With all the destructive measures by desperate governments from Cyprus to Argentina, it seems sometimes like we’re reading from the pages of her seminal work, Atlas Shrugged.

But what we’re seeing now seems to have far surpassed Atlas Shrugged. We’re definitely into 1984 territory.

We’ve recently learned that the US federal government has (a) secretly tapped the Associated Press’s phone records, and (b) used the nation’s tax authorities to target opposition political groups.

This is the same sort of thing one would expect from Belarus or Azerbaijan. But these sad events are, unfortunately, no longer surprising in the Land of the Free. Nor are they isolated.

One appalling example is the case of Richard Hatch, who I spoke to a few days ago. You may remember that Richard won the first season of the TV series Survivor back in 2000/2001… and the million dollar prize that went along with it.

Tax-wise, it was a complex matter; the production took place off the coast of Borneo, so the prize money was technically Malaysian-sourced income. Plus a number of other issues.

But Hatch and his tax team filed returns. They claimed the prize money. They paid tax on it. They event sought additional guidance from the IRS.

Never once did the IRS issue a ‘notice of deficiency’, essentially a routine letter they send when they think you owe them money.

And yet, Hatch was ultimately charged with a crime– ‘attempted’ tax evasion.

Now, it’s absurd that tax evasion is even a criminal matter in the Land of the Free. It’s even more absurd that ‘attempted’ tax evasion is a crime.

But it defies all reality that an individual, who was fully up to date on his filings and being advised by licensed tax professionals, was personally tried and convicted of such a ridiculous charge, having never once been notified by the government that he owed a single penny.

After this shocking conversation with Richard, I spoke to William Binney, a 35-year veteran of the NSA. During our call, Binney walked me through some very technical details about the government’s illegal monitoring and archiving of ALL Internet traffic, and HOW they’re doing it.

William Binney is a man of tremendous integrity; he resigned from the NSA to protest the wanton dismantling of the Bill of Rights.

Since then, government thugs have kicked down his door at gunpoint. He’s been maliciously sued by Uncle Sam. He’s had his private property seized. All because he continues to expose the crimes that they’re committing.

And these are crimes, plain and simple… clear violations of the Fourth and Fifth amendment.

Bottom line, EVERYONE is being monitored. Every email is being archived. And the data is being shared across the government spectrum with law enforcement as well. This is important.

Today, there are thousands of crimes on the books in the Land of the Free. If they want to, they can get you for anything, even ‘attempted tax evasion’. You can’t even apply for a passport without being threatened with jail time.

And with such ubiquitous surveillance, they can get any information they need to seize property or incriminate anyone they want on whatever stupid law they can dig up.

The easy course of action is to live in denial– “It can’t happen here, it won’t happen to me.” Everyone wants to think this. But it does happen. And given the trend, it’s going to happen much more.

This isn’t intended to be gloomy, rather a sobering wakeup call. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is step back, look at the big picture, and realize that these tactics are no longer fiction. This is now reality in the Land of the Free. Welcome to 1984.

When the liberal online rag, Politico, features a clip of Matthews saying, “[Obama] obviously likes giving speeches more than he does running the executive branch,” we’re through the Looking Glass.

Chris Matthews loses ‘thrill up leg’ …

The liberal jackals are stalking their own leader, the President. After making mind-bending excuses for Obama’s disastrous presidency, they’ve suddenly heard a supersonic whistle, and they’re out for blood.

Jonathan Turley, famous liberal constitutional lawyer, is counting Obama’s sins, ranging far beyond the current IRS and AP phone-tapping scandals.

James Goodale, former lawyer for the NY Times, is writing, at the Daily Beast, “Obama is fast becoming the worst national security press president, worse than Nixon, and it may not get any better.”

Liberal radio host Bill Press is calling for Obama to fire Eric Holder. Charley Rangel says, “No one believes that the president has given us a sufficient answer [to the IRS and DOJ scandals].”

Representative Zoe Lofgren and NBC’s Brian Williams are down Obama’s neck.

Just a few weeks ago, after the Boston bombing, Obama was unassailable. He was still the king with his own people. Now, he’s turning into lunch meat.

Liberals could be shouting and claiming that the IRS targeting of conservative, patriot, and constitutional groups had nothing to do with Obama, that he’s entirely innocent, that he just got rid of the IRS chief and all is well…but they’re not saying it.

