This'n'That; February 4th[CultureCrisis;RetirementTakeAway]

The Serfs "Get It!!"

[I received one of those ubiquitous email forwards from a near and dear friend, Irene {one of the best bosses I've ever had}. This email dealt with the ongoing obamaCare "cram-down {our throats}." As I normally do, I checked with "Snopes.com" to verify--here's what I found:]

Letter to the editor by a Mississippi physician criticizes a patient's lifestyle choices?

...STARNER JONES, MD Jackson, MS Origins: On 23 August 2009, the Jackson, Mississippi Clarion Ledger published a letter to the editor from Dr. Roger...

...Dr. Roger Starner Jones, a physician who specializes in emergency medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Dr. Jones' letter was... .

-->Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:26:50 GMT http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/starner.asp

Dear Mr. President:

During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone.

While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer.

And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care? I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses.

Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture", a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture based in the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me".

Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear. Respectfully, STARNER JONES, MD

Jackson [Ms]

"Clown Prince" To 'Confiscate' Retirement Funds

[Reference: http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/jan2010/pi2010018_130737.htm

Additional Reference: www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/2010-02028_Pl.pdf ] [The obama regime is looking at ways to promote the conversion of 401(k)s and IRAs into--austensibly--steady payment streams by considering forcing their owners to invest in various treasury instruments. China is refusing to take on more U.S. Treasury debt beyond the $977Billion they already own. The current regime is furiously casting about for others to buy the worthless Treasury vehicles. With various retirement vehicles [company, government plans; 401(k)s, IRAs, etc] topping out at $3.6Trillion in investments at the end of 2009; Fluffy obama and his moronic minions see this as "a plum, ripe for the picking!!" More comment at the end!!]

COMMENT PERIOD[S] The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Iwry, who are spearheading the effort.

COMMENT ADDRESSES

[Any submitted comment{s} will be shared with the other agencies.] After the date of publication in the Federal Register, you may submit written commentso to any of the addresses below {in ALL correspondence include the phrase RIN 1210-AB33}:

Department of Labor, by one of the following methods:

• • Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
• • E-mail: e-ORI@dol.gov. Include RIN 1210-AB33 in the subject line of the message.
• • Mail:
• U.S. Department of Labor
• Office of Regulations and Interpretations,
• Employee Benefits Security Administration,
• Room N-5655,
• 200 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20210,
• Attention: Lifetime Income RFI.

All submissions received must include the agency name and Regulation Identifier Number (RIN) for this rulemaking. Comments received will be posted without change to

• http://www.regulations.gov and
• http://www.dol.gov/ebsa

and made available for public inspection at the

Public Disclosure Room, N-1513, Employee Benefits Security Administration, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20210, including any personal information provided.

Comments to the Internal Revenue Service [identify by REG-148681-09] by one of the following methods:

• • Mail: CC:PA:LPD:PR (REG–148681-09), Room 5205,
• Internal Revenue Service,
• P.O. Box 7604,
• Ben Franklin Station, Washington, DC 20044. • Hand or courier delivery [Monday through Friday; between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m] to:
• CC:PA:LPD:PR (REG–148681-09), Courier’s Desk,
• Internal Revenue Service,
• 1111 Constitution Avenue, NW,
• Washington, DC 20224.
• • Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments (IRS REG–148681-09).
• All submissions to the IRS will be open to public inspection and copying in room 1621, 1111 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Stephanie L. Ward or Luisa Grillo-Chope, Office of Regulations and Interpretations,
• Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), (202) 693-8500 or
• Peter J. Marks, Office of Division Counsel/Associate Chief Counsel (Tax Exempt and Government Entities),
• Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury, at (202) 622-6090.
• These are not toll-free numbers.

Annuities generally guarantee income until the retiree's death, and often that of a surviving spouse as well. They are designed to protect against the risk that retirees outlive their savings, a danger made clear by market losses suffered by older Americans over the last year. Promoting annuities may benefit companies that provide them through employers, including ING Groep NV and Prudential Financial Inc., or sell them directly to individuals, such as American International Group Inc., the insurer that has received $182.3 billion in government aid.

