"It is unbelievable. Goldman Sachs? No one has any criminal convictions. The whole new regulatory reform is a joke. The whole government is a Ponzi scheme." - Bernie Madoff

What is your average person to do? The governments who purport to own them and take half of their production every year also borrow on "their behalf" and have put not only them, but their children and grandchildren into levels of debt that can only be described as slavery. Meanwhile, the entire economy is so distorted by government regulations, taxes, tariffs, laws and legislation that calling it a "free market" is like calling Shaquille O'Neal a petite, pretty white girl. And, to top it off, the monetary system forced upon us by legal tender laws is a system based, at its core, on counterfeiting and price (interest rate) fixing.

Then, your average person, has been indoctrinated in government child prison camps and forced to rote memorize progaganda and useless information for 12 years (AKA Educated) has to figure out how to financially survive living in this fasco-communist paradise where the game is rigged against them.

In the pre-modern era the way for most people to survive and prosper was through saving. Saving is purely the result of producing more than you consume and retaining the rest for consumption in the future. But now the game is rigged... and is just a well orchestrated ponzi scheme. After half their income is stolen from them every year and another large portion is "invisibly taxed" through inflation, the small pittance that is left is just a piece of paper with some famous criminal's picture drawn on it.

And, in order to protect even that from being whisked away, governments have created "tax sheltered" retirement accounts to give them the brief sensation of having financial freedom. It is perceived financial freedom for slaves.

But, as the end-game for the socialist democratic nation state nears, tax theft revenues will continue to fall as state expenditures continue to rise and governments will look at that untaxed pool or retirement savings as their after-dinner desert and look to nationalize it. This has already happened in the western world. In Ireland, as example, they have already instituted a tax on the gross assets of pensions... not on their profits, but an annual tax on their holdings! In Portugal the state mafia has raided over 5.6 billion Euros of pension funds in a bid to meet its fiscal target. And in Hungary, 4.5 billion Euros worth of government securities were taken over from assets in private pension funds towards reducing the country's public debt.

It is only a matter of time until USSA and other western retirement and pension funds are confiscated or forced into "investing" in Treasuries - a sure thing to lose 5-10% of its value every year in inflation adjusted dollars.

While you have no way to withdraw what is owed to you in advance from things like Socialist Security without incurring heavy penalties, there are still some options. In the US, you can easily convert your IRA into a self-directed IRA. Once it has been converted you can not only invest in assets such as gold bullion but you can do so outside of the country to protect your assets from seizure.

TDV is one of the only organizations completely devoted to saving you from your own government and we have just launched the TDV Self-Directed IRA to quickly and easily free your retirement funds from their geopolitical boundaries. You could even invest your funds into precious metals around the world (see Getting Your Gold Out Of Dodge for more).

Your government registered financial advisor will not tell you about this. In fact, they'll be against it as it removes your IRA funds from their company. That is why it is more important than ever to do your own research and protect yourself now before you go down with the ship.

The financial situation of the US Government is in a shambles, with over $75 trillion in debt and liabilities ($250,000 for each person in the US). As they continue down the road to insolvency we expect they will do what almost all governments do. They'll try to stay alive by taking the assets of the citizenry. This has happened countless times in history. Protect your future by creating a Self-Directed IRA today.