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American Political Orphan
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Patrick Henry
The Obama administration is weighing how the government can encourage workers to turn their savings into guaranteed income streams following a collapse in retiree accounts when the stock market plunged.
The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Iwry, who are spearheading the effort…
BusinessWeek reports that the Treasury and Labor departments are asking for public comment on “the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams.”
In plain English, the idea is for the government to take your retirement savings in return for a promise to pay you some monthly benefit in your retirement years.
They will tell you that you are ‘investing’ your money in U.S. Treasury bonds. But they will use your money immediately to pay for their unprecedented trillion-dollar budget deficits, leaving nothing to back up their political promises, just as they have raided the Social Security trust funds.
This ‘conversion’ may start out as an optional choice, though you are already free to buy Treasury bonds whenever you want. But as Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker Web site reports: ‘Choices’ have a funny way of turning into mandates, and this looks to me like a raw admission that Treasury knows it will not be able to sell its debt in the open market—so they will effectively tax you by forcing your retirement money to buy them.’
This is just the latest chapter in what is developing into a war by the left on America’s seniors. All that class-war rhetoric about “the rich” ends up targeting seniors, who tend to have accumulated the most in savings and investment on average because they have been around the longest.
Gingrich concludes…
Congressional Republicans should introduce legislation to block the government from ever proceeding with anything like this. Call it the ‘Keep Your Hands Off My 401(k) Act of 2010.’
Members of Congress give all sorts of reasons for retiring, but the reason that Democrat Evan Bayh gave is starting to sound awfully familiar. The two-term Senator from Indiana said he just couldn’t stand the partisan bickering in Washington any more.
“I’ve had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should. There is much too much partisanship and not enough progress,” he said yesterday, announcing he would not seek reelection this Fall.
Let me see Senator Bayh, “Congress is not operating as it should?” Running up a 1.4 Trillion dollar deficit, Federal Debt over 12 Trillion dollars, Earmarks (AKA wasteful spending), waste, fraud and abuse at the hand of the United States Congress, is this the partisanship you are talking about? The Democrat majority is in charge and the American People are holding them to account. Get over it!
The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Iwry, who are leading the effort.
According to the article, as of mid 2009 there was 3.6 trillion dollars in IRAs and 401(k)s. Thats a tempting sum to the Obama Administration and the Democrats when they are pilling up an unsustanable level of debt. They want to sieze it and convert it to annuities so that retires will receive “steady payment streams.”
Let me tell you what this is - it is an attempt to prevent the collapse of the Treasury market!
Forcing people into Treasuries as an “annuity” is exactly what Social Security allegedly is. Except that Treasury stole the money that was collected in FICA taxes and spent it!
Guess what? They’ll do that here too - you’re going to “invest” in Treasuries which of course are effectively a CALL option on the future taxing ability of the government.
Let’s see if I understand this. The government takes your IRA / 401(k) and gives you an IOU. Then they pay you back in inflated dollars in equal monthly payments until you die. Haven’t they done this already with the generational ponzi scheme called Social Security? I wonder if they have hired Bernie Madoff as a consultant?
But Obama’s problems are more than a question of style. There is doubt aroused on substance. He sets deadlines and then lets too many pass. He announces a strategic review of Afghanistan, describing it as “a war of necessity,” only to become less sure to the point that he didn’t even seem committed to the policy that he finally announced. As for changing politics in Washington, he assigned the drafting of central legislative programs not to cabinet departments or White House staff but to the Democratic congressional leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the very people so mistrusted by the public. Who could be surprised that the critical bills—the stimulus program and healthcare—degenerated under a welter of pork and earmarks that had so outraged the American public in the past?
U.S. investors overwhelmingly see President Barack Obama as anti-business and question his ability to manage a financial crisis, according to a Bloomberg survey.
The global quarterly poll of investors and analysts who are Bloomberg subscribers finds that 77 percent of U.S. respondents believe Obama is too anti-business and four-out-of-five are only somewhat confident or not confident of his ability to handle a financial emergency.
The poll also finds a decline in Obama’s overall favorability rating one year after taking office. He is viewed favorably by 27 percent of U.S. investors. In an October poll, 32 percent in the U.S. held a positive impression.
As the Obama administration marks its first birthday, there is no reason to shop around for the perfect present. What President Barack Obama needs most is obvious: a new political strategy
How’s that hope and change thing working out for ya?
Democrat leaders are now talking about actually bringing legislation that will raise our debt limit by $1.9 trillion. But we are told by the same Democratic leadership that they are going to get serious in 2010 about fiscal discipline. I guess along those lines, President Obama is expected to announce a bipartisan commission that will look for ways to reduce deficits in the future. Sounds like an appealing idea, but the devil’s always in the details in Washington, D.C.