They could be insisting that the DOJ tapping AP phones was all on Eric Holder, and Obama had nothing to do with it…but they’re not saying it.

The current press virus is: Obama is Nixon.

What’s going on?

Who’s giving liberals the order to go after Obama? Who shifted the political wind overnight?

Yesterday, I examined Watergate from the perspective of Nixon’s betrayal of the Rockefeller family. That was the key to his ouster from the presidency. The Washington Post was used as the attack dog. Are we looking at something similar here?

Has Obama failed to live up to his promises to people far more powerful than he is? If so, what is his betrayal?

Is it simply the fact that the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations have chosen Hillary Clinton as the next president—and in order to make that happen, major diversions have to guide the press and public away from her role in the Benghazi catastrophe? Is that why we’re suddenly seeing the IRS and DOJ scandals erupting?

Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission (TC) certainly wields enough power to torpedo Obama, if they want to. And they surround Obama.

Patrick Wood, author of Trilaterals Over Washington, points out there are only 87 members of the Trilateral Commission who live in America. Obama appointedeleven of them to posts in his administration.

Keep in mind that the original stated goal of the TC was to create “a new international economic order.” Consider the following TC members, who have held Obama posts:

Tim Geithner, Treasury Secretary;

James Jones, National Security Advisor;

Paul Volker, Chairman, Economic Recovery Committee;

Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence.

All Trilateralists.

In the run-up to his inauguration after the 2008 presidential election, Obama was tutored by the co-founder of the Trilateral Commission, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

The TC is the hand that feeds Obama. Has he bitten it?

Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote, four years before birthing the TC with his godfather, David Rockefeller: “[The] nation state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force. International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation state.”

A closer look at Tim Geithner’s circle of economic advisers reveals the chilling Trilateral effect: Paul Volker; Alan Greenspan; E. Gerald Corrigan (director, Goldman Sachs); and Peter G Peterson (former CEO, Lehman Brothers, former chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations). These men are all Trilateral members.

How many foxes in the hen house do we need, before we realize their Trilateral agenda is controlling the direction of our economy?

Any doubt on the question of TC goals is answered by David Rockefeller himself, the founder of the TC, in hisMemoirs (2003):

“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”

So yes, if the Trilateral Commission wanted to sink Obama’s presidency, they could call that shot. They could radically influence press coverage of the president, they could pull strings and end the worshipful celebration of Obama as the great prophet. They could bring hard doom to him.

Nixon started imposing tariffs on imported goods. That was his Waterloo. He ran afoul of the massive Rockefeller free trade agenda. What has Obama done?

Is he stalling on war with Iran? Has he gone too far in his embrace of Islamic partners? Has he finally balked at continuing the war in Afghanistan?

Setting economic and political policy for the US is a prime operation of the Trilateral Commission. If Obama has crossed swords with the TC, he would be treading on very dangerous ground.

From the shadows of history, let me give you an illustration of how far and deep the TC can reach. It really does boggle the mind.

Here is a close-up snap shot of a remarkable moment—in the form of a conversation between a reporter, Jeremiah Novak, and two Trilateral Commission members, Karl Kaiser and Richard Cooper.

The interview took place in 1978. It concerned the issue of who exactly, during President Carter’s administration, was formulating US economic and political policy.

The careless and off-hand attitude of Trilateralists Kaiser and Cooper is astonishing. It’s as if they’re saying, “What we’re revealing is already out in the open, it’s too late to do anything about it, why are you so worked up, we’ve already won…”

NOVAK (the reporter): Is it true that a private [Trilateral committee] led by Henry Owen of the US and made up of [Trilateral] representatives of the US, UK, West Germany, Japan, France and the EEC is coordinating the economic and political policies of the Trilateral countries [which would include the US]?

COOPER: Yes, they have met three times.

NOVAK: Yet, in your recent paper you state that this committee should remain informal because to formalize ‘this function might well prove offensive to some of the Trilateral and other countries which do not take part.’ Who are you afraid of?

KAISER: Many countries in Europe would resent the dominant role that West Germany plays at these [Trilateral] meetings.

COOPER: Many people still live in a world of separate nations, and they would resent such coordination [of policy].

NOVAK: But this [Trilateral] committee is essential to your whole policy. How can you keep it a secret or fail to try to get popular support [for its decisions on how Trilateral member nations will conduct their economic and political policies]?

