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Thread: Pensions...

  1. #21
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by dangitgriff View Post
    No choice available when the company you work for decides what stocks make up their 401K. You are forbidden to make allocations yourself. I am effectively locked out of mine.
    There is a downside to that company match, after all.

    R/Griff
    Never heard of that. Sounds like you work for a Communist employer. I can see where they put stipulations on monies that they matched.............but you should be able to do anything you want with your contributions. The only thing I couldn't do with mine (Fidelity) was withdraw it, till I retired. Which I promptly did. Wife's (Well Fargo) was the same way.

    Winelover

  2. #22
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    Ive been collecting from two Multi-Employer Funded Pensions for over 12 years. One paid full benefits at 55 years of age and 30 years of contributions. Took a 30% hit on the other to go at 55 instead of 60. Plus additional reductions so wife can collect after I check out. Both plans have since restricted early retirement opportunities and are considered “in danger”, around 70-75% funded. If a plan goes under the PGB takes over and your benefits are cut by roughly 80%.
    If you’re in a Multi-Employer Pension Fund (most union tradesmen are) you should contact your Senator. Two Senators (Grassley - Alexander) are proposing legislation that will drastically reduce your benefits and charge you additional taxes on the rest.
    Most pension plans took serious hits early this century during the banking / financial disaster. Our government fixed it by giving the banks 700 billion of our tax $$$ in bailouts. The banks are doing fine now; but the investors, including pension funds, are “endangered”. Urge your Congressman to help the pension plans with loans like they did with the automakers.
    To continue my rant, Social Security as we know it today isn’t what it was intended to be when enacted in 1935. Your Social Security number is supposed to be an ACCOUNT Number, and the money you pay into the Social Security fund is supposed to be YOUR Money. All that changed once politicians realized they could access your Social Security money to buy special interest votes.
    As others have said Pension Plans are becoming a thing of the past. Social Security may not vanish completely but the benefits will be cut and/or taxed to nothing for most of us. IRA’s and 401’s are dependent on and influenced by market conditions controlled by others who don’t always have our best interests at heart.
    If I was younger and starting out again my retirement plan would focus on hoarding precious metals and insuring them with my 2nd Amendment Rights.

  3. #23
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    The thing is that precious metals like any money only has value becouse we all agree to give it value. At one time aluminum was worth way more than gold. Now a big bag of flat cans won't by a twelve pack of cheap beer. With all the mager countrys trying to come up with their own digital money how long before gold is no longer the standard of wealth? It my not happen completly in my or your life time but I think gold and such will be just another shiny metal. Even now the push is to go digital, with every thing going to direct deposit and electric transfers at some point cash will be a novelty , the relm of old guy's walking around with their pockets full of coins like a bunch of lepricons with thier gold.

    Things change,I can't remember the last time I had to trade a horse for any thing but I sure have traded a lot of cash for stuff. But more and more that cash is in the form of a card.
    We go through life trying to make the best decisions we can based on the best infomation we can find, that turns out to be wrong.

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by dangitgriff View Post
    How does that standard investment disclaimer go? “Past performance does not guarantee future earnings.”
    Did you know that inflation has eroded over 95% of the dollar’s purchasing power since 1913? What do you think will happen if the Federal Reserve bank turns on the printing presses and shifts them into high gear to juice the markets in which everyone with a pension has a stake? What happens when the dollar crashes and erases that last bit of buying power? When the rest of the world realizes our dollars are truly worthless, when hyperinflation hits our economy, all pensions earned and promised, public or private, paid in USD, will collapse.
    If I were allowed to make wise investment decisions with “my” own 401K, I would convert every cent to a physical gold IRA. Can’t get more conservative than that, and we aren’t allowed to do it. There will be many lessons learned in regards to trusting Wall Street bankers with our economy...and many more regrets, to be sure.
    R/Griff
    Then stop investing in your 401k and buy gold if that is what you want to do. I've had several 401k's with companies and I have not had one that did not give me a number of options for my money one of which usually involved cash of some type. What else are you going to do with it? Not save or have 100lbs of gold coins? If you would like that then by all means have at it. I have a gold fund for some of my retirement and cash on the side.
    I Am Descended From Men Who Would Not Be Ruled

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  5. #25
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    I've also never heard of any 401 plan that didn't give the participant options. Sometimes there are no options on the company match. My former plan used company stock for their match. This was ok as the stock usually did well. After a period of time you could sell the stock and choose another option.

  6. #26
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    Hey, jonp—already own some of the mellow yellow metal, we converted about half our cash sitting in savings earning next to nothing into gold about a year & a half ago, it’s returned 20% already. We are considering buying about 20 pounds of silver as well, because it is due for a ratio reset from between 80:1 to as low as 15:1. It could easily rise to $50/oz or 32:1 at current gold spot.

  7. #27
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    Pensions...

