Did you hear?  Barrack Obama is targeting YOUR RETIREMENT ACCOUNT in his proposed budget for 2017.  I’m Bryan Ellis.  I’ll tell you what he’s saying, what it actually means… and why this is a HUGE ISSUE for self-directed investors RIGHT NOW in Episode #189.

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Hello SDI Nation!  Welcome to the podcast of record for savvy self-directed investors like you!  Welcome to another dose of predictably profitable thinking!

Well, well, well my friends… another day, another proposal to regulate and overtake your control of your money from our good buddies – overlords, anyone – in Washington DC.  Today, you get another episode of the unfortunate intersection of politics with your money.

That’s right my friends… Obama’s new budget proposal for Fiscal 2017, released in the last 24 hours, squarely targets something called “Retirement Security”.  Right there in black and white on the White House’s OMB – that’s office of management & budget – web page is a nice little paragraph that says, and I’ll ask for your indulgence as I – very dramatically and with entertaining flare – read this delightful citation about Obama’s take on the retirement situation in America:

“Millions of working Americans lack access to a retirement savings plan at work. Fewer than 10 percent of those without plans at work save in a retirement account on their own. In 2015, retirement security will be one of the key topics of the White House Conference on Aging. The Budget would make it easy and automatic for workers to save for retirement through their employer – giving 30 million more workers access to a workplace savings opportunity. The Budget also ensures that long-term part-time employees can participate in their employers’ retirement plans and provides tax incentives to offset administrative expenses for small businesses that adopt retirement plans.”

Ah yes, my friends… Obama… the white knight riding into save the day for the poor and downtrodden… those without the basic fundamental right of a big retirement account.  That’s a right somewhere in the Constitution, isn’t it?  Oh… no it’s not.  But hey, that doesn’t matter to this crew.  So we’ll just use some simple reasoning to figure out the REAL motive.

So Obama’s OMB tells us that millions of Americans lack access to a retirement savings plan at work… and that virtually nobody who doesn’t save at work saves on their own.

Mr. Obama and team… the truth isn’t familiar to you, is it?  You see, there’s this thing called an IRA.  The IRS says that stands for Individual Retirement Arrangement… most of us think of it as an Individual Retirement Account.  And here’s who is qualified to have an IRA:  ANYBODY who earns income and is under age 70 ½.  That’s it.  Those are the qualifications.  You’ve got to earn money – meaning you’re employed – and you’re 70 ½.  There’s nothing about minimum income requirements… so it’s available to the poor, too.  There’s nothing about minimum number of work hours… so it’s available to those working part-time, too.  And oh yeah… anybody using an IRA can take that bad boy from one employer to another as many times as they want… because it’s not connected to the employer at all.  It’s all about the INDIVIDUAL… and it ALREADY does everything you’re proposing.  What you’re proposing will NOT, as you said, give 30 million more people access to saving for retirement in the workplace.  That opportunity exists already… and all of the proof is right there on the IRS website for all the world to see.

Remember:  All you need is to earn income and to be 70 ½ or less.  That’s it.

So, my friends… maybe there’s another agenda here?

Of course there is!

To detect it, we need to read just a bit further, like so:

“The Budget also ensures that long-term part-time employees can participate in their employers’ retirement plans and provides tax incentives to offset administrative expenses for small businesses that adopt retirement plans.”

Ah-ha!  So what the actual plan is NOT to give more retirement savings options to the unwashed masses.  The actual plan is to further CENTRALIZE retirement savings under employer-sponsored plans.  Doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

Well, upon further research, it’s revealed that Obama clan want to offer TAX INCENTIVES – yes, Obama, the most tax-happy president EVER… I mean EVER… THAT Obama wants to offer TAX INCENTIVES – for companies that adopt MANDATORY retirement savings accounts.  That means employees have NO CHOICE about whether to use the employer plan… it’s the only choice.  They’ve got to do it.

Now why would dear old Comrade Obama want to do that?

There are two reasons that your politically incorrect but SHOCKINGLY PRESCIENT host can see for this:

First, it’s incredibly easy to envision regulations from the government dictating where those MANDATORY CONTRIBUTIONS will be invested.  And where might that be?  Very simple, my friends… all we need to do is look at ANOTHER Obama plan… the virtually worthless “MyRA” account Obama originally proposed in a budget a couple of years ago.  The MyRA is an IRA… but less.  It lets a person save for retirement without the pesky need to actually invest.  Why?  Because there’s one and only one choice for the money put into a MyRA… to invest in, essentially, U.S. Treasury Bonds.  That’s the only choice.

Oh yeah… Treasury Bonds… those are the things used to fund the astounding budget deficits that exist right now.  So, basically, the MyRA is required to be invested in such a way to fund government debt… and there’s no other choice.  And that, I predict, will be where much or all of the funds placed into these MANDATORY retirement accounts will be required to be placed, under penalty of law from good ole Uncle Sam.

Which kind of leads to the SECOND reason that the Obama regime would want to do this.  And this one, I admit, is a bit conspiratorial, but ABSOLUTELY NOT without precedent.  The more money is consolidated into EITHER or BOTH government-issued investments – like Treasury Bonds – and/or into government-regulated retirement accounts – like the new proposed MANDATORY employer-sponsored programs… well… all of that means all of the money is basically in one place, and makes it far easier for the government to do something AWFUL with that money that none of us would ever approve, up to and including the possibility of government confiscation to some degree.  I don’t think that plan is on the table… but what I do ABSOLUTELY believe is that the government is in the business of doing one thing:  Making itself MORE POWERFUL at the expense of you and me as individual citizens.

And while I don’t think we’re necessarily on the precipice of a confiscatory action by the feds, it’s difficult to deny that this consolidation makes that much, much easier.  And it’s absolutely not without precedent, as this has been done in some countries with substantial economies in recent years, including Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary – and the big ones – Greece and Argentina, where the government stole $30 Billion in pension funds to shore up government deficits.

But maybe this is just good-hearted concern for the common man from the Obama regime?

Let’s not kid ourselves, friends.  This proposal does NOTHING for income earners in the lower-end… the clear target of this proposal… that isn’t already available to every single one of them right now in the form of a traditional IRA.

This, my friends, is NOT about helping people save for retirement.  It’s about giving the government more control over your retirement.

Here’s hoping that Congress will reject this outright.

So this is target squarely at the lower-earning people in America, to be sure.  So it doesn’t affect you at all as an affluent self-directed investor, right?  Well, my friends… political choices have consequences.  This is what your children and grandchildren will face.  And this type of overbearing control of retirement savings… well, you can be sure if it’s instituted at the lower levels of economic production, it will creep up the ladder in the form of that shapeless, intellectually dishonest justifier called “fairness”… and then, it’ll bite you, too.  That’s the way these things work.

And that concludes today’s edition of the unfortunate intersection of politics and your money.

My friends, invest wisely today, and live well forever.

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