What will you do when they take away your super?
From the Washington Post, 17 May 2011:
Treasury to tap pensions to help fund government
The Obama administration will begin to tap federal retiree programs to help fund operations after the government lost its ability Monday to borrow more money from the public, adding urgency to efforts in Washington to fashion a compromise over the debt.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has warned for months that the government would soon hit the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling — a legal limit on how much it can borrow. With that limit reached Monday, Geithner is undertaking special measures in an effort to postpone the day when he will no longer have enough funds to pay all of the government’s bills.
Geithner, who has already suspended a program that helps state and local government manage their finances, will begin to borrow from retirement funds for federal workers.
The USA is taking public servants’ pension funds, to pay government bills.
Note that well.
Because last week, Senator Joyce made a very disturbing revelation (below).
Think it could only happen in America?
From Reuters, 21 October 2008:
Argentina’s center-left President Cristina Fernandez on Tuesday signed a bill for a government takeover of the $30 billion private pension system in a daring and unexpected move that rocked domestic markets.
From Bloomberg, 26 November 2010:
Hungary is giving its citizens an ultimatum: move your private-pension fund assets to the state or lose your state pension.
Economy Minister Gyorgy Matolcsy announced the policy yesterday, escalating a government drive to bring 3 trillion forint ($14.6 billion) of privately managed pension assets under state control to reduce the budget deficit and public debt. Workers who opt against returning to the state system stand to lose 70 percent of their pension claim.
“This is effectively a nationalization of private pension funds,” David Nemeth, an economist at ING Groep NV in Budapest, said in a phone interview. “It’s the nightmare scenario.”
But Argentina and Hungary are not like us, right? That couldn’t ever happen in a mid-level “advanced economy” like ours … right?
From Business Insider, one week ago:
Irish Bombshell: Government Raids PRIVATE Pensions To Pay For Spending
But the Irish had a big housing bubble, didn’t they? No way anything like that could happen here … right?
From the Sydney Morning Herald, 4 March 2011:
Australian house prices remain the most overvalued in the world, according to the latest quarterly ranking of global house prices by The Economist magazine.
But our housing market could never fall. Not like it did for Ireland … or the USA … or the UK … or Spain … right?
From AAP, 29 April 2011:
Capital city home prices have posted their biggest quarterly fall in at least 12 years, as more stock in the housing market allows prospective buyers to wait for bargains, a survey shows.
Capital city dwelling values fell by a seasonally adjusted 2.1 per cent in the first quarter of the year, according to the latest RP Data-Rismark Home Value Index.
The quarterly change was the steepest since the index series began in June 1999, RP Data research director Tim Lawless said.
And from the Sydney Morning Herald, yesterday:
Australian real estate, long the subject of global concern, bears all the symptoms of a market that simply has run out of puff.
Ever since America’s housing bubble burst in 2007, setting off a chain reaction in Britain and across Europe – which then infected the global financial system – international pundits have been warning of a similar catastrophe here.
Do you remember what our government did the last time our real estate market began to fall sharply?
It was during the 3-month peak of the GFC, in late 2008 / early 2009:
Steve Keen's Debtwatch
They guaranteed to use taxpayers’ future earnings to underwrite our banks’ trillions in foreign loans. Poured $20 billion in borrowed money into Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities. And borrowed billions more to prop up the housing market. By bribing thousands of young people into massive debt, thanks to the government’s double-trouble First Home Owners Grant.
If you think “it could never happen here”, if you think that our government would never take away your super to pay for its massively wasteful spending, then it’s time to think again.
Were you one of those who ridiculed Barnaby’s warning in late 2009, about the possibility of a US debt default?
It’s coming to pass right now.
So pay close heed to another prescient warning from Barnaby, given just one week ago:
On Tuesday night’s budget, Labor sneaked in an Amendment of the Commonwealth Inscribed Stock Act 1911. Here is the most telling statement for where our nation is going under this Green-Labor-Independent Alliance. Under Part 5 Section 18 subsection 1 “omitting ‘$75’ and substituting ‘250’ ”.