COOPER: Well, I guess it’s the press’ job to publicize it.

NOVAK: Yes, but why doesn’t President Carter come out with it and tell the American people that [US] economic and political power is being coordinated by a [Trilateral] committee made up of Henry Owen and six others?After all, if [US] policy is being made on a multinational level, the people should know.

COOPER: President Carter and Secretary of State Vance have constantly alluded to this in their speeches.

KAISER: It just hasn’t become an issue.

Source: “Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management,” ed. by Holly Sklar, 1980. South End Press, Boston. Pages 192-3.

Of course, although Kaiser and Cooper claimed everything being manipulated by the Trilateral Commission committee was already out in the open, it wasn’t.

Their interview slipped under the mainstream media radar, which is to say, it was ignored and buried. It didn’t become a scandal on the level of, say, Watergate, although its essence was far larger than Watergate.

If the mainstream press had made hay out of this interview, had reported it widely, and commented upon it with relentless fervor and disgust and shock (a pipe dream, to be sure); if the interview had been pushed and publicized as a scandal of the greatest depth; if ensuing denials and distractions had been cast aside; the exposure of the Trilaterals would have shaken the country’s foundations, and the press would have had to admit all their coverage of government was a farce and a cartoon.

US economic and political policy run by a committee of the Trilateral Commission—the Commission had been been created in 1973 as an “informal discussion group” by David Rockefeller and his sidekick, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who would become Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor.

Shortly after Carter won the presidential election, his aide, Hamilton Jordan, said that, if after the inauguration, Cy Vance and Brzezinski came on board as secretary of state and national security adviser, “We’ve lost. And I’ll quit.” Lost—because both men were powerful members of the Trilateral Commission and their appointment to key positions would signal a surrender of White House control to the Commission.

Vance and Brzezinski were appointed secretary of state and national security adviser, as Jordan feared. But he didn’t quit. He became Carter’s chief of staff. He gave up.

That’s the kind of power we’re talking about. Barack Obama would merely be a minor figure blowing in the wind, if the TC decided he’d betrayed them. Obama’s administration is stacked with TC members.

They could foment the sudden liberal opposition to this president, which has bloomed overnight like a mushroom in the dark.

No one at the moment is playing the race card for Obama, which has been an effective strategy. No one in the press is claiming that Obama’s Republican opponents are racists. Why not?

The IRS and DOJ scandals are manageable. By themselves, absent the press firestorm, they can be contained. Eric Holder can go. The IRS chief has already been dispatched to nowhere land. The president can claim immunity from these two doofuses. Indeed, he may try that.

As long as his liberal allies keeping pounding on the fact that he’s a great president who has been served badly by his inferiors, the ship could hold water. But right now, that’s not happening. The sudden sea change is swamping the boat.

Remember, with Watergate, we saw a successful attack on the US Attorney General, John Mitchell, on the way to nailing Nixon and knocking him out of the box. That Rockefeller operation worked like a magic machine.

Eric Holder, the current Attorney General, has just testified before Congress that he doesn’t know anything about anything. He’s pretty much said, “Ask me a question about any scandal and I’ll plead vast ignorance. That’s my defense.”

Holder is ripe for a takedown. And then the press hounds would be that much closer to pinning blame on Obama himself.

I’m not saying Obama will be impeached or will resign—although in politics, never say never. I’m saying his presidency, such as it is, could be destroyed very quicklyamong and by his own supporters.

The clue here, again, is the sudden and boggling liberal press turnaround, their all-out assault on Obama. This kind of thing doesn’t happen by accident. It certainly doesn’t happen from the bowels of the president’s rabid worshipers. But it is happening.

That means marching orders. That means screws have been turned by people who expect and demand and can count on obedience. Those people are players who live far above government. Government is their mechanism, as is the press, when it needs to be.

And right now, it needs to be.

Jon Rappoport

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

Contributed by Jon Rappoport of No More Fake News.

The author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.

In June of that year, natural gas was selling for $14 per thousand cubic feet. At the time, it appeared the U.S. was going to run out of natural gas, and it seemed like the perfect time to build new import facilities and take advantage of increased demand.

However, new hydraulic fracturing (fracking) technology changed the rules of the game. All of a sudden, natural gas was plentiful and cheap. As a result, gas prices plummeted.

