I've been considering yanking my IRA, tax implications be damned. What I really worry about is a retroactive clawback, though.

"PIMCO: There's No Way The Market Can Absorb The Fed's Giant Balance Sheet Once It's Time To Tighten"

No problem - fund it via every American's 401k/IRA. Silly Bill Gross. How could he have overlooked this? <sarcasm off>

Don't forget the extra $ going to health care. American standard of living to plummet.

Too late! I already spent half my 401(k) on paying off my first mortgage. This was one of several reasons that compelled me to do so.

Does this mean monetization of debt?

Two questions:

1) Won't that put quite a few brokerage firms out of business? Fido, Schwab and TD Ameritrade make a living off of rollovers.

2) Doesn't this argue for getting money out of retirement accounts pronto?

The question is, where should you put it? All these Roth Conversions were just a way for the government to collect taxes in advance on your retirement account (the government's own little "pull forward" scheme) so I wonder if a Roth will be safe? My guess is it will be at first, but then they will be confiscated too.

Can you say: "revolution?"

Ditto Vicious - I took out of my 401(k) to pay off my mortgage last year. I'd rather get a hard asset paid for then let these yahoo's screw with it.

Needless to say.....Bad Bad Bad

Argentina but on a much bigger scale.
It is absolutely frightening to think what this government may/will do if the SHTF.

I've got a lot of $$ tied up in an employer provided 401K and I can't touch it unless I quit my job.

I think that if you look at the various steps the Kirchners have taken in Argentina, you will have a reasonably accurate road map for what may be coming.

Does anyone remember the governments offer to convert existing IRAs to ROTH IRAs in 2010 and spreading the taxes over a couple of years?

I can't remember all of the details and told family/friends not to even consider this when it was announced in (I believe) 2006. I warned them that the government was going to have a financial crisis at just about that time and needed people to pay those taxes now. Once the conversion is complete then they will change the ROTH rules.

This goes right along with this, so beware.

Hey Gen,

If this is even remotely true, this could be the moment in Trading Places where Winthorp is waiting to whack every bid in the universe....."NOW!!!!"

Wait for the flash.

See de-Ticker.

Here we go again...
You know Gen, the cost of these little "additional" ammo runs you keep forcing me to make are really starting to add up.
Do you have stock in Winchester and Colt's or something?

Seriously though:
I think most of us knew they would try this bull****. We may have had hopes that it was just a bad nightmare, but clearly that wasn't the case.
How do we get this out to the Mainstream and get peeps educated?
I'm still amazed the Healthcare fisco hasn't been enough to get the sheeple fired up, maybe this will be the push over the edge?

seriously its getting closer to:

Had to eat some lunch, now I'm feeling and . Must step away for a while to let the blood pressure go down.

BTW if you think they won't, Argentina already did.

How sure are you they won't?

Psquared, view of Punch_rockgroin's concerns about retroactive clawback, I wonder if the answer to the question of "what to do with it" might be to turn to cocaine for solace--or, at least be able to plausibly claim that it all disappeared up your nose.

You put some bad debt in, you take some T-bills out
You watch Bernanke spin, and you shake the Congress down
You screw the people blind until their wallets empty out
That's what it's all about!

Thanks for the heads-up Gen. I got laid off a couple months ago and have been dragging my feet deciding what to do with my 401k. I pretty much anticipated this, but your ticker just clinched it.

I'm on hold now with the fund manager to take it as a lump-sum cashout. Me and my money are going underground, so to speak. I'd rather take the known hit with the tax penalty now then gamble with what the .GOV is going to do down the road.

I'm done with this "system".

Too late. I closed my 401k account last year and bought myself a nice Samsung HDTV. **** Susie Ormans 401K advice. Those son of muh bitches aren't getting my money. 20% is enough.

IOU.......INSTANT CLASSIC!!!!!!

We'll be lucky if we end up like Argentina.

So when to puLl money out of the 401k/ira account. I mean how do we know when to get the eff out of dodge?