    Hey, lightman—my company offers a way to pull up to 75% of our 401K out to fund a Self Directed Brokerage Account through TD Ameritrade. They don’t make it an easy process, but I did just that, and selected some mining company stocks that have returned 33% in the last 18 months. I’m betting on a major pullback...picking stocks that will benefit from from the upcoming economic crisis.
    Physical gold + mining stocks = better protection from recession.
    Biggest bubble in history:

  8. #28
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    You have no control over corporate Boards, Fund managers, Congress, the Federal Reserve, banks or anyone else managing the products you are counting on for your nest egg. And very few of the above named really have anything but their own interests at heart. I have an IRA, a 401, two pensions and a saving account. All of which could become worthless almost overnight. Bitcoin, digital and electronic tender rely on an even more fragile web-based system that will be the first thing to fail in an “adjustment” like the one that happed a century ago.
    Gold, and to a lesser extent silver are precious metals because (especially gold) there is a finite amount on this planet and what’s left in an ore state is getting harder to find and process.
    For several thousand years gold has been the one holding that never became worthless and while it’s been out-performed for brief periods (I still have a certificate for 300 shares of Enron) it has always increased in value over the long haul.
    Only problem with it is you have to physically possess it as Germany recently discovered. Banks have security guards, in the USA we have the 2nd Amendment.

  9. #29
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    I am not sure you could defend yourself if word got around that you had a few hundred grand in gold in your house. I have some gold, silver, copper, brass, lead, wine, tools, guns, ammo, houses, gems, savings bonds, and cash but almost all my assets are just electronic bank/brokerage records. I do have paper annual statements for what that is worth.

    I don't fear it right now but there could come a time where I fear that all accounts could be frozen and confiscated. There might be a time where 40 pounds of gold coins hidden inside lead ingots might be a thing to have. The thing is how to get your hands on a lot of gold coins without leaving a trail. I guess one or two at a time over a period of a lot of years but even $200,000 dollars in gold coins is a bunch of coins. You would not want to buy them all in the same place. That would bring attention to you. You would not want to do it online as there would be a record that an AI could pull together.

    So lets say you are going to buy one gold coin a week and you are going to spread your purchases around how do you disguise the bank account withdrawals? Really how do you explain taking $1500 in cash out of your bank each week? I guess you could have multiple bank accounts and take smaller withdrawals from each still there is an electronic record.

    Man, it would be ideal to have a business that deals in cash or money orders or better yet where people pay you in gold or silver.

    The problem with silver is $200,000 in silver weighs 700 pounds or so.

    Tim
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  10. #30
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    Pensions...

    $200K in gold is 125 pounds at $1600/oz.
    Pretty sad state of affairs when a supposedly free citizen in a supposedly free nation cannot freely access his own money from a private bank.
    If we experience failure, we deserve it, as we’ve certainly done nothing to prevent it.

  11. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by dangitgriff View Post
    $200K in gold is 125 pounds at $1600/oz.
    Pretty sad state of affairs when a supposedly free citizen in a supposedly free nation cannot freely access his own money from a private bank.
    If we experience failure, we deserve it, as we’ve certainly done nothing to prevent it.
    Your math is wrong 125 pounds x 14.58 troy ounces per pound is 1,822.5 ounces times $1,600 per ounce equals $2.9 million. $200,000 is only 125 ounces not pounds. About 8.5 pounds My 40 pounds is more like a cool million.
    Words are weapons sharper than knives - INXS

    The pen is mightier than the sword - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

    The tongue is mightier than the blade - Euripides

  12. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by dangitgriff View Post
    $200K in gold is 125 pounds at $1600/oz.
    Pretty sad state of affairs when a supposedly free citizen in a supposedly free nation cannot freely access his own money from a private bank.
    If we experience failure, we deserve it, as we’ve certainly done nothing to prevent it.
    Many countries have limited peoples access to their bank accounts. The latest is I think Lebanon and before that it was Greece. There have been others as well.

    Tim
    Words are weapons sharper than knives - INXS

    The pen is mightier than the sword - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

    The tongue is mightier than the blade - Euripides

  13. #33
    Boolit Master brassrat's Avatar
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    In addition to 100% of my contributed pension going to the painters union due to a legal change where they could keep someone, under worked, and for 19 yrs and unvested; I had this display pop up on a scan of some purchased lead. I have other pics too. I thought I found some old guys, hidden, stash of AU..Gold.Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20170201_145954.jpg 
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ID:	257865

  14. #34
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    Lots of information here but also lots of misinformation. I've been retired almost 14 years, no pension other than SS. I also had a 401K which I converted to an IRA and a lump sum pension that I also rolled into the IRA. After 14 years retired and approx. 6 years of only touching the IRA for large purchases and 8 years taking MRD's (Minimum Required Distribution) amounting to about a quarter million $ total, I still have almost as much in the IRA as I had when I first rolled it over. Such is what Fixed Income for interest and Equities(Stock Mutual Funds) for growth will do for you. Just have to be tuff and ignore the bumps along the way.

