

I do not contribute to my retirement accounts anymore. It may be an error on my part, but giving an entity that is more than $100T in debt (unfunded liabilities included) seems foolish. I expect retirement accounts to be nationalized, in one way or another, in the next five to ten years. I hope that I am wrong.

ASinclair 11y ago
That's some serious paranoia. In a situation like that what asset would be safe besides guns, ammo, and canned goods?
- mediocrejoker 11y ago
  Physical gold?
- jes 11y ago
  I don't take offense to your comment regarding paranoia. The question, I think, is this: If you have worked all your life, and played by the rules that existed at the time, how do you protect what you have earned from theft by others? One aspect of the answer, I think, is that you put it out of their reach. There are many other things a person can do. As an aside, whenever someone implies that a set of options is very limited, I try try broaden my focus a bit, in order to see a bigger picture, and thus, additional alternatives. I hope that doesn't sound condescending, as it's not meant to be.
markvdb 11y ago
Exactly that. The government of the country where I currently live constantly fiddles with taxation rules retroactively. I'm quite sure it's the same most everywhere. I'd rather put my money in places where I am in control to the max. No special tax advantaged retirement funds for me, thank you. They are not that lucrative anyway around here, and the conditions under which one can use them (retirement age, taxation, ...) change all the time, for worse. The last creative change by the government was it taking an advance on future taxation from my current retirement fund savings, in exchange for "not taxing it anymore in the future". Hah, /me does not believe a single word of that! I'd rather invest my puny savings into my own little maker company. With the proceeds, I rather buy productive assets that I 100% understand. Things that are as close to physically under my control as possible. Anything but government incentivised savings. Those will bite one sometime sooner or later anyway!
delecti 11y ago
Retirement accounts aren't money given to the government. Vanguard/Fidelity/Schwab/etc are companies. Unless I misunderstand your meaning?
- jes 11y ago
  You are absolutely correct when you say the money is not given to the government, but to third-party entities. The government can dictate terms to those entities, however, and they will comply. For example, when the government made the ownership of gold illegal, they instructed the banks that it was illegal to open a customer's safe deposit box unless a federal officer was present. When the box was opened, any gold (save for certain kinds of coins) was confiscated and the owner of the gold was reimbursed for a fraction of its value.
  - delecti 11y ago
    It's not true that the government sized privately owned gold in that manner [1]. Additionally, when the government made the private ownership of gold illegal, they bought back gold from people at $20.67/troy oz, which is about what the price was at the time [2]. I think your concerns about the security of retirement accounts is unfounded. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102#Hoax_of_safe_deposit_box_seizures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102#Hoax_of_s... [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Gold-nominal-constant-usd.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Gold-nom...
    - jes 11y ago
      You are dropping important context. See also [1]. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6260 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6260

by jes 11y ago

ASinclair 11y ago

That's some serious paranoia. In a situation like that what asset would be safe besides guns, ammo, and canned goods?

mediocrejoker 11y ago
Physical gold?
jes 11y ago
I don't take offense to your comment regarding paranoia. The question, I think, is this: If you have worked all your life, and played by the rules that existed at the time, how do you protect what you have earned from theft by others? One aspect of the answer, I think, is that you put it out of their reach. There are many other things a person can do. As an aside, whenever someone implies that a set of options is very limited, I try try broaden my focus a bit, in order to see a bigger picture, and thus, additional alternatives. I hope that doesn't sound condescending, as it's not meant to be.

markvdb 11y ago

Exactly that. The government of the country where I currently live constantly fiddles with taxation rules retroactively. I'm quite sure it's the same most everywhere. I'd rather put my money in places where I am in control to the max. No special tax advantaged retirement funds for me, thank you. They are not that lucrative anyway around here, and the conditions under which one can use them (retirement age, taxation, ...) change all the time, for worse. The last creative change by the government was it taking an advance on future taxation from my current retirement fund savings, in exchange for "not taxing it anymore in the future". Hah, /me does not believe a single word of that! I'd rather invest my puny savings into my own little maker company. With the proceeds, I rather buy productive assets that I 100% understand. Things that are as close to physically under my control as possible. Anything but government incentivised savings. Those will bite one sometime sooner or later anyway!

delecti 11y ago

Retirement accounts aren't money given to the government. Vanguard/Fidelity/Schwab/etc are companies. Unless I misunderstand your meaning?

jes 11y ago
You are absolutely correct when you say the money is not given to the government, but to third-party entities. The government can dictate terms to those entities, however, and they will comply. For example, when the government made the ownership of gold illegal, they instructed the banks that it was illegal to open a customer's safe deposit box unless a federal officer was present. When the box was opened, any gold (save for certain kinds of coins) was confiscated and the owner of the gold was reimbursed for a fraction of its value.
- delecti 11y ago
  It's not true that the government sized privately owned gold in that manner [1]. Additionally, when the government made the private ownership of gold illegal, they bought back gold from people at $20.67/troy oz, which is about what the price was at the time [2]. I think your concerns about the security of retirement accounts is unfounded. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102#Hoax_of_safe_deposit_box_seizures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102#Hoax_of_s... [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Gold-nominal-constant-usd.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Gold-nom...
  - jes 11y ago
    You are dropping important context. See also [1]. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6260 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6260