An Important Lesson From A Famous Bank Robber

Willie Sutton was one of the most notorious bank robbers in the history of the United States. That was of course at a time when the banks were robbed from the outside; not as we have seen in the last hundred years and more recently, bankers robbing the banks from inside their own banking institutions.

The Saturday Evening Post reported a conversation between a reporter and Willie Sutton in January 1951 after he was caught.

Someone once asked Slick Willie Sutton, the bank robber, why he robbed banks. The question might have uncovered a tale of injustice and lifelong revenge. Maybe a banker foreclosed on the old homestead, maybe a banker’s daughter spurned Sutton for another.

Sutton looked a little surprised, as if he had been asked “Why does a smoker light a cigarette?”

“I rob banks because that’s where the money is,” he said, obviously meaning “in the most compact form.” That eye for the simple essential may be the secret of a singular success.

Willie robbed banks, “because that is where the money is” really tells us exactly what is going on and what is about to happen in the next financial crisis.

There is currently a steady flow of money streaming into the approximately $24 trillion dollar pool of qualified retirement funds managed by Wall Street.

That is “where the money is” today.

Financial institutions have already sold a fantastic racket to the general public. Financial institutions want your money and want it to come into their hands on a regular, consistent basis. Once they have it, they want to keep it for as long as possible and when they are forced to give you back your own money, they only want to give back as little as possible.

In 1943 the US Government was in need of money to pay for World War II and passed the Current Tax Payment Act to withhold taxes from the paychecks from the average worker. Tax withholding has continued uninterrupted since. Employees have little control over the amount of income tax withheld from their paychecks, but payroll taxes are fixed and mandated by federal law.

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (EPSA) was passed in 1974. The part of the EPSA that established the 401k was amended in 1978. In 1981, several months after Tedd Benna designed his first 401(k) plan for his employer, the IRS issued proposed regulations on Section 401k that officially sanctioned pre-tax salary reductions. Qualified retirement plans were introduced to employees, as well as pay-deducting contributions directly from paychecks.

Wall Street and Uncle Sam were then paid before the employee ever saw a cent of his or her own money.

Wall Street already skims a percentage from the increasing money pool of $24 trillion dollars through their assets under management compensation model, where financial firms get paid a percentage of your money regardless of your investment’s performance.

Whether or not these qualified retirement accounts and mutual funds make money or lose money, Wall Street gets paid.

Currently, governments, states, provinces, municipalities, cities, towns, social programs and public and private pension systems are insolvent. Central banks are insolvent. The banking and financial system is dangerously overleveraged. The economy of the largest economy in the world cannot even raise interest rates by 25 basis points without threatening to bring down the markets.

When the biggest financial crisis the world has ever seen becomes a reality, there is no doubt in my mind that the modern day bank robbers (governments, banks, and financial institutions) will target the giant pool of money.

This has been covered by many personalities in real media like Jeff Berwick, Doug Casey, Peter Schiff and many more.

The governments in Europe and the United States have made this perfectly clear through laws that they have passed.

“By their deeds, you shall know them.”

“Bail-in” provisions are in place for all the European Union nations and the United States through the Dodd-Frank Act. The Dodd-Frank Act has made depositors in banks unsecured creditors and also includes a provision for the FDIC to be utilized along with customer’s deposits to recapitalize the banks in case of another financial crisis.

How will the modern day bank robbers steal your retirement funds?

President Barack Obama already showed how they will do this by rolling out the MyRA program. The MyRA aims to help Americans save for retirement. How, you may wonder? Let me explain. Americans loan their retirement savings money to the US government in the form of US government bonds. This invested money will be paid interest, however, the rate of interest will be lower than the government’s official inflation number.

These bonds ensure that you lose money if you take the current interest that they pay and compare it to the government’s official inflation rate, which off course is a lie.

You are loaning money to an institution that is $19.4 trillion in debt and by its own fake manipulated numbers tell you that you will lose money. Where do I sign up?

Responding to the critics “peddling fiction” and spitting “political hot air” Obama assured people that MyRA accounts are for “people who aren’t saving and who have a fear of losing their principal.”

What he failed to add was that you are also guaranteed to lose purchasing power of your principal at the rate the modern day bank robbers are devaluing your money.

When the next crisis hits, Wall Street will get paid first this time by transferring the majority of the $24 trillion pool of retirement funds to Wall Street by betting against the market and products in qualified retirement plans and pensions programs, just like Goldman Sachs bet against products they sold their clients in the last crisis.

Like every government program, the MyRA is guaranteed to grow into a monster. When the next crisis unfolds, the government will mandate a portion of what is left of your savings (after the Wall Street banks have feasted on your retirement and pension funds) must be invested in government bonds for your own safety and of course, you will also be patriotic to do so.

It will be a solution to the crisis created by the same bandits that were part of the cause. Most people will be in so much shock, they will eat up the propaganda, the flags, and ribbons that come with the sales pitch.

Two more bills have been proposed on the floor of the US Congress and Senate in the last 12 months. In Congress, the “Secure, Accessible, Valuable, Efficient Universal Pension Accounts Act” or SAVE UP Accounts Act will mandate certain employers, businesses and small businesses in the US to contribute a fixed amount of money per employee into a national retirement fund.

Employers that are already paying into Social Security will contribute to this plan based on the wage they are paying their employees.

On the floor of the US Senate, the “American Savings Account”, another government retirement savings vehicle is proposed.
These proposals expose the direction the government will move towards solving the imminent financial and retirement crisis.

Willie Sutton stunned reporters with his simplistic answer to why he robbed the banks, “it’s where the money was.” If your money is where all the money is currently, you are guaranteed to part with the majority of it.
There are strategies and vehicles available to reposition and diversify your assets out of this system and that are out of the modern bank robbers reach.

Live a life of purpose and passion on YOUR terms,

M.C. Laubscher

M.C. Laubscher is the founder and chief wealth strategist of Valhalla Wealth Financial and host of the popular business, investing and financial podcast, the Cashflow Ninja podcast. (http://cashflowninja.com/)