    Many that I worked with would not join the 401K because they wanted all their salary for immediate wants. They also didn't understand the benefit of investing before taxes even though they would have to pay taxes after retirement when the money was withdrawn from the IRA. We didn't have Roth 401K's back then. Wish they had.
    John
    W.TN

  15. #35
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    I went to work in Law Enforcement for a large state agency when I was 22 1/2. As such, I never worked and paid into SS to attain 40 quarters. I knew it, and have never expected SS. I was able to retire at 50 with 28 years, 30 being maximum. Due to pension reform, newer employees do not have the same retirement numbers as those hired decades ago. Even so, I signed up for a job where I would have to work until I was 60 to get a full pension of %75, whereas it increased to %90 after 30.

    I retired when I could largely because I needed to be home. Youngest graduating in another state, oldest bed rested with her second child. After the youngest moved out, my wife asked if I was going to get 'my last 2 years.' I did, and ended up staying 3 1/2 years. Between raises and such, my retirement was bumped quite a great deal. That, and I was working a ton of overtime while back at work. No car loans, no college loans, no medical bills, just mortgages in 2 states, paid for land in a third.

    Blessed? I feel that way. I loved my job and how I was able to raise my girls and meet the family's needs. I felt guilty the first time I retired, at 50, when my older brothers were still working. Older brother also worked in law enforcement, oldest in construction. Oldest brother is still working, other brother and I both retired, me again.

    I invested in a 401K program 25 years ago and managed my accounts. Simple strategy, buy low, sell high, you know the drill. Before 2008, I was averaging between %1.5 and %3.0 growth per month. It worked well until some account changes made such transactions more complicated. Without much detail, I moved my accounts to a low yield cash account before the 2008 elections. When friends lost many tens of thousands, mine did not. Stagnant beats loss. My main investment strategy has always been real estate, aside from a 401K. Heck, I owned my own home by the time I was 30. First wife got the house, I kept my retirement. I still have my retirement, she no longer owns a house free and clear. Life is an experience, learn from it, don't make the same mistakes as others.

    2 1/2 years into retirement again, and I'm looking at several new investments. My wife and I are comfortable, but are looking at developing more to leave as legacy to the girls and their families. To quote my mom 'If I had known grandkids were this much fun, I would have had them first.' Mom and dad will both be 81 this year, and if family history holds true we will still have decades. Long line of long lines, so to speak. Still, every day is precious, not to be wasted but lived.

    Money isn't everything, security of finances is invaluable. If you don't have much, but you have enough to be happy, you are so far ahead of anyone who fears the next major health scare, a blown water heater, new tires, the next grocery bill, is not secure in their quality of life. Can I go out and work a new job? Yup, I'm still young and my wife younger. Do I need to? No, but I could. Heck, I never worked fast food in high school or college. Would I if needs be? You bet, and would probably enjoy asking 'do you want fries with that?'
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  16. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by alamogunr View Post

    We didn't have Roth 401K's back then. Wish they had.
    There is nothing stopping you from converting your IRA to a Roth, even when retired. Pay taxes once, and never again. I've been doing just that for the last five years..............with the thought of lowering my Minimum Required Distributions................which will begin in 2 1/2 years.

    Winelover

  17. #37
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    Pensions...

    Quote Originally Posted by dtknowles View Post
    Your math is wrong 125 pounds x 14.58 troy ounces per pound is 1,822.5 ounces times $1,600 per ounce equals $2.9 million. $200,000 is only 125 ounces not pounds. About 8.5 pounds My 40 pounds is more like a cool million.
    You’re correct, 125 imperial ounces and 7.8125 imperial pounds. Typo...
    Wish I had 125 pounds!
    Last edited by dangitgriff; 03-03-2020 at 08:37 AM.

  18. #38
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    What will all of those who are now retired and drawing pensions and who have commented here do to make ends meet if the financial institutions making your retirement payouts go bankrupt?
    I’m following the developments in California’s CALPERS pension system and other states that are in a pension crisis, and it is looking ugly.

  19. #39
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    Quote Originally Posted by dangitgriff View Post
    What will all of those who are now retired and drawing pensions and who have commented here do to make ends meet if the financial institutions making your retirement payouts go bankrupt?
    I’m following the developments in California’s CALPERS pension system and other states that are in a pension crisis, and it is looking ugly.
    Thats a good question and a concern for many. When I started working I had 2 goals. One was to work long enough that my pension would support us. The other was to save enough that our savings and investments would support us. Like a plan A and a Plan B. And I think I did. Then there is SS. If we were to loose one of the three we would be ok. If we were to loose 2 of the three we would survive. And I would find a job that I could do if it became necessary.

    It should be a crime for what some are doing to others pension plans. And it should be a crime for what our government has done to SS.

  20. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by winelover View Post
    There is nothing stopping you from converting your IRA to a Roth, even when retired. Pay taxes once, and never again. I've been doing just that for the last five years..............with the thought of lowering my Minimum Required Distributions................which will begin in 2 1/2 years.

    Winelover
    You need to check that. My Fidelity advisor tells me, and I have checked it separately, that you have to have earned income in order to convert to a Roth. I did that as long as I was working and managed to get a substantial amount before it was cut off. I just let it sit there in a Fidelity managed account. Grown quite a bit. It is earmarked for passing on to heirs since they won't owe taxes on it.
    John
    W.TN

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