One of the hot distributors of right-wing conspiracy theories these days seems to be the Give Us Liberty 1776 blog. Today, as a Thanksgiving treat, they are offering up roast retirement anxiety with all the trimmings excerpted from Mac Slavo at SHTFplan.com (the acronym is about something hitting the fan).
A new effort by the Obama administration, Congress, the Treasury Department and labor unions aims to fundamentally alter how Americans plan and save for retirement.
Warnings have been popping up over the last several years about the possibility of re-appropriating the $3.5 Trillion sitting in private retirement and spreading those funds around to Americans who are deemed less fortunate.
Apparently somebody in the government is concerned that Americans aren’t saving enough (somebody who apparently hasn’t look at interest rates lately). That’s enough to make the paranoid-styled conspiracy theorists think that their IRAs and 401-Ks are under attack.
Reading the article one has to take some care to note when an official source is being quoted, or whether it’s the nut job talking. You better get your dried foods, water purifiers, antibiotics and stuff gold in your mattress before the banking collapse of 2012 and whatever further doom awaits you.
This looks like a recycle of a story which appeared in 2010 when the Obama Administration announced that it was looking at ways for people to convert their retirement accounts to annuities. The right wing noise machine went berserk with predictions that the government was going to take over IRAs and 401(k)s.
One of the people spreading the current rumor is Pamela Geller, which is all you need to know to be confident that there is nothing to it.
The great thing about the Internet is that you can say just about anything and people will believe it! I think the only restriction is that you stay within the bounds of physical reality.
Don’t they all? From what I last read, the “they will round us all up in FEMA camps” meme has been postponed to “in two or three years” so they can conveniently forget they claimed that would have happened at least two years ago already.
As 2017 comes closer, we will also see the “he will not leave office peacefully, he will declare Martial Law” meme revived etc.
I was listening to a favorite, Martin Basheer, on my drive home from the Brig at Charleston the other day.
Through some ads I came to realize there’s a new OCT that he will somehow “revoke” the Twenty Second Amendment and run – and get – a third term.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021861680
A quick Google found quite a few references.
I think we should encourage OCTs – it’s a job creator, they encourage circulation of money into the economy — donations, fees to companies such as NetSolutions or GoDaddy for web names and hosting packages, Advertizing locations and revenue, etc., etc., etc.
… and I’m still waiting for “legal loophole allows Obama third term / to rule indefinitely” etc.
[Edit: I didn’t see your post when I wrote mine, Phil. Nice coincidence, or “great minds think alike”. ;)]
It is hilarious how so many of these types of people think investing in Gold is the only way you can survive, but if the economy collapses their gold will be worthless.
They seem to forget that the only way to “spend” gold is by converting it into currency. Which doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a bad investment – lot of people have profited from investing in gold – but it isn’t going to be of much use in an economic apocalypse.
The people who are selling gold will accept only fiat currency in exchange for it.
that gold investment is actually buying coins at a hefty mark up, some of those coins may contain gold. it’s a scam, advertised on right wing sites as they are an easy mark for the scammers (think goldline)
But many will spell it Marshall Law.
Here is the real Marshall law: http://www.sonicftp.com/news/images/marshall_mg30fx.jpg
So ….. the wingnuts are saying that concern over ‘Mericans lack of savings will cause them to redistribute from those who have saved to those who haven’t? Yes, that will certainly encourage savings.
Still a conspiracy? http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2012/11/fiscal_cliff_401_k_s_and_iras_cost_the_government_billions_should_we_get.html
Yes, still a baseless conspiracy. I read your referenced article, which talks about ways to increase savings, perhaps more effectively than the 401-K or IRA.Nowhere in the article is there the slightest suggestion that the government should take anybody’s retirement savings.