# Nationalize your 401K



## CulexPipiens (Nov 17, 2010)

It has already happened. Well, not completely and not all of it. If you have a 401K, check it. See if there is a "Money Market" fund. This is basically a parking spot for your cash while you decide what else to do with it. It's also a great place to put money when the market is tanking as you're not losing anything like you could be if still holding funds or stocks.

Well, my 401K no longer has a Money Market option. In fact I'm not sure when that went away but it did. The current "safe fund" is a "Fixed Income" fund. I looked into the holdings of the fund... 80.54% is government bonds. So, your "safe" option is holding government debt.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-viewpoint/082312-623291-fed-power-grab-of-money-market-funds-would-hurt-investors.htm?p=full

So instead of blatantly grabbing them, they did a back door grab. Now when things get bad and you try to protect your money you're basically buying government (and probably also municipal) debt.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

That's not good, however in 2008 when the market tanked I had my wife and my own account moved 100% of our investments from stocks to bonds in 401k, when the market started to climb back up we moved it all back over. This advise was given to me by the COO and CCO of a top 50 AM firm... We lost only $6000 during the down between the two accounts, but we more than made it back and gained a ton when the climb started again. Mutual funds are actually a mix of a variety of stocks, where as a fixed income account is a bond account and can be bonds from fed, state, city and other sources. Actually a fixed account is typically more safe (traditional thinking here) than mutuals when the economy goes down - but let me also say if the SHTF, any money you have in any 401K will be useless...


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

In other countries they've seized private pension and retirement accounts on the way to bankruptcy. That will probably happen here too.


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## CulexPipiens (Nov 17, 2010)

I had heard those grumblings, BillS, but it looked like they backed off on it only to sneak this in for now.


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## JustCliff (May 21, 2011)

I guess i will have to look at mine. I have not counted on it for a long time. I wonder? I can take loans out on mine. What would they do if I had a loan out on it at the time they took it? Will they want the money back? Will they up the interest I paid on it? A good many questions need to be answered.........


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

The question is can you cash or loan on it fast enough? I think the government would seize it right away, but investment guys may restrict borrowing/cashing due to run on unsecured money.


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