There comes a time in every man’s life when he just has to shut up and deal with it.

Yeah, I don’t know what that means.

Actually I do, but I’m not going to go into details.

With all the talk of the fiscal cliff as of late, I’m not sure if everyone is really aware that more change is on its way.

Presumably this once great country of ours has placed itself on the pathway of hitting the pinnacle of socialized society with the catastrophic choices it’s made in recent years.

The perpetuation of the welfare state coupled with the government’s continued endeavors to control more and more of what has traditionally been delivered by the private sector are leading us down a dark and spooky path.

Ideally, with the upholding of Obamatax by the Supreme Court (John Roberts namely) and the reelection of the architect of all that is currently wrong with this country, one would tend to think that the highway to hell is adequately paved.  What else is left of our private lives for the government to control?

Pack up your babies and grab your old ladies, ladies and gentlemen.

Uncle Sam is strapped for cash like it’s nobody’s bidness.  The administration is requesting, for all intents and purposes, an abolition of the debt limit.  They want to pursue all types of new and/or creative methods of taxation as well.

But that won’t be enough.

You see ladies and gentlemen, it’s already been thrown out there with “You didn’t build that”.  The socialization of profits are just around the corner.

If you think that’s bad, just hold tight.  It gets worse.

Tell me, my dear reader.

Do you have a retirement account?  Got something tax deferred through work or individually where you’re putting a little somethin’ somethin’ back for your golden years?  Generally speaking, the account is managed by some sort of trustee, custodian, or administrator for your benefit.  There’s a wide variety of options among these retirement accounts which define when or how you can take money out and how it’s invested.

So let’s connect some dots.

America is moving towards socialism so fast that it can now make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.

America needs cash, and it’s not going to tax itself either into prosperity or socialistic nirvana on the backs of the wealthy.

Retirement plans are perceived to be the last bastion of hope for some semblance of financial security once we retire.  They perform considerably better than Social Security ever could for a vast host of reasons.  For at least the last twenty years, people in my generation have been of the expectation that Social Security won’t be there when we hit our mid-sixties when it’s time to leave the confines of Cubeville.  As such, taking advantage of retirement plans at work has been a good decision up until now.

So why not take them over?

“Lockbox” was a big term thrown around by Al Gore during the 2000 campaign.  At least that’s how Saturday Night Live portrayed it at the time.  If memory serves, Gore campaigned on the premise of “locking up” funds in the Social Security trust and make them only available for what they were originally intended.  The government hasn’t been able to do this for years.  If it could, the trust wouldn’t be in as much trouble as it is.

The government could very well move to take over the management of retirement plans.  Once they’ve got control of our retirement funds, they would do that thing they do so well.

Spend it.

Now I’m not sure this will happen in the coming year or two, or even in this decade.

At this point, it’s really hard to put anything past these people anymore.