This from The Sovereign Society:

I urge you to pay close attention because this development could impact your future retirement more than anything I have encountered in the last 20 years.

The government has already turned your banker into a federal agent who can confiscate your assets without warning or cause.

This is why you MUST consider getting at least part of your retirement assets out of the country while you still have the opportunity. Very soon it may be too late.

If you’ve read my articles over the years, you know I’m not a wily reactionary. Nor do I try to scare my readers with my articles. But honestly, today I need to raise a red flag because frankly, this is serious.

I’m more concerned about the markets now than I have been at any other time in my 20 years in the business. And whether you agree that this could be the perfect financial storm or not, it’s time to acknowledge the steps our government is taking to deal with this mess.

Right now, they’re wracking their brains to come up with short-term solutions for this mess. But long-term, the consequences of their actions could have a very serious impact on your retirement savings.

Devil in the Details of Paulson’s Plan

As the saying goes ‘the devil is in the details.’ Well, nothing could be truer for Paulson’s new TARP bailout plan. The following text is buried deep within the bill passed recently by congress:

NECESSARY ACTIONS. -The Secretary is authorized to take such actions, as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation, the following:

Designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Federal Government, and such institutions shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of the Federal Government as may be required.

Broad sweeping authority to do whatever they want to do! “Financial agents of the Federal Government,” what does this mean to you and your retirement plan? Well here are a few potential scenarios…

Let’s say foreigners stop buying treasury bonds because they become even more nervous about the uncertainty in our banking system. Face it, we can’t survive without foreigners continually buying up treasuries. If suddenly they stopped buying, the government would have to do something to finance the debt.

Panic Scenario # 1 – The government tells your banker to purchase U.S. Treasuries with 50% of your retirement plan, or worse. (How about 100%?)

But that doesn’t work as well as they want, so they have to figure something else out…

Panic Scenario #2 – The government tells your banker to stop any transfers outside of the U.S., No more offshore accounts! (Highly likely during an Obama presidency.)

Things continue to go downhill and they become even more and more desperate…

Panic Scenario #3 – The government tells your banker to confiscate all gold in retirement plans for the good of the country! (This has already occurred once in American history.)

And finally the “Nuclear Option” we get a president who decides the right thing to do is ‘redistribute’ the wealth…

Panic Scenario #4 (worst case!) – The government tells your banker to confiscate all retirement plans over US$250,000 so we can redistribute the wealth! (But don’t worry we are going to have universal health care and they will take care of us so you don’t need it anyway.)

With a stroke of the legislative pen and passage of the bailout bill, all these nightmare scenarios could be very real possibilities. As government agents, the banks (including yours) will have no means to protect your interests against aggressive ‘redistribution’ or the bold new plans of a welfare state.

As a result, this could be one of the last opportunities you ever get to take urgent action now; before your retirement plan is in jeopardy.

How to Take Your Plan Offshore

There are basically two types of retirement plans, Qualified and Non-Qualified. Non-Qualified include IRAs, SEPs and Keogh’s. Qualified plans cover all of the rest and are handled in a slightly different manner.

IRAs require a U.S. Custodian, so this becomes your biggest challenge. There are very few custodians who allow you to totally self-direct your account including using non-U.S. investments and taking it offshore.

If you want to take your IRA or pension plan offshore you must use a totally flexible self-directed custodian who will allow you to take your account offshore. To find out whether they can help, just ask them - “Can I take my plan offshore?”

So how do you take your plan offshore? The following methods are allowed: A direct purchase of non-U.S. real estate, a foreign bank account, a non-U.S. annuity, a foreign corporation or in some cases even direct investment into a non-US investment.

There are a couple of other custodians who will allow you to use one or more of these options, but I am only aware of one company who allows all of them. This may be important if you want to use several different methods of transfer, or if you want to make multiple kinds of investments through one custodian to keep things simple.

Qualified Plans require a U.S.-based administrator and demand “the indicia of ownership” remain within the United States. These plans are simpler in some cases and more complex in others to deal with than an IRA. I have reviewed hundreds of plans and the language within the plan is critical, as well as your plan administrator.