Balances Fall

The average 401(k) fund balance dropped 31 percent to $47,500 at the end of March 2009 from $69,200 at the end of 2007, according to a Fidelity Investments review of 11 million accounts it manages. TheS&P 500 Index tumbled 46 percent in that period. The average balance of the Fidelity accounts recovered to $60,700 as of last Sept. 30 as the stock market rebounded. There is "a tremendous amount of interest in the White House" in retirement-security initiatives, Borzi, who heads the Labor Department's Employee Benefits Security Administration, said in an interview. In addition to annuities, the inquiry will cover other approaches to guaranteeing income, including longevity insurance that would provide an income stream for retirees living beyond a certain age, she said.

Lump Sums

While traditional defined-benefit pensions were paid out as annuities, providing monthly payments for retirees and often their spouses, workers increasingly are taking advantage of options to receive lump-sum distributions. Only 2 percent of 401(k) plan participants convert retirement savings into an annuity on retirement, according to a July 2009 report from the Retirement Security Project, a joint venture of Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute and the Brookings Institution in Washington. A survey of 149 companies released on Dec. 17 by employee-benefits consultant Watson Wyatt Worldwide, now part of Arlington, Va.-based Towers Watson & Co., suggested that about 22 percent of employers with retirement savings plans offered retirees the choice between an annuity and a lump-sum distribution.

Annuity Sellers

Government success in getting workers to move retirement assets into annuities may prove profitable for insurers that sell annuities, Anne Mathias, policy research director for Washington Research Group, a policy analysis unit of Concept Capital, said in an interview. Retirement plans, including 401(k) accounts, held $3.6 trillion in assets at the end of the second quarter of 2009, while annuity investments of all kinds totaled about $2.3 trillion, according to figures from the Washington-based Investment Company Institute, a trade association for asset managers.

Under Fire

Asset managers are concerned the government may go too far in encouraging annuities, said Mike McNamee, a spokesman for the Investment Company Institute. Seven in 10 {70%} U.S. households would object to a requirement that retirees convert part of their savings into annuities, according to a survey the group released today. "Households' views on policy changes revealed a preference to preserve retirement account features and flexibility," the institute said in a report. The institute also said annuities have received support from academic research and "it is unclear why individuals usually forego the annuity option" even when it is available. The survey didn't ask about potential efforts by the government to encourage voluntary use of annuities.

Annuity sales to individuals have come under regulatory scrutiny in recent years over the size of sales commissions and whether some varieties are suitable for older investors.

Social Security

John Brennan, the former chairman of Vanguard Group, the Valley Forge, Pennsylvania-based mutual-fund company, criticized annuities today as often expensive and offering little inflation protection. Americans already benefit from "the best annuity in the world, which is Social Security,"

Adding lifetime income to 401(k) plans won't be sufficient for many workers because they can't, or don't, save enough to live on in old age, and Social Security often proves inadequate as more than a safety net, said Karen Ferguson, director of the Pension Rights Center in Washington, D.C.

Senate Bill

"It's a great idea, but how much are people really going to get out of it?" she said. A better approach would be to give employers incentives to revive defined-benefit pensions, which have languished as employers have focused on cheaper and more flexible 401(k) plans, Ferguson said. One proposal raised by Iwry as co-author of a paper while at the Retirement Security Project, before joining the administration, has reached Congress. A bill requiring employers to report 401(k) savings both as an account balance and as a stream of income based on an annuity was introduced on Dec. 3 by Senators Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat, Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican, and Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat.

[Essentially, all this seems to be leading to a take-over of the public's private retirement funds!! Several are suggesting annuities as the way to go. No one mentions that the fees are far higher for investments in annuities than those for investments in the offerings of mutual funds. No one mentions that the government favorite investment for that $3.6TRILLION are the TREASURY BILLS that China refuses to buy!! Annuities--for the older investor--many times provide value-less "double" benefits, i.e., having tax-free vehicles inside a tax-free annuity!! If this is allowed to go forward by the Congressional Moron Caucus, it will follow all the other unsustainable, failed monetary programs the morons have run into bankruptcy!! {Think: WelfareRAT funding, Medicare, Medidaid, Social Security, SSI, the Highway Trust Fund, etc} Any of the proposed bills--if passed into law--will just be "the camel's nose under the tent flap!!" It will be much like the minions plans to introduce the basic obamaCare cram-down reform; in that once a bill dealing with the most minute detail of either program; the Congressional Morons will just keep adding admendment after amendment after amendment to rebuild either--or both--program{s} into the fascist take-over of the American way-of-live they envision!!]

Til Nex'Time....