…….. The IRA LLC I must lead with a caveat here that I am biased to this concept. I am a ‘for profit’ consultant and facilitator of the IRA LLC. This platform has its pros and cons as any other. The upfront cost can range from $1,500 to $3,000 to have an attorney or professional facilitator set one of these up, and the proper setup is crucial. Involved are numerous legal documents, affidavits, and compliance requirements that must be met. Once setup the flexibility is great and the ongoing fee structure is very low, typically $115 to $200 per year. Within the structure the LLC acts as an investment company that is managed by the individual, whom is also the beneficiary of the IRA. As long as there are no prohibited transactions the investor can invest in literally anything except collectibles and life insurance contracts. Many include: investment real estate, bug out property, private placements, oil & gas leases, loans, currencies, Bitcoin, other LLCs, etc. The LLC also adds another layer of protection from potential Govt pillaging of retirement accounts as referenced above.
Perhaps the biggest advantage of the IRA LLC to the Precious Metals investor is that the individual (manager of the LLC) can take physical possession of Gold and Silver Eagle Coins with IRA funds and it is not a taxable distribution. The metal does not have to be held at a depository. For folks that have considered cashing out their IRAs or 401ks thus paying taxes and penalties, this can be a much cheaper alternative to physically holding precious metals. There are no additional IRS reporting requirements, merely an annual dollar asset valuation reported to the custodian…
retirement
Work Until You Die: Lifelong Labor Becomes New Normal
(Eric Pfeiffer) For a growing number of Americans, there may never be such a thing as real retirement.
“The market is filled with people who are petrified of the idea of retiring because they might not have the funding to afford retirement,” Goalinvestor.com’s Melissa Doran Rayer, whose company provides financial planning services and created a data chart to show how retirement trends are shifting, told Yahoo News in a recent interview.
From 1990 to 2010, the percentage of workers 65 and older staying in the job market rose for both women (from 28.2 to 43.8 percent) and men (52.5 to 65.3 percent).
Interestingly, those trends have occurred in the 35-plus years since the Revenue Act of 1978 was passed, allowing workers to invest tax-deferred savings in 401(k) plans.
There have also been broad cutbacks to pensions across the U.S. A recent analysis found that more than 20 million American workers…
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MUST READ: 10 Reasons Why You Have to Quit Your Job This Year | Altucher Confidential
…You can’t make money without selling something real. You can’t make something real without first imagination manifesting itself in your head. You can’t have imagination without surrendering yourself to an idea that you want to create something of value to other human beings.
And now it’s too late. Now the course of history has finally written it’s next chapter. There’s no more bullshit. I’m going to tell you why you have to quit your job. Why you need to get the ideas moving. Why you need to build a foundation for your life or soon you will have no roof… via Altucher Confidential.
People Now Pay In More To Social Security Than They Take In Payouts | Libertarian News
“For the early generations, it was an incredibly good deal,” said Andrew Biggs, a former deputy Social Security commissioner who is now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “The government gave you free money and getting free money is popular.”
If you retired in 1960, you could expect to get back seven times more in benefits than you paid in Social Security taxes, and more if you were a low-income worker, as long you made it to age 78 for men and 81 for women.
As recently as 1985, workers at every income level could retire and expect to get more in benefits than they paid in Social Security taxes, though they didn’t do quite as well as their parents and grandparents.
Not anymore.
via People Now Pay In More To Social Security Than They Take In Payouts | Libertarian News.
Government withholding money from Social Security recipients who have student loan defaults | The Daily Economist
When President Obama endorsed going back to school shortly after he came into office, very few Americans understood what the full ramifications of this would be. Coupled with the fact that under Obama, the government has taken over the Student Loan industry, millions of Americans have become debt slaves to Uncle Sam.
