UPDATED: Your Retirement Nationalization Update

UPDATED: May 10, 2010

Last October, we started sounding the alarm bells on a quiet campaign by the unions to nationalize America's retirement system.

While there's been some chatter about this over the last few months, the Right Side News has picked up some more details:

There is growing evidence that the Obama Administration wants to adopt ideas being pushed by the AFL-CIO and SEIU to radically change the nation's private pension system. They want individuals to have less control over and less access to their own retirement savings.


The White House recently released its "Annual Report on the Middle Class" advocating new "retirement options" and imposing new regulations on 401(k) retirement savings.


The plan calls for the creation of something called "Guaranteed Retirement Accounts" (GRAs).  (See White House Report, pdf )


The Departments of Labor and Treasury have also jointly issued a "Request for Information" to implement the "annuitization" of 401(k) plans through "Lifetime Income Options."  Their plans also call for an enlarged role over pensions by the Department of Labor.


[snip]


The impetus for this pension scheme comes from a new group, "Retirement-USA,"[1] founded by the AFL-CIO, SEIU [2] and a number of labor affiliated organizations. Their plainly stated goal: "The system should be administered by a governmental agency or by private, non-profit institutions that are efficient, transparent, and governed by boards of trustees that include employer, employee, and retiree representatives."


Other Retirement-USA goals include restricting employees from taking lump sum distributions at retirements, preventing savers from accessing funds before retirement or from stopping remaining pension assets from being left to family members at death.


Given the performance of union managed pension plans, SEIU seems a surprising source of advice on private pensions. [Emphasis added.]

Surprising?  Perhaps not, given the SEIU's success at pushing a government take-over of health care.


UPDATE: Last Monday, 13 House GOP members sent a letter to Secretaries Solis and Geithner (Departments of Labor and Treasury, respectively) opposing the Democrats plan to nationalize the nation’s retirement system.  You can read the whole letter here.

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Cross-posted.

Do Unions Want to Nationalize Your Retirement Too??? In a Word: YES!

Overshadowed by the desire to nationalize health care, the delusionally-dubbed Employee Free Choice Act, and a host of other items on the socialist wish list is the union desire to nationalize your retirement.

As many union pension funds have tanked and entered the "critical status" (view 2009 critical pension list here), union bosses have come up with a new scheme and are creating a 'national dialogue' [read: propaganda campaign] to encourage discussion toward developing a "new" [read: nationalized] retirement system in the U.S.

While this originally surfaced toward the tail end of last year, there seems to be some growing momentum to this effort.

Indeed, a union-backed group calling itself Retirement USA is holding a conference today to discuss this very topic--nationalizing retirement.

Retirement USA is another friendly-sounding, wolf-in-sheep's clothing consortium of unions (including the AFL-CIO and SEIU) and union-funded groups. Their tagline is: Working for a Universal, Secure and Adequate Retirement System.

As the SEIU's Steve Abrecht who is the union's Director of Benefits and Capital Stewardship explains, their core principles are:

1. Every worker should be covered by a retirement plan, in addition to Social Security.
2. The system needs to be as secure as we can make it. We all understand the multiple
   risks associated with long-term work life, investment horizons and retirement horizons.
   The system needs to provide employers and employees ways to manage the risks within
   acceptable limits.
3. Finally everyone should be able to have an adequate retirement income after a lifetime
   of work. So that when paired with Social Security, an average worker will have sufficient income to match around 70% of pre-retirement income.

Their solution, according to this press report, is to create "a new retirement system which would include social security and current plans."

Hold on to your proverbial wallets because, even though union bosses make the claim they are not endorsing any particular system, you can be rest assured that they are aiming for a redistribution of assets. And, like Argentina did, they may very well be looking to seize your 401[k] and your pension too.