US Government To Decide How Much Is Enough For Your RetirementJeff Berwick In a private enterprise, thatd mean offering more to your customers for a cheaper price. In government, it is always the opposite, finding ways to reduce benefits for their customers. This is why Obamacare is and will be a disaster to anyone interested in having quality medical care and choice in the US. Once the government uses its force to gain a monopoly on a sector like medical care then all of a sudden it now becomes everyone elses business what you do with your own body. You smoke? You should be stopped! Dont wear a seatbelt? You should be fined. Why? Because we are all paying for each others medical care and so it now becomes everyone elses business what you do with your health because it could potentially cost them more money. The same has been happening since the US government has had a multi-decade long monopoly on retirement savings (IRAs). Since they get to make the rules they get to decide just how much is enough for your retirement and that is exactly what will be happening next week when President Obama will be releasing his budget plan which will limit how much a wealthy individual can keep in those tax-reducing IRA plans and other retirement accounts. According to a senior administration official, wealthy taxpayers can currently accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement savingand of course in the communist administrations eyes, thats a real shame. The job of government is of course to level the playing field by stealing from and putting up obstacles for those with too much. The budget would limit an individuals total balance across tax-preferred accounts to an amount sufficient to finance an annuity of not more than $205,000 per year in retirement, or about $3 million in 2013. So, according to them, $205,000 per year is sufficient and people should not be allowed to have more than that in retirement savings. But, remember, disbursements from an IRA are taxable, so that $205,000, if you lived in any number of states where total income taxes are over 50%, very quickly brings that number down to around $100,000 after theft or tax as they call it. Of course, that is just the beginning of other payments to the state. Your average person with a $3 million IRA probably lives in at least a $1 million house. If that person lived in New Jersey where property tax averages 1.89% of property value, then you can take another $19,000 off of the remaining $100,000 for property tax payments to rent his own home. Of course, there will be numerous countless really other taxes paid over the course of the year gasoline tax, cigarette taxes, alcohol taxes and numerous others. But, even without including those we are already below $7,000/month. But here is the real kicker. If that person did take the $205,000/year annuity, their retirement funds would only last them fourteen years. Of course, some may state that they could and should be earning a return during that time which will extend it. But your average person who owns mostly 2% paying dividend stocks or 2% paying Treasuries is actually losing nearly 10% per year to monetary inflation. The US central banks current rate of money printing which does and will turn into price increases is over 10%. If they are losing 8% per year on that $3 million then it will only be ten years before that $3 million is actually only worth $1.3 million in real dollars. That $205,000 per annum, at todays monetary inflation rate, also will only be equivalent to $90,000 in ten years time. After all the taxes to be paid that person would be likely eating cat food just to survive. These are the wonders of the American Dream today. It is turning into a nightmare. They have you coming and going from all sides. And then, if you manage to survive all the taxes and inflation, whatever remaining money you have left will be mostly gutted by the death tax. Yes, there is a tax to die in the land of the free. And dont try to commit suicide either. Thats illegal. Next Confiscation This, of course, is the warm up for big confiscation of retirement account money later on a topic that has already been discussed openly in Congress. I cant understand why anyone would put their money in a retirement vehicle under government control. Thats like putting your child in a cage full of lions for safekeeping. A much better option would be a self-directed IRA like the one we offer here at TDV. Also, did you know that you can buy real estate with your IRA? A good option would be real estate in another nation-state since the US government would have a very hard time confiscating that. You could invest in an income-producing condo in beautiful Acapulco, for exampleor you could buy investment property in our burgeoning liberty-minded community at Galts Gulch, Chile. The central planners in the US and most Western governments have and will decide how much is enough for you to have and if you manage to still have significant assets after that, theyll continue to whittle them away via taxation and inflation. Its all easily predictable as this is where things always go once things are socialized or collectivized. As Winston Churchill said, The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. We dont suggest you wait much longer before removing yourself and your assets from a system set on ensuring the equal sharing of misery. See how TDV can help you with offshore banking options here. Anarcho-Capitalist. Libertarian. Freedom fighter against mankinds two biggest enemies, the State and the Central Banks. Jeff Berwick is the founder of The Dollar Vigilante, CEO of TDV Media Services and host of the popular video podcast, Anarchast. Jeff is a prominent speaker at many of the worlds freedom, investment and gold conferences as well as regularly in the media. linkwithin_text=Related Articles: 