Buckshot Survival Hour

How the US Government Will Seize Your Retirement Account

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/05/how-us-government-will-seize-your.html

Here's how it will go down:

First, there will be some event... some sort of financial cataclysm, similar to the market meltdown we saw in 2008 after Lehman.

Bear in mind that most IRAs are managed by boneheads at big financial institutions; they get compensated not based on the performance of their portfolio, but on the total amount of assets under management. Your interests and their interests do not align.

As such, most IRAs are callously tossed into S&P index funds or some such generic vehicle, citing the safety of broader market diversification, as if that nonsense they teach in MBA finance classes is how the real world actually works.

When a big crash occurs, these unhedged broad market positions get hammered the most. Don't worry though, your fund manager will still get a big fat bonus check, because his performance is irrelevant.