The MyRA Scam

by Bob Livingston 
Don’t fall for the President’s MyRA scam. You’d be better off putting that money under your mattress. It will still lose value because of inflation, but at least the government won’t know where it is so it can steal it.
The President announced MyRA (though he pronounced it like he was reading for the first time) during his State of the Union address Jan. 28. If you didn’t smell boondoggle right off, you should have.
According to the plan as announced, savers can begin with an initial deposit of $25 and contribute as little as $5 per payday. The money is invested in a Treasury security.
The U.S. government is currently living off quantitative easing. I have described it in the past as pouring water into milk. But here’s a better analogy I heard over the weekend:

A couple is short of money but has some bills they must pay. They have some old items they need to get rid of so they decide to hold a garage sale. On the day of the sale, the husband helps the wife set the items in the yard, then trots off to work.
When he comes home that afternoon, all the items are gone. He’s ecstatic, the sale was a success and they have the money they need to pay the bills. The husband congratulates the wife on her entrepreneurship. She proudly proclaims they now have the money to pay the bills.
When the husband looks into the garage he sees that all the items that were in the yard have been stored. He turns to his wife and says, “I thought you sold everything.”
“I did. When nobody came to buy anything I just wrote a check and sold it to us.”

That’s what the government is doing with Treasuries through quantitative easing to infinity. When the government goes bankrupt — and it will — those Treasuries will be worthless. And now the government is encouraging you to buy them.
MyRAs will earn the same interest as the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) Government Securities Investment Fund that is available to Federal employees. The TSP’s own paperwork says this about its interest rate: “The G Fund is subject to inflation risk, or the possibility that your G Fund investment will not grow enough to offset the reduction in purchasing power that results from inflation.”

All your savings will be visible to government and available for confiscation — the same government that is already eyeing $19 trillion in pension funds, individual retirement accounts and 401(k) plans. Don’t think this will happen? Governments across the globe have already done so.
If you want to “invest” in the U.S. government, there is currently a provision to do so. The MyRA plan mimics it. Just open an account with Treasury to buy U.S. savings bonds. The difference is that MyRA will be run by a crony Wall Street firm.
President Barack Obama claimed the MyRA plan is a “starter savings account” to help people on low incomes and without employer-sponsored 401(k) plans save for retirement. But those on low incomes have no discretionary income for putting into a retirement account. In fact, according to the Corporation for Enterprise Development, nearly half of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck. Many Americans have depleted their retirement savings to survive the current depression.
The MyRA plan is a scam and a sham and another Ponzi scheme and should be avoided at all costs. Any discretionary income should go to pay off debt and/or buy silver or gold and store food and water, guns and ammunition, not prop up the government’s house of cards.