Now that is in billions ladies and gentlemen and it is real money that really has to be paid back. If we have all this money stashed away under the lower net debt figure that is always quoted by Labor, then why not use some of this mystery money to pay off what we owe to the Chinese and others who we are hocked up to the eyeballs to.
The reason why we can’t is at least $70 billion that makes up ‘net’ debt is tied up in the Future Fund and student loans.
!??!
That is exactly what is happening in America. Right now.
And Barnaby is warning that it could happen here too.
The first steps in that direction have already begun.
From Global Custodian (Australia edition), 11 May 2011:
The Gillard government’s 2011-12 budget has proposed a raft of initiatives aimed at encouraging superannuation fund and private investment in infrastructure projects.
In light of the botched “school halls” program, and the stalled white elephant NBN – which so far has only achieved a 12% takeup rate, versus their predicted 58% – would you really trust this government to wisely and prudently invest your super in Government infrastructure?
Others have their doubts.
From The Australian, 12 May 2011:
The government’s plan to use tax incentives to encourage superannuation funds to invest in new infrastructure could be thwarted by inadequate returns on projects and a reluctance by the states to take on project risk, experts say.
First, a little “encouragement” for super funds to invest in government spending programs.
Then, when the costs blow out, or when the government debt becomes unmanageable?
“No super for you!”
Barnaby is the only one on the ball.
This blog will be following this story of government confiscations of public and private retirement funds in future posts.
A final thought for now.
Yesterday I commented on the proposal that Australia should have an “independent” Carbon Bank (“Our ‘Squeeze Pop’ Carbon Bank“). One that …
…could be allowed to borrow money to invest in renewable energy projects against the future revenue of Labor’s proposed carbon tax and emissions trading scheme.
In other words, a Carbon Bank where the government … meaning taxpayers … becomes the guarantor for any losses made on those “investments”.
Does that prospect concern you?
Can you see where this is all heading?
This is a government that has racked up nearly $200 Billion in gross debt.
Is running a “forecast” $50 Billion annual budget deficit.
Is presently borrowing at a rate of over $2 Billion per week.
And has now moved to raise our debt ceiling by another $50 Billion, to a new record quarter of a Trillion dollars.
This is the same government of completely unqualified economic incompetents behind a string of costly disasters – electrified ceiling insulation, overpriced school halls, “green scheme” rorts, the problem-plagued Nation Bankrupting Network … and now, free set-top boxes.
Do you honestly believe that this government would not end up burying taxpayers with even bigger losses from their carbon dioxide “air tax” scheme too?
Do you honestly believe that this government would never follow the lead of Argentina, Hungary, Ireland, and now the superpower USA … and steal your super to pay for massive debts that they have racked up?
These are just some of the many sound reasons why Senator Joyce has persistently tried to raise public awareness of the real and grave peril of ever-increasing Labor government debt and deficit, in a (supposedly) post-GFC world.
Your retirement savings depend upon your taking notice of his warnings.
Barnaby was right.
Barnaby is right.
UPDATE:
Labor’s PM-in-waiting, the Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, Bill Shorten, already thinks of your super as a “significant national asset” … a kind of “sovereign wealth fund”.
From The Australian, 4 May 2011:
Superannuation is our sovereign wealth fund
This week marks 12 months exactly since the government announced plans to take compulsory superannuation from 9 per cent to 12 per cent.
… our superannuation savings place Australia fourth in the world. Its $1.3 trillion in funds under management through superannuation significantly boosts national savings and provides greater retirement security for millions of Australians. Superannuation is also a significant national asset because it strengthens our financial sector.
UPDATE 2:
About the USA’s new edition of Grand Theft Pēnsiō.
From ZeroHedge:
It’s Official: DTS Discloses Total Debt Hit Ceiling Yesterday; Government Draws On $14.3 Billion From Retirement Funds
Barnaby Is Right 
Superannuation is a scam. Your money should be your property, to do with as you wish, since you earned it; not a slush fund for propping up government bonds or mortgage credit or whatever toilet paper is on the books of the banking system.
A ponzi scheme if I ever saw one.
100% agree, JMD.