So what happened to the energy company eager to import natural gas?

As you might expect, shares prices fell off a cliff.

Since then, things have turned around for Cheniere Energy (NYSE: LNG). In fact, the stock has gained an astonishing 2,568% since bottoming out five years ago.

If you’re a regular StreetAuthority reader, you’ve probably heard of Cheniere before. In December 2011, StreetAuthority resources expert Nathan Slaughter recommended Cheniere to the subscribers of hisJunior Resource Advisor newsletter.

Three months later, the stock had more than doubled.

So how did Cheniere achieve such a dramatic turnaround?

Well, instead of letting its new Sabine Pass import facility in Louisiana sit and rust, the company set to work securing contracts and refitting the facility for the export of natural gas.

By 2016, this facility is expected to export 500 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. And the company isn’t stopping there: Cheniere plans to build five more facilities by 2019, for a total investment of $12 billion.

The company hopes to export about 4% of current natural gas production to hungry markets overseas. Today, European and Asian markets are willing to pay an average of four times as much as U.S. consumers for natural gas.

Best of all, Cheniere is the only company given approval by the Department of Energy to export natural gas. Although this monopoly status is unlikely to last forever, it will allow the company to basically print money as long as it does.

The U.S. government has been slow to issue permits for the export of natural gas, and U.S. chemical companies like Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW) and Huntsman (NYSE: HUN) are pushing lawmakers to limit exports. Chemical companies are some of the largest domestic consumers of gas — for instance, Dow uses 850,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day — so it’s in their interest to keep supply levels high and prices down.

However, because Cheniere has already received approval to export, the political pushback should only help the company in the coming years by creating a barrier to entry for its competitors.

Cheniere continues to ink new deals that should serve it well in the future. Under aggressive CEO Charif Souki, the company has signed a $1.5 billion equity financing deal with Blackstone (NYSE: BX). As Forbes magazine recently reported, long-term contracts with BG Group, Total (NYSE: TOT), Korea Gas, India’s GAIL, Spain’s Fenosa and the U.K.’s Centrica will earn the company $2.6 billion a year in revenue when the Sabine Pass facility opens in 2016.

Cheniere’s stock is up almost 60% since the beginning of the year, and it’s trading near the top of its 52-week range. The company does not pay a dividend, so the stock is more appropriate for investors interested in growth, not dividend income.

How much growth are we talking about?

In 2012, Cheniere’s revenue totaled $266 million. So all things being equal, the company’s revenue is expected to increase nearly tenfold (to at least $2.6 billion) by 2016.

While the company will most likely plow a large portion of this increased revenue into new export facilities and paying off debt, shareholders could well be rewarded in the long run, as the U.S. energy boom is still in the early stages and shows no signs of slowing down.

Risks to Consider: While domestic competition will have a tough time catching up, Cheniere does face competition from exporters based overseas. There are currently major projects underway in Australia, Canada, Africa and Papua New Guinea that could compete with Cheniere for a piece of the lucrative Asian market.

Share prices are currently trading at high price-to-book (P/B) and price-to-sales (P/S) ratios (15 and 23, respectively) in relation to industry peers. These high valuations increase investor risk at today’s prices. In addition, Cheniere’s share price is subject to changes in the volatile natural gas market, something that is beyond the company’s control.

Action to Take –> Purchasing the stock at today’s prices is a speculative investment and only appropriate for investors willing to shoulder the risk. However, should prices pull back between now and September — and natural gas prices tend to rise in fall/winter months and decline in spring/summer months — I think buying Cheniere below $25 per share makes good sense. This share price is closer to the three-year moving average, yet it takes into account Cheniere’s future contracts, monopoly status and huge growth potential.

P.S. – If you’ve been looking to add resource stocks to your portfolio, now may be the time. The global trend for commodities is rising demand coupled with shrinking supplies. That’s why we’ve seen soaring prices for years… and it means short-term sell-offs can be rare buying opportunities. To learn more about Scarcity & Real Wealth, which focuses solely on the market’s best resource investments, visit this link.

America is simply not the economic powerhouse that it once was.  Back in 2001, the U.S. economy accounted for 31.8 percent of global GDP.  By 2011, the U.S. economy only accounted for 21.6 percent of global GDP.  That is a collapse any way that you want to look at it.

