Dateline: Krakow, Poland
Last year, the Polish government made a startling announcement about Polish retirement accounts that led to one of the latest and greatest wealth confiscation schemes in Europe.
However, retirement account confiscation isn’t just limited to Poland… not by a long shot.
During the middle of crisis elsewhere in the European Union, Poland quietly announced it was beginning so-called “pension overhaul”. As we frequently discuss here, these buzzwords are nothing more than code for “theft”.
In Cyprus, they called bailing in depositors a “stability levy” designed to “protect” the banking sector… all while stealing money from the accounts of individuals and small business owners.
Here in Poland, the government decided to essentially nationalize half of the private pension funds, including those run by international firms such as ING and Allianz.
In one fell swoop, half of Poland’s retirement account wealth was taken over by the government, with no recourse offered. Private funds would be shifted into a public system guaranteed by the state, leaving private savers with IOUs for another fiscally irresponsible European government.
Just why would Poland confiscate its own citizens’ retirement accounts? Why, to make its own books look cleaner, of course. One report suggested Poland’s ability to borrow against its newly confiscated wealth would reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio by eight percent, making the country look better on paper.
According to the Polish government’s calculations, 2012 debt-to-GDP stood at around 58%. An 8% reduction in that debt-to-GDP ratio would make it look more attractive to creditors, allowing it to run up more debt.
In fact, the Polish government was able to plunge its debt-to-GDP ratio under 50% after the nearly $50 billion swindle was complete.
The result: the Polish government stole private wealth to allow them to issue more sovereign debt. Works like a charm.
Of course, this is the risk that occurs from keeping your assets under one government. In an era of widespread sovereign insolvency, you never know if your home country will be the next one to decide they need to implement “pension overhaul” and steal your money.
First of all, what happened here in Poland should only highlight the fact that no government statistics are reliable. None of them.
Whatever they tell you about the unemployment rate, the inflation rate, or the price of bananas, it’s wrong. Government statistics are manipulated six ways to Sunday before being released to a gullible public by a willing mainstream media.
This is the same reason there is no “economic recovery” underway in the United States. Anything but.
Even more pressing, though, is the need to diversify your retirement account outside of your home country. Examples such as the one in Poland are why I recommend never funding an IRA or other retirement plan; the money you put into one is simply too tempting for your broke government to steal.
As of this year, the United States debt-to-GDP ratio is double that of what Poland had before engaging in massive private wealth confiscation.
105% debt-to-GDP is about as bankrupt as you can get.
The United States has a far more wide-ranging social safety net and giveaway program that middle-income nations like Poland. The sense of entitlement in the United States is far higher than it is here in Poland.
And at least Poland has some fundamentals for economic growth. It may not be the next Cambodia, but it is more sound economically than the bankrupt USSA.
Politicians in the US are already eyeing private retirement accounts the way a dog eyes bacon on the griddle. As the last huge bastion of wealth yet to be stolen by US politicians, I believe that you’ll see some action against US retirement accounts in the coming years.
The groundwork is already being laid. You may recall that, earlier this year, Barack Obama outlined his “myRA” retirement savings program as the next big thing to help Americans build a nest egg.
Forget the fact that those of us who have wanted to build a nest egg have long been doing so. The myRA program is basically Big Government’s latest way to screw over the average saver and ensure they will remain beholden to the US government forever.
This is why the government doesn’t want you reading sites like this: they want you to stay where you are, invest in their worthless paper, and never question their motives. That way, everything you have will always be readily available for them to steal.
myRA accounts are being targeted at lower-income savers who don’t have access to a 401(k) or other employer sponsored retirement account. Because the government cares oh so much about these people, myRA accounts will only be allowed to invest in US government debt.
The same savings bonds that pay putrid interest and are “backed” by an insolvent government with $125 trillion in unfunded liabilities will form 100% of these myRA accounts. Considering that the Barack Obama rolling out this myRA scam is the same guy who has overseen a doubling of the stock market based entirely on quantitative easing should give you pause.
If Americans invest their retirement savings into myRA accounts, they will be entirely at the mercy of the US government, both for the value of the US dollar their account is held in, as well as the ability that Obama and his band of thugs could decide to impose an “overhaul” of their own anytime they wish.
When that happens – and it will – an entire generation of sheep who bought into the idea of government-run retirement accounts will be out on the street, left with US dollars more useful as toilet paper than for actually buying goods and services in retirement.
The government is warning savers to not look for big returns on their myRA accounts, but fails to warn these sheep that inflation and dollar devaluation far surpass the tiny return downgraded US debt offers.
Of course, once governments like Poland and the United States confiscate assets and use their plunder to run up more debt, they’ll be forced to confiscate MORE assets to pay off that debt. This is the danger of living in a highly indebted nation that knows how to do nothing but kick the can down the road.
What happened in Poland is actually a picnic compared to what is going on in the United States. The groundwork is being laid for the biggest confiscation of wealth in history. Now is not the time to be entrusting your retirement account to a group of wealth confiscation thugs.