The president’s commission, on close examination, actually looks like a guard dog with no bite. Looks like fiscal discipline but it could easily be ignored by Congress. Remarkably, the president’s proposal, as I have heard about it, is prohibited from recommending cuts in any discretionary spending. That will be about $1.4 trillion, and the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ that’s completely off limits. And as many of us know, with the partisan bias and the structure of it, as reported, it’s likely this commission would just be an excuse to raise taxes.
Rep. Mike Pence R-Indiana
Typical of the Obama Administration, a presidential commission to reduce future deficits but prohibited from recommending cuts in discretionary spending.
Obama, all talk and nothing to show for it. Typical! Just typical!
WASHINGTON, Dec 15 (Reuters) - The House of Representatives will vote on a short-term boost to the U.S. debt limit this week TO AVOID A GOVERNMENT DEFAULT and give lawmakers more time to try to cut the record federal deficit, House Democratic leader Steny Hoyer said on Tuesday.
READ - US GOVERNMENT ON VERGE OF DEFAULT ON IT’S DEBT
‘If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,’ he said. ‘Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year.’
‘Eventually You Run Out Of Other People’s Money’ - Thatcher
The president said that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are on an ‘unsustainable’ trajectory and if there is no action taken to bring them down, ‘the federal government will go bankrupt.’
Mr. President, you are a fool! It is not health care that is the problem it is the insatiable appetite of the Democrat Party to SPEND! The bill is coming due and you can’t pay it. Now, today the United States Of America may not be able to pay their debt. It’s directly your fault. Actually it IS your fault!
Calling Dodd ‘the single-most gifted legislator in Congress, now that Teddy Kennedy’s gone,’ Biden praised him for chairing two committees in a national crisis. Biden said the consequences would have been ‘dire’ had Dodd failed.
Hey Joe, the consequences for our economy are “dire” because of Senator Dodd’s choice to look the other way. The industry he was supposed to regulate gave and recived special favors from Senator Dodd.
Examples from CBS;
close connections to leading bankers…. One such connection is to former Bear Stearns director Edward Downe Jr., who once shared a condo with Dodd. After Downe’s conviction for insider trading, Dodd leaned on President Clinton to pardon Downe at the end of his presidency.
Countrywide gave him “VIP” treatment in refinancing his home.
his role in the payment of bonuses to executives at AIG, the troubled firm that received a massive federal bailout.
Those are just examples given by CBS. If his role in the Mortgage and Banking crisis was properly investigated the list would be long, very long.
Term Limits
No worries! The people of Connecticut will be judge and jury in November.
Term limits from the ballot box, it’s a beautiful thing.
Mr. President, America doesn’t want government provided health care, PERIOD!
Americans love their freedom and are not willing to give it up. What your plan does is enslave the whole nation who will have to depend on government for their very life. When govenment makes the decision whether you live or die, there is no freedom.
The ads all feature a doctored image of a current world leader - so that they look about ten years older - apologising from the future (2020 to be precise) saying, ‘I’m sorry. We could have stopped catastrophic climate change… We didn’t.’
‘It’s an apology from the future aimed at putting pressure on- and just maybe making these world leaders think twice about the consequences of their action or inaction now,’ explains the writer of the ads Toby Cotton of new agency Arc Communications.
‘The brief from Greenpeace International was simple,’ he continues, ‘to put pressure on world leaders to create a fair and binding agreement at Copenhagen.’
Well, unfortunately, I hope I’m wrong, but not very much, and I hope that talk radio and the pollution lobby are right that global warming is not a problem and 940 peer-reviewed scientific articles are wrong. That’s about all we can hope for because, right now, I have to tell you, that the pollution lobby and talk radio is winning this battle, and the will in the United States to do something about this is not what where I think it should be. But that’s the reality of the political situation as I see it right now.
I would like to think that if Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant, James Carville emits a lot more of it than everyone else.
Come on James, ‘pollution lobby’ you must be kidding!
Fortunately Ben Stein had a great reply to Carville…
Well, calling the people who want to keep Americans free to use the kind of energy they want to use the ‘pollution lobby’ is a wild smear…But it’s not the pollution lobby- it’s a lobby for the truth. The truth is that the global temperature peaked around 1998. It’s not gotten any hotter. Instead, it’s gotten cooler. The truth is that there have been periods in the past, 1,000 years ago, 2,500 years ago when it was warmer than it is now when there was no manmade burning of carbon. The truth is that we don’t know the exact interaction between all those events and effects and what they do to the weather….The truth is, we’ve now got a lot of data coming out that the scientific community who are on the side of anthropogenic global warming were cooking the data and were suppressing data to those requesting their data. So, I think the whole thing of fighting global warming may be based on a false premise. Maybe it isn’t, but the fact is we just don’t know at this point.