Today, American workers are living in an economy that is rapidly declining, and their jobs are steadily being stolen by robots, computers and foreign workers that live in countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.  Politicians from both political parties refuse to do anything to stop the bleeding because they think that the status quo is working just great.

So don’t expect things to get better any time soon.

The following are 10 amazing charts that demonstrate the slow, agonizing death of the American worker…

#1 Wages And Salaries As A Percentage Of GDP

As you can see, wages as a percentage of GDP are hovering near an all-time record low.  That means that American workers are bringing home a smaller share of the economic pie than ever before.

#2 Average Annual Hours Worked Per Employed Person In The United States

We are an economy that is rapidly trading good paying full-time jobs for low paying part-time jobs.  The decline in average annual hours worked that we have witnessed represents the equivalent of losing millions of jobs.  There has been an explosion of “the working poor” in the United States, and this trend is probably only going to accelerate in the years to come.

#3 Manufacturing Employment

As you can see, there are less Americans working in manufacturing today than there was in 1950 even though the population of the country has more than doubled since then.  The United States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001, and yet our politicians stand around and do nothing about it.

#4 Employment-Population Ratio

This is one of my favorite charts.  It shows that there has been absolutely no employment recovery at all since the end of the last recession.  The percentage of working age Americans that have a job has stayed under 59 percent for 44 months in a row.  How much worse will things get when the next major economic downturn strikes?

#5 Labor Force Participation Rate

This is how the Obama administration is getting the “unemployment rate” to magically go down.  They are pretending that millions upon millions of Americans simply do not want to work anymore.  As you will notice, the decline of the labor force participation rate has accelerated greatly since Barack Obama entered the White House.

#6 Duration Of Unemployment

The average amount of time that it takes an unemployed worker to find a new job has declined slightly, but it is still far above normal historical levels.  It is a crying shame that it takes the average unemployed worker two-thirds of a year to find a new job, but this is the new economic reality that we are all living in.

#7 Delinquency Rate On Residential Mortgages

Since there are not enough jobs for all of us, and since our wages are not rising as rapidly as the cost of living is, a whole bunch of us are falling behind on our mortgages.  As you can see, the mortgage delinquency rate has only dropped slightly and is still way, way above typical levels.

#8 New Homes Sold

American workers also don’t have enough money to go out and buy new homes either.  Yes, new home sales have rebounded slightly this year, but we are nowhere near where we used to be.

#9 Consumer Credit

Millions of American families continue to resort to going into debt in a desperate attempt to make ends meet.  After a slight interruption during the last recession, consumer credit once again is growing at a frightening pace.

#10 Self-Employment At A Record Low

Since there aren’t enough jobs for everyone, why aren’t more Americans trying to start their own businesses?  Well, the reality of the matter is that the government has made it exceedingly difficult to start your own business today.  Taxes, rules, regulations and red tape are choking the life out of millions of small businesses in the United States.  As a result, the percentage of self-employed Americans is at a record low.

As all of these long-term trends continue, the middle class will continue to shrink, poverty in America will continue to explode and government dependence will continue to rise.

The numbers don’t lie.  Today, the number of Americans on Social Security Disability now exceeds the entire population of Greece, and the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the entire population of Spain.

We are in the midst of a horrifying economic collapse, and the next major wave of that collapse is rapidly approaching.

Are you ready?

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the “Tyranny of the 401(k) Industry Complex.” The post was a commentary on an episode of PBS’s “Frontline,” which argued that the current defined-contribution retirement system is failing the country; financial-services companies make money while working Americans don’t, partially because these workers are getting ripped off, but also because the average American doesn’t have the time, skills, or inclination to manage their own retirement planning.

There was a good amount of debate in the comments section about whether retirement planning is all that difficult. I can see both sides, but in this post, I want to make it as simple as possible. If you follow this advice, you’ll be taking some big steps in the right direction. It’s not a perfect plan for each individual — feel free to add your own tips below — but it’s a solid strategy for those who have been frozen by “analysis paralysis” and have put off saving for retirement out of fear of making big mistakes.