In my last article for the A-Letter I mentioned a client whose administrator told them they couldn’t invest in property offshore despite the rules laid out in the plan’s language. After a good deal of back and forth on my part with the trustee and record keeper, I was finally able to convince them to allow the investment.

How to Configure Your Offshore Retirement Plan

In both cases, you want to have a foreign bank account in your retirement plan if it is allowed. I am currently aware of three banks, which allow Americans to open retirement accounts with them. You would work with your banker in developing an investment strategy using their expertise and services.

The bottom line is that you need someone qualified to review your plan document and to assist you in structuring the investment in a compliant manner.

Timing doesn’t allow me to discuss in much greater detail the specifics of taking your plan offshore. For now you need to be aware that you can do this regardless of what you have been told. And I am more convinced than ever that there isn’t much time left to take advantage of this incredible opportunity.

Source: Your Banker Has Been Turned Into a Federal Agent With Potentially Devastating Consequences!

I’ve always been very bullish on the marketplace in general, but now I’m honestly starting to question what’s going on. Somehow, I don’t think most analysts and economists are getting the bigger picture in the grand scheme of things.

Let me tell you what really shook me up:

I read recently that the Japanese stock market peaked at around 36,000 nearly 20 years ago. Now it’s half that. Okay, most of us know that fact, but how many of us have considered the effects a similar event would have on our markets?

… So what if the Dow peaked at 14,000 a year ago, and it simply meanders between 10,000 and 12,000 for the next five years or 10 years? Who’s making any money there?

Let’s go back to 1999. If you remember, every person and their cousin owned and bragged about Cisco as a major stock holding in their portfolio. Considering all stock splits, it went from around US$2 in 1990 to around US$100 in 2000. But when the tech bubble popped, it plummeted to below 20 and has been trading in the low 20s for eight years now.

If we looked back even further to the early 70s, we were mired in an unpopular war and the stock market meandered for years and years.

Now ask yourself: Can I afford that kind of waiting period, were the same to happen to stocks in my current portfolio?

I can’t tell you how many brokerage statements I’ve seen from my clients lately, showing how they’ve been knocked back five years because of what’s been going on.

Now is the time to aggressively explore alternative strategies, before more long-term gains are wiped out by the market’s decline.

Seeking Shelter from the Storm: Global Investment Provides Opportunities in Any Kind of Weather

Did you know that the U.S. bond market ranked first only once over the past 10 years?

Many other countries posted double-digit returns on their bonds in the same period. For instance, Norway paid 40% in 2002, Australian bonds made 37% in 2003, Poland offered investors 35% in 2004, and last year Canadian bonds took first place with returns of 23%.

These bonds outperformed for a number of reasons: Higher yields than in the U.S., falling yields in their home countries, generating capital gains; and appreciation of the foreign currencies against the dollar.

Right now, you can still find these kinds of opportunities abroad – as many economies slow and as the long-term prospects for the dollar remain bleak.

So it’s up to you. Ask yourself if you have the time to wait out a five or ten year down trend in traditional equity portfolios. Or if you’re prepared to diversify your portfolio with income and the potential for capital gains and exchange rate appreciation with select, investment-grade foreign bonds.

Source: Your Wake-Up Call

What if I told you that you could purchase prime, waterfront real estate for a fraction of what you would pay in the domestic market? And you could do so without paying unreasonable fees or taxes, and that you could even do it all through your retirement account?

I can hear your answer already, “Not through my retirement account.” But if that’s your answer, then you’re mistaken.

And it’s not your fault. In my 20+ years as a Certified Financial Planner, I’ve watched as fund managers and Wall Street ‘experts’ have gradually and quietly stolen power over pension funds and retirement plans from their rightful owners – the investors.

In this article, I’ll show you how to regain control over your retirement funds, give yourself more and better investment alternatives and begin creating the retirement you truly desire and deserve.

But first, let me start with a cautionary tale. It’s the story of how Wall Street will often do what’s best for them, not you, when it comes to your retirement account. In fact, they may even choose to ignore your perfectly legal and sensible instructions. But only if you don’t know your rights and how to enforce them.

