European nations begin seizing private pensions

[Agorism]

Hungary, Poland, and three other nations take over citizens' pension money to make up government budget shortfalls.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Adam-Smith-Institute-Blog/2011/0102/European-nations-begin-seizing-private-pensions

[emazur]

The most striking example is Hungary, where last month the government made the citizens an offer they could not refuse. They could either remit their individual retirement savings to the state, or lose the right to the basic state pension (but still have an obligation to pay contributions for it). In this extortionate way, the government wants to gain control over $14bn of individual retirement savings.

Federal Mafia. The mob would tell you to pay for "protection" money or risk losing your life. The government tells you to give a percentage of your life for "safe keeping" or risk losing losing it all down the road.

[Acala]

Coming soon to a 401k/IRA near you. A stroke of a pen and POOF that money is gone, Daddy, gone.

Bail out if you can. Buy land, tools, raw materials.

[RonPaulwillWin]

Damn, Peter Schiff was right about this

[Pericles]

Coming soon to a 401k/IRA near you. A stroke of a pen and POOF that money is gone, Daddy, gone.

Bail out if you can. Buy land, tools, raw materials.
One of the advantages of living in Switzerland - rolled my IRA into SFR type retirement plan. Of course, the IRS came after that transaction like a big dog. Then I filed to take it to Tax Court under the terms of the tax treaty between the US and Switzerland which gives retirement plans equal recognition and same tax treatment by each country. The IRS caved rather than risk the tax court ruling.

LMAO:D

[Lucille]

Coming soon to a 401k/IRA near you. A stroke of a pen and POOF that money is gone, Daddy, gone.

Bail out if you can. Buy land, tools, raw materials.

Yup. And you can bet that no one will do a damn thing about it. There obviously is no last straw.

Dynamic government, mutating law (http://voxday.blogspot.com/2011/01/dynamic-government-mutating-law.html)


It's ultimately a fool's game to put any trust in a government program because the law, especially when created and enforced by an interventionist government, is necessarily dynamic. That means that you can't count on the rules which presently influence your decisions remaining static since the rulemakers will change them any time they believe it will benefit them to do so [...]

How many more places does this have to happen before Americans begin to realize that the same thing is absolutely going to happen with their local, state, and federal pensions, as well as their entitlement programs. The fact that government officials often refer to pensions and entitlements as "sacred obligations" doesn't mean that they won't eliminate the payouts or grab the funds, in fact, the need to place a legally meaningless adjective in front of the noun underlines the fact that they do not consider the legal obligations to bind them in any way.

[sevin]

Coming soon to a 401k/IRA near you. A stroke of a pen and POOF that money is gone, Daddy, gone.

Bail out if you can. Buy land, tools, raw materials.

I agree, but I wonder how they'll manage convince enough people that it's necessary. Some major shit is going to go down before they go after 401ks in the U.S.

[oyarde]

How many private pensions would there be in Europe ?

[acptulsa]

How many private pensions would there be in Europe ?

Enough to make this a major injustice but not enough to sate the insatiable politicians of the region.

[youngbuck]

Yup. And you can bet that no one will do a damn thing about it. There obviously is no last straw.

Dynamic government, mutating law (http://voxday.blogspot.com/2011/01/dynamic-government-mutating-law.html)

Yea, the last straw will be when, after the people are homeless, pensionless, jobless, and hopeless, JBTs come to kick them out of their tents.