Step 1: Save at least 10 percent to 15 percent of income, more if you’re starting late

The typical American is saving around 7 percent or 8 percent; that won’t be enough, especially for those who didn’t begin saving in their 20s. To help workers determine a good savings rate, the super-smart folks at Morningstar’s Ibbotson Associates came up with some good guidelines. Their assumptions:

• Retire at 65
• No cuts in Social Security benefits (Yes, it’s very possible that benefits will be cut, but most people should also retire later than age 65.)
• Inflation at 2.5 percent
• Income needed in retirement is 80 percent of pre-retirement income after retirement savings (e.g., if your household income is $100,000 a year, and you save $10,000 a year, your required retirement income is 80 percent of $90,000, or $72,000)

It’s an 11-page document full of fun (or not) charts, but since we’re trying to keep this simple, here’s a sample:

Here’s an example of how to use this: A 35-year-old who has already accumulated $50,000 would subtract 2.85 percent (5 x 0.57 percent) from 17.6 percent, resulting in a savings rate of 14.75 percent.

Keep in mind that your savings rate includes an employer match to your 401(k) contributions, if you’re lucky enough to have one. So if your employer matches 50 cents on the dollar up to a contribution rate of 6 percent, and you contribute 10 percent of your salary to your retirement plan, your actual savings rate is 13 percent.

All that said, if even looking at that chart makes you want to run away to Facebook, just do this for now: Save 10 percent to 15 percent of your salary if you’re in your 20s or early 30s, and bump it up five percentage points for every five years you delay saving. Yes, that might be more saving than you’re capable of. I’ll address that in my next post.

Step 2: Choose the traditional 401(k), then the Roth IRA

Another speed bump along the road to retirement savings is the decision between a traditional and Roth account. The easy solution: Choose both. Use the 401(k) up until you take full advantage of the match, then use a Roth IRA for the rest. Two benefits: You’re getting “tax diversification” by having both types of accounts, and you’re not putting all your eggs in the 401(k) basket. The latter benefit is partially what that “Frontline” episode discussed. The sad truth is, many employer-sponsored retirement accounts stink. But opening an IRA with a mutual fund company or discount broker gives you more choices at better prices.

Of course, choosing an IRA provider and opening the account is itself a speed bump. So start immediately contributing to your 401(k), then resolve to do the Roth IRA thing later. But if you know you won’t do it (self-awareness is a virtue!) then just get it all in the 401(k) — especially if you earn too much to contribute to a Roth IRA. (For 2013, the eligibility to make contributions phases out for single taxpayers with a modified adjusted gross income of $112,000 to $127,000, and 178,000 to $188,000 for married couples.)

Step 3: Choose a target retirement fund

Once you get your money into the account, you have to decide how to invest it. The easy answer: a target retirement mutual fund, which invests your money with a general retirement date in mind. The name of the fund always includes a year, and you choose the fund with the year closest to when you think you’ll retire. Based on that time horizon, the fund manager chooses an appropriate asset allocation — some U.S. stocks, some international stocks, some bonds, some cash — and then rebalances the portfolio for you, making the fund more conservative as the target date approaches. It’s essentially a one-stop-shop for hands-off investors.

While investing in just one fund may sound too risky, a target date fund is actually a “fund of funds” – i.e., a mutual fund that owns many other funds. Let’s look at an example. Consider the T. Rowe Price 2040 fund, a fine choice for people who aim to retire in 25 to 30 years. It owns the following funds (according to Morningstar):

Given that the year 2040 is a few decades away, this target retirement fund is mostly invested in stocks. As 2040 gets closer, the fund will gradually move from stocks to bonds all on its own. You don’t have to do anything.

Now, two caveats about target retirement funds:

1. Like all investments, they’ll drop in value. The T. Rowe Price 2040 fund dropped 38.9 percent in 2008, when the S&P 500 dropped 37.0 percent.
2. Investing in a target retirement fund doesn’t guarantee you’ll be able to retire on the target date. You still have to make sure you’re saving enough.

Step 4: As you get closer to retirement, monitor progress

Once you reach your 40s — and certainly your 50s, and definitely right before you retire — you need to do some number-crunching to make sure you’re on track.

You can use an online retirement calculator, and fiddle with the variables to see what has the biggest impact on your chances of success. You can also hire a financial planner who charges by the hour (such as some of the folks at the Garrett Planning Network and NAPFA) to give you an objective, professional analysis.