From the Video, Author Christopher Horner explains….
beyond the e-mails in the actual computer code itself annotated in the double digit number of times we have statements like apply a very artificial correction decline, two exclamation marks, all caps, very artificial.
And it’s in the double digit number of times whereby they say they’re applying an artificial decline to, as the gentleman said, use a trick to hide the decline. And I might be tempted to entertain such fantasy if not for an independent investigation. Thanks to Congress, already proving that these very specific actions and questions were a trick to hide the decline in temperatures.
So they’re trying to brazen this out, Charles, and the president, as you indicated, I believe, is doubling down. They’re panicked. They’re going to politically commit the U.S. in three weeks to a treaty now in violation of their own express policy of waiting for Congress to tell them what they’re able to do because they really do believe they must act now.
Yet, within days of the ClimateGate scandal breaking, Obama surprisingly announced that he’s going to Copenhagen with a pledge for serious carbon dioxide emissions cuts.
Barack Obama has thrown his weight behind a deal on climate change by announcing he will attend the Copenhagen summit with a pledge for a 17 per cent cut in US emissions.
The US president’s pledge removes one of the final obstacles to a deal, as other developed countries have already announced their targets to cut emissions by 2020.
ALSO…
Canada’s prime minister is reversing his position and will attend a United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen next month, Stephen Harper’s spokesman said Thursday.
Dimitri Soudas announced Harper decided to attend one day after U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced their attendance at the U.N. talks. Soudas said Harper’s decision was based on the fact that now ‘a critical mass of world leaders will be attending.’
The Plot Thickens!
Along comes ClimateGate, and Obama quickly announced that he’s heading to Copenhagen with a fairly serious emissions cut pledge.
Wall Street Journal - How to Forge a Consensus - The impression left by the Climategate emails is that the global warming game has been rigged from the start
Pachauri said the large number of contributors and rigorous peer review mechanism adopted by the IPCC meant that any bias would be rapidly uncovered.
‘The processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report,’ he said.
But Democrats put a brave face on it on Wednesday, with Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey saying that the leaked files and allegations of scientific misconduct should not stand in the way of the U.S. Congress swiftly enacting cap and trade legislation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions
The ads all feature a doctored image of a current world leader - so that they look about ten years older - apologising from the future (2020 to be precise) saying, ‘I’m sorry. We could have stopped catastrophic climate change… We didn’t.’
‘It’s an apology from the future aimed at putting pressure on- and just maybe making these world leaders think twice about the consequences of their action or inaction now,’ explains the writer of the ads Toby Cotton of new agency Arc Communications.
‘The brief from Greenpeace International was simple,’ he continues, ‘to put pressure on world leaders to create a fair and binding agreement at Copenhagen.’
He (Gore) also brushed aside questions over the reliability of climate science that have followed the publication last month of leaked e-mails between climate experts. He claimed that the scientific consensus around climate change ‘continues to grow from strength to strength’. He added: ‘The naysayers are in a sunset phase with a spectacular climax just before they subside from view. This is a race between common sense and unreality.’
Yes Al, it is a race against your ‘unreality” and the common sense of more rational individuals. I do argee with you there.
My colleagues and I accept that some of the published emails do not read well. I regret any upset or confusion caused as a result. Some were clearly written in the heat of the moment, others use colloquialisms frequently used between close colleagues
Comment from Phil Jones, Director of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit - the head conspirator.
Is The World Listening?
In a previous post, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO CEDE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE UNITED STATES, UK’s Lord Christopher Monckton sounds the alarm on the United Nations Climate Change Treaty. The Treaty is based on the data and findings provided by the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. He has been pointing out the fraud involved for years.
The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.
Network journalists who were quick to see racists, haters and extremists amongst the “tea party” protesters were oblivious on Saturday to communists in the “climate justice” march in Copenhagen whose cause they trumpeted—even as the video they showed included brief shots of marchers waving red flags displaying the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle.
The Democrat and Republican Party have lost touch with the American People. They have become the political elite and We the People have become "fly-over country." I am not a Nazi, a terrorist, a member of the KKK, a racist, or a member of an angry mob. I'm not a birther, teabagger, truther or astroturfer. I do, however believe in the original intent of the Founding Fathers, the United States Constituton and the rule of law. I believe that Government should serve the People, not the other way around. I’m an American and conservative to my very core.
