[StBernard] Democrats want to abolish Retirement Account tax breaks

[Westley Annis]

Bob,

I had discussion about this with someone else. Here's the questions I posed:

1) Is this $2 trillion original money or paper gains? If it is paper gains,
is it ALL of the paper gains? If you put $2000 into your retirement account
and it is still worth $2000, have you LOST anything? If you had stuffed it
under the mattress, what's the difference?

2) Is this $2 trillion "loss" only for people who are aiming to retire in
the next five years? If you are within five years of retirement, even ten
years of retirement, you need to start moving your retirement funds out of
stocks and into bonds. I don't know a single investment advisor worth his
salt that hasn't stressed this.

Some liberal Democrat in Congress wants to dictate even more of my money
into a government run retirement system. I'm sorry, but to me that says he
is admitting that Social Security is a failure. I'm already trying to keep
as much of my money out of Social Security as I can, I sure don't want the
government to take what little bit I have left to save for retirement and
force it into a government run plan.

When Congress decides to merge THEIR retirement system into the Social
Security plan, then maybe I will consider a government run retirement
system. Until then, I will manage my own retirement plan, thank you very
much.

This plan, being touted by Teresa Ghilarducci of the New School for Social
Research, wants the government to guarantee a 3% return, after inflation.
Look at the Treasury Department's web site, 20 year Treasury bonds haven't
been hitting 3% lately, which means it will cost even MORE money to
guarantee 3%.

And, I also have to question the math. The top of the article says we have a
$3 trillion 401(k) system, but Peter Orszag, from the Congressional Budget
Office, says we lost $2 trillion in retirement savings. Has the stock market
really lost 2/3's of its value?

This is the real FEAR MONGERING at its best.

Westley

PS Vote NOBAMA!


-----Original Message-----

"At that hearing, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Peter
Orszag, testified that some $2 trillion in retirement savings has been lost
over the past 15 months."
 
God forbid we should talk about alternatives to what we have now. Investment
bankers are not very high on my credibility list right now.
 
Bob F.