And to deal with the 30% of student loan debtors who are delinquent in their payments, the government has moved towards stricter ways of getting its money back, and this now includes withholding Social Security payments to worthy recipients… see here
US Retirement Benefits Underfunding Rises To Record $1.4 Trillion | ZeroHedge
The Pew Center has released its annual summary of US pension and retirement health care (under)funding.
As of 2010, the total underfunding gap rose by $120 billion from the prior year’s $1.26 trillion deficit to a record $1.38 trillion underfunding. This number consists of $757 billion in pension promises, not backed by any hard cash, representing pension liabilities of $3.07 trillion and assets of $2.31 trillion. In 2000, more than half of the states had their pensions 100 percent funded, but by 2010 only Wisconsin was fully funded, and 34 were below the 80 percent threshold—up from 31 in 2009 and just 22 in 2008.
But that pales in comparison to the ridiculous spread between retiree health care liabilities of $660 billion and assets of, drum roll, $33 billion, or a funding shortage that is $627 billion, roughly 19 times the actual assets in the system! Just seven states funded 25 percent or more of their retiree health care obligations: Alaska, Arizona, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia, and Wisconsin. What this means is soon US pensioners will have no choice but to experience not only austerity unlike any seen in Europe, but broken promises of retirement benefits which will never materialize. The response will likewise be proportional. Sadly, it is only going to get worse: …. go here ZeroHedge.
AIG CEO Robert Benmosche: 80-Year-Old Europeans Need To Be Working | HuffPo
“… Robert Benmosche, chief executive of the recently bailed-out and largely government-owned American International Group, told Bloomberg from his seaside villa that he thinks the eurozone debt crisis will push the retirement age in the region way up.”Retirement ages will have to move to 70, 80 years old,” he said. “That would make pensions, medical services more affordable. They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off of the youth…”
via AIG CEO Robert Benmosche: 80-Year-Old Europeans Need To Be Working.
The Late 20th Century Western Lifestyle Isn’t Going To Be Around Much Longer | Mark Steyn / Investors.com
The Eurovision Song Contest doesn’t get a lot of attention in the United States, but on the Continent it’s long been seen as the perfect Euro-metaphor.
Years before the euro came along, it was the prototype pan-European institution, and predicated on the same assumptions. Eurovision took the national cultures that produced Mozart, Vivaldi and Debussy, and in return gave us “Boom-Bang-A-Bang” (winner, 1969), “Ding-Ding-A-Dong” (winner, 1975) and “Diggi-Loo-Diggi-Ley” (winner, 1984).
The euro took the mark, the lira and the franc, and merged them to create the “Boom-Bang-A-Bang” of currencies.
How will it all end? One recalls the 1990 Eurovision finals in Zagreb: “Yugoslavia is very much like an orchestra,” cooed the hostess, Helga Vlahovi?. “The string section and the wood section all sit together.”
Shortly thereafter, the wood section began ethnically cleansing the dressing rooms, while the string section rampaged through the brass section pillaging their instruments and severing their genitals. Indeed, the charming Miss Vlahovic herself was forced into a sudden career shift and spent the next few years as Croatian TV’s head of “war information” programming. Continue reading
Next In Line for Implosion: Pension Plans | of Two Minds
Pension plans are based on 8% annual growth forever. What happens to these plans in a zero-interest rate world as the global economy and stock markets contract?
I’m afraid it’s time for an intervention.
I don’t enjoy being the bearer of difficult news, but now that Europe has stumbled drunkenly into the pool and been “rescued,” it’s once again tearfully blubbering that this time it’s all going to change, and a new prime minister in each dysfunctional, insolvent EU nation is going to make the pain and the addiction all go away.It’s time we face the reality that Europe and the U.S. are full-blown financial alcoholics, addicted to illusion and debt. And what do they turn to as “solutions”? The very sources of their pain: illusory “fixes” and more debt. Have you ever seen a global market as dependent on rumors of “magical fixes” for its “resilience” as this one?
via charles hugh smith-Next In Line for Implosion: Pension Plans.
The Grey Enigma 