Now you’ll know…

Be Like Mike: And Make the Investments that Are Best for You

One of my clients, Mike, is a successful physician. His pension plan is part of a medical program with about 60 participants. One day, Mike decided he would like to buy a piece of non-U.S. real estate.

Given the impending U.S. bear market in both stocks and real estate, this was quite a reasonable idea. Yet, his plan’s custodians promptly told him he could do no such thing.

Mike contacted me to ask for help. He knows I’ve consulted thousands of U.S. residents on how to legally move their retirement plans offshore, or even simply use their U.S.-domiciled retirement plans to buy many different types of investments, including foreign real estate.

I agreed to help Mike and I immediately requested a copy of the plan documents. To my surprise, I discovered that he and a partner were listed as the plan administrators and trustees. The plan also specifically stated participants could in fact buy real estate and that they have a self-directed option.

But the Wall Street custodians (the ones holding the money) told him, “No, you can’t do this. It’s not legal.”

I responded to them and presented a full set of facts about what is legal to purchase from a qualified retirement plan. After some negotiation, everyone was able to agree it could be done.

We then sent all of the documents to their record-keeper. But again, we were hit with a snag. The record keeper amazingly REFUSED TO MAKE THE INVESTMENT.

They insisted the client hire an ERISA attorney and have a legal opinion drafted to the effect that this was a permissible investment. The problem was that the client only had two days to fund the investment or he was out of the deal. The company KNEW there was no way to accomplish this in two days.

At that point I asked the record keeper why they believed themselves to have the legal authority to ignore written instructions from the participant, the trustees and plan administrators. They basically told me to shut up and said that their attorney would get back to me.

I decided it was time to play my ace in the hole. I asked the company to provide me a written explanation within 24 hours as to their legal authority to take this position especially in light of the recent Supreme Court case where a plan failed to take legitimate instructions from a plan participant.

I am happy to report that within the hour we received written notification the money would be wired immediately for the investment.

Possible Trouble on the Horizon for Other Pension Participants

Unfortunately, I see this kind of thing far too often.

In fact, on August 5th, Business Week ran an article called “Now Wall Street Wants Your Pension, Too.” The same ‘Usual Suspects’ that charge exorbitant fees, often have conflicts of interest, and promoted stocks that have turned out to be toxic garbage, are now lobbying to buy frozen pension plans so they can manage them and charge ridiculous fees to do so.

Worst of all, the government seems to be all for it. You see, there’s an entity known as the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp that is a federal backing of pension plans, and they’ve got a dirty little secret.

They simply don’t have enough money to cover what is going to be a huge shortfall in guaranteed pension benefits. So they want to solve the problem by selling off the pension plans and effectively ‘privatizing’ this federal insurance, assuming that the efficiency of open market competition (e.g. Wall Street) will be able to save the program.

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not so confident in Wall Street’s track record at the moment.

This would present them with a perfect opportunity to take advantage of investors once again. We can expect them to levy huge fees and underwriting charges for managing assets they invent, even while they stick in their own investments that they’re making even more fees on. I can see it now, layer upon layer of fees, mostly hidden in illiquid junk they’ve got stashed away.

This proposal will probably go through, and you won’t hear about it on the news or in the papers. Your ONLY means for preserving your retirement is to demand your plan adopt a self-directed option that allows you to invest the money virtually anywhere you want.

Wall Street doesn’t deserve another chance – especially not with something as important as your retirement fund. Now is a better time than ever to start taking advantage of the world of investment opportunities out there. You might even want to consider taking your share of the plan offshore.

Knowledge is Power, Especially When It Comes to Creating the Type of Retirement You Deserve

It’s your retirement money, and barring a few exceptions you have the right to invest it as you see fit. That means businesses, real estate, offshore real estate, etc. are all available to help you maximize the performance of your retirement account.

You just need to know your rights.

And with that knowledge you can create the kind of diversified portfolio that will best suit your needs in the long run, despite the self-serving advice of the so-called ‘experts.’

Don’t let them bully you or bluff you! This is all about control and a ruthless grab for your money. So be sure to take control of your own retirement plan and your destiny before it’s too late.

Source: Whose Retirement Is It Anyway? Wrest Back Control of Your Financial Future from the Presumptuous Fat Cats on Wall Street