Britannia Radio

	Print Edition | Whitelist Us | Also visit: DailyWealth	September 28, 2010

The Greatest Scam Ever By Jeff Clark The Greatest Scam Ever By Jeff Clark Stand back, Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff. Your crimes were atrocious.  But they're microscopic planktons in the ocean of fraud being perpetrated  by the U.S. government. Imagine this... You've stuck to a savings plan your entire working life. Each month, you  automatically tuck away $744 –  whether  you can afford to or not. It comes out of your paycheck, right off  the top, and goes into what is presented to you as the world's safest bank  account. Sometimes it's hard to do. You pass up taking your spouse out to dinner  or taking the family to Disneyland for a  three-day vacation. Saving the  money is more important. It's your future, after all. Your retirement.  So you stick to  it, month after month, year after year. Imagine doing this for 46 years. That's 552 deposits of $744 each...  for a grand total of $410,688. That's quite a nest egg. But over that time, the U.S. dollar has fallen in value, and inflation  pressures have eaten away at the purchasing power of your savings... Nonetheless, you're confident the interest earned on your 46 years worth  of deposits is enough to make up for most  of the loss in purchasing power.  After all, in a truly free market environment, interest rates  rise as inflationary pressures persist. Now, imagine it's time to start taking your money out and living off  your savings. You've labored and saved for 46 years. You've sacrificed   some of the finer things in life in order to save 12% of your monthly  income for  retirement. "Congratulations," says the trustee of your funds. "You've saved enough  to receive $1,400 per month for the rest of your life." Congratulations? Really?! If you haven't already guessed by now, I'm writing about the Social  Security system. And I'm furious. You see, I just received a statement of my future benefits, and the math  doesn't make sense. The actuarial tables say I'm likely to live until 84 years old.  So if I pay into the system until I'm 62, and then start taking Social Security, I'll have 22 years of payments at $1,400 per month.  That's a total of 264 payments – a total payout of $369,200. That's more than $41,000 less than what I would have paid into the system.  No interest. No capital gains. Never mind inflation and the drop in the value of the dollar, the Social  Security Administration is stealing $41,000 from me. And they're stealing it from you, too. Of course, we all know the system is bankrupt. We all know the promises  made can't be kept. And we all know the statement I just received most  likely overstates my future benefits.  So my $41,000 loss is actually going to be much worse. And still, our FICA deposits are automatically deducted from our paychecks,  and our employers automatically match the contributions. Why do we let this happen? If someone held us at gunpoint and demanded we give them 12% of our  paychecks every week in exchange for a future benefit we knew was a total  lie, we'd fight back. Don't steal my money. Don't lie to me. And don't try to pass it off as  something charitable for the "greater good." Let me keep my money. Let me invest it myself. And let me enjoy the  benefits or suffer the consequences of  my own decisions. If I do well, I can live like a king and the $1,400 per month paycheck  from Social Security won't have any added benefit.  If I don't do well and I blow my entire retirement savings on poor stock  investments or on swamp land in Kansas, I'll live by my decisions. That's the thinking that prompted me two years ago to write a letter to the  Social Security Administration... You can keep everything I've paid into the system thus far (just over $240,000).  In exchange, don't take any more of my money.  I'll never make a claim. My descendants will never make a claim.  I'll raise my kids  so that they'd rather deliver pizzas or work at McDonald's  when they're 60 years old before cashing a check  from the government.  That's a $240,000 windfall gain for you, and I don't even get a tax deduction  for it. What do you say? There was no response. Yet they keep taking my money and sending me statements that are filled  with empty promises of substandard performance. I have no doubt I can achieve a better return on my money than the government can. And I trust my own abilities to take care of my family  when times are tough. So, what do we do? Frankly, I don't know. I'm not smart enough to tell you  how to fight the government and to avoid confiscation of your rightly  earned property. A Letter to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve  My Dear Partners in Crime  I am smart enough, however, to know when I'm being played as the "mark"  in a con game. Bernie Madoff ended up behind bars when the regulators finally figured  out he was making up numbers and stealing money from his investors.  It appears the government was simply getting rid of the competition. Best regards and good trading, Jeff Clark A precious metals selloff could be here soon Gold and silver are bumping into major resistance... The most important news from last week you heard nothing about Mainstream media ignores nationalization of three big credit unions... Nassim "Black Swan" Taleb: White House made the crisis much worse "Obama did exactly the opposite of what should have been done."