A fine start, but…

Voltaire is credited with the quote “perfect is the enemy of good.” Don’t put off saving for retirement until you know everything and feel that your plan will be perfect. After all, “perfect” retirement plan doesn’t exist, partially because there are too many variables that you don’t have control over (e.g., investment returns, inflation, the future of Social Security). But you can increase your chances of success. The advice in this post will get you going in the right direction. Put these wheels in motion, then take time to learn more and customize the plan for your situation. Maybe you need to save more or less. Maybe you can do better than a target retirement fund. Maybe you should have all your money in a Roth. The good news is, none of this is set in stone. Just start doing something now, and change later as you learn more.

GRS is committed to helping our readers save and achieve your financial goals. Savings interest rates may be low, but that’s all the more reason to shop for the best rate. Check out the top savings interest rates from Ally bank ,American Express and others.

Indeed the Fed’s foray into quantitative easing … now in its fourth installment (QEIV) since the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, has been widely credited with elevating stock prices. With the Dow Jones Industrials surging above the 15,000 mark, it makes sense why investors might be concerned about the Fed removing the punch bowl and spoiling the easy money bull market.

As shown in the chart below, the stock market’s rally since the 2009 lows has tracked nearly in lock-step with the Fed’s unprecedented monetary expansion.

Click for larger version

And it’s not just the Fed; this monetary parlor-game is global …

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has launched yet another asset purchase program to boost its ailing economy and stock market. There have been so many stimulus plans from the BOJ leading to so many false-starts in Japan over the past two lost decades that I’ve lost count. Perhaps this time it’s different.

If the Fed is too quick to curtail QEIV, it certainly has the potential to disrupt stock and bond markets.

Even the normally stoic European Central Bank threw in the towel recently and cut benchmark interest rates in hopes of stimulating its way out of a deepening recession. In fact, after recent interest rate reductions by South Korea, Australia, and Poland, the total number of global central bank rate cuts now stands at 510 worldwide since 2007 … and counting!

The world is awash in a sea of easy money, so much that it’s hard to imagine stocks continuing to rally without this stimulus. Naturally, the Fed’s eventual exit strategy is a matter of intense interest, not only to U.S. investors, but to markets around the world, which often take their cues from U.S. policy.

But this epidemic of anxiety about the end of easy money may be much ado about nothing.

Fed Bound to Keep the Money Flowing

Several Fed officials have recently made public comments about a potential exit strategy, and have openly spoken about “dialing back” the Fed’s current $85 billion per month in asset purchases, perhaps as soon as later this year. Not wanting to abruptly spoil the party, Richard Fisher, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas clarified by saying: “I don’t want to go from wild turkey to cold turkey.”

If the Fed is too quick to curtail QEIV, it certainly has the potential to disrupt financial markets, causing gyrations in stocks and bonds.

Should the Fed wait too long however, the inflation genie could slip out of the bottle, and the Fed will find itself hopelessly behind the curve in combating expectations of higher prices.

If the choice is between the Fed acting too soon, or too late, my money is on the punchbowl staying put for awhile.

The Fed is closely watching two flawed government data sets to determine monetary policy:

• The unemployment rate — now at 7.5 percent and declining, but it’s clear the Fed would be more comfortable with a lower jobless rate

• The rate of inflation — currently 1.5 percent, which is well below the Fed’s 2 percent comfort zone.

In other words, judging from the Fed’s preferred monetary policy indicators, flawed as they are, it seems clear they are bound to err on the side of easy money.

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The outcome of the Fed’s next monetary policy meeting in June may be watched more closely than usual, but I doubt the Fed will call an early end to QEIV anytime soon. My bet is the Fed will indeed end up well behind the curve.

Interviewed on CNBC yesterday, hedge fund manager David Tepper, who correctly turned ultra bullish on stocks when the Fed launched QEIV last year, believes concerns about an end to stimulus is overblown.

He explained that fears the Fed will end easy money is “a backwards argument.” In fact, he hopes the Fed does begin to curtail its bond buying sooner rather than later, because that would mean the private sector is healthy enough to drive the economy on its own, without need of artificial stimulus from the Fed.

Surely the Treasury Department can find better ways to invest taxpayers’ money than buying Treasury bonds at or near record low yields … and record high prices.

Good investing,

Mike Burnick

The recent revelation that the IRS has been specifically targeting patriot groups and Tea Party organizations for “extra scrutiny” has opened up the floodgates.  In recent days, a large number of highly respected people have come forward claiming that they were the subject of IRS audits that were politically motivated.

