A New Obama Conspiracy: He’s Confiscating Your IRAs

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After President Barack Obama’s eloquent speech in Tucson, I wondered how the Obama haters would react. After all, it seemed that after that particular speech it would be more difficult to demonize him as a secret Muslim/Kenyan-born socialist who hates America and is plotting its demise. But it seems the Obama Hate Machine is not going to slow down—especially not if there’s a buck to be made. On Thursday morning, Townhall, the conservative website that features the work of prominent rightwing commentators, sent out an email advertisement to its readers revealing the latest Obama conspiracy: he wants to steal your retirement account. Literally.

The ad is adorned with an illustration of a smiling Obama holding a small person (a white male, if you’re curious) in his hand and squeezing money out of the poor fellow. The headline in big and bold letters: “Your IRA’S and 401K’s ARE STILL At RISK Of Government Confiscation.” The claim:

The Labor and Treasury department, along with the Obama Administration ARE MOVING FORWARD with The Nationalization-Confiscate IRA’s and 401K’s.

Why do they Want Your Retirement Accounts?

The-YOUR equity will be used as collateral; in an attempt to balance the Trillion Dollar U.S. Deficit.

This will be done in an effort to once again make the United States credit worthy to China and other buyers of our debt.

The proof: the Labor and Treasury Departments last September held a meeting with an agenda called “Lifetime Income Options for Retirement Plans”—and somehow this means the US government intends to transform retirement plans into government property.

Obama nationalizing everyone’s IRAs and 401(K)s—it’s kind of surprising that the entire media has missed that. Even Fox News. But a Department of Labor fact sheet describes what it is up to:

An ever increasing number of workers are looking to their defined contribution plans for their retirement security, but at the same time many workers are receiving their retirement benefits in lump sum distributions. This could increase their risk of not having an adequate income during retirement. Recent reports by the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Labor’s ERISA Advisory Council, a 15-member council representing employees, employers, the general public, and industry, have documented this risk.

[The Department is] exploring ways that the Agencies and the private sector can work together to ensure that workers have the tools they need to help ensure their retirement savings last a lifetime.

Sounds perfectly innocent, right? But isn’t such bland rhetoric what the Obama administration would disseminate were it scheming to nationalize retirement accounts?

To understand what’s behind this latest exposé of Obama misdeeds, a recipient of this email ad need only look toward the bottom and discover that it’s a pitch for Goldworth Financial, a gold seller. After all, if Obama’s about to snatch your retirement fund, wouldn’t it be better to cash it out and use the funds to buy gold and precious coins from this firm? That is, unless the Obama administration has plans to confiscate gold. And it does.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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