They are after your 401(k)’s now

Congress takes aim at 401(k)s

The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation and the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Analysis conclude that these retirement planning programs will cost the federal government about $600 billion in lost revenue over the next five years.

Yes, that’s correct and if they succeed, that comes directly from YOUR retirement fund. With the housing crunch, where many people had their retirement¹ , the only thing that they have left is the remainder of their 401(k) . Now the Congress-critters want to take chunks of that as well. They want to reneg on the deal that they made when they fixed Social Security the last time.

A separate study by the Stanford University Graduate School of Business says that the introduction of 401(k)s has had an enormous impact on how people invest in stocks and bonds. At the end of World War II, individual citizens owned 90 percent of the stock market; by 2006, they owned only 30 percent. The other 70 percent was held by institutions, including mutual funds, insurance companies and pension funds.

Okay, so what? Most folks don’t have the temperament to own stock directly. This is why they are using an Institution.

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1. operative word is had here. [↩]

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Mirrored from The Slamlander.

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