For example, Larry Conners, a respected local news anchor at KMOV Channel 4 in St. Louis, Missouri says that he was hit with an IRS audit almost immediately after he conducted an interview with Barack Obama in April 2012…

Shortly after I did my April 2012 interview with President Obama, my wife, friends and some viewers suggested that I might need to watch out for the IRS.

I don’t accept “conspiracy theories”, but I do know that almost immediately after the interview, the IRS started hammering me.

At the time, I dismissed the “co-incidence”, but now, I have concerns … after revelations about the IRS targeting various groups and their members.

Originally, the IRS apologized for red-flagging conservative groups and their members if they had “Tea Party” or “patriot” in their name.

Today, there are allegations that the IRS focused on various groups and/or individuals questioning or criticizing government spending, taxes, debt or how the government is run … any involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the constitution and bill of rights, or social economic reform/movement.

In that April 2012 interview, I questioned President Obama on several topics: the Buffet Rule, his public remarks about the Supreme Court before the ruling on the Affordable Care Act. I also asked why he wasn’t doing more to help Sen. Claire McCaskill who at that time was expected to lose. The Obama interview caught fire and got wide-spread attention because I questioned his spending.

I said some viewers expressed concern, saying they think he’s “out of touch” because of his personal and family trips in the midst of our economic crisis.

The President’s face clearly showed his anger; afterwards, his staff which had been so polite … suddenly went cold.

That’s to be expected, and I can deal with that just as I did with President George H. Bush’s staff when he didn’t like my questions.

Journalistic integrity is of the utmost importance to me. My job is to ask the hard questions, because I believe viewers have a right to be well-informed. I cannot and will not promote anyone’s agenda – political or otherwise – at the expense of the reporting the truth.

What I don’t like to even consider … is that because of the Obama interview … the IRS put a target on me.

Can I prove it? At this time, no.

But it is a fact that since that April 2012 interview … the IRS has been pressuring me.

Reverend Franklin Graham, the son of Reverend Billy Graham, recently wrote a letter to Barack Obama claiming that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse were both hit with IRS audits very shortly after they ran full-page ads supporting North Carolina’s Marriage amendment.  In fact, both organizations were notified about the audits on the same day.  The following is from a recent article posted on redstate.com…

The man known as America’s pastor was among those targeted by the Internal Revenue Service after the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association ran newspaper advertisements promoting traditional marriage and biblical values.

“I am bringing this to your attention because I believe that someone in the Administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us,” wrote Franklin Graham in a letter to President Obama. “This is morally wrong and unethical – indeed some would call it ‘un-American.’”

Graham is president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association as well as the international charity Samaritan’s Purse. Both organizations received word of audits on the same day – not long after they ran full –page ads supporting North Carolina’s Marriage amendment.

The ads encouraged voters to “cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel.”

The ad concluded with the words, “Vote for biblical values this November 6, and pray with me (Billy Graham) that America will remain one nation under God.”

Graham said on Sept. 6, 2012 they received notification that the IRS would audit their taxes.

“In light of what the IRS admitted to on Friday, May 10, 2013, and subsequent revelations from other sources, I do not believe that the IRS audit of our two organizations last year is a coincidence – or justifiable,” Graham wrote.

You can find a full copy of Franklin Graham’s letter to Barack Obamaright here.

The Blaze is reporting on another example of this phenomenon.  A respected Catholic professor that had written things critical of the Obama administration was hit with an IRS audit that she believes was politically motivated…

On Wednesday, Dr. Anne Hendershott, a devout Catholic and a noted sociologist, professor and author, exclusively told The Blaze that she believes she may have been one of the IRS’s targets.

According to Hendershott, the IRS audited her in 2010 and demanded to know who was paying her and “what their politics were.”

It all started with a phone call she received at her home in May of that year — a call during which Hendershott was told she would be audited. A letter that followed on May 19, 2010 solidified the IRS’s request to meet her in person two months later in July.

Unfortunately, these are not just isolated incidents.  In fact, attorney Cleta Mitchell recently told Newsmax that she has seen a systematic pattern of politically motivated IRS harassment that only began once Barack Obama entered the White House…

In the case of one such client, she and her family subsequently became targets for audits to their personal and business tax returns, and were even visited by three different government agencies. She also knows of other groups who had surprise visits from the FBI after they applied for IRS status.

Mitchell said she doesn’t believe the president or the White House was uninvolved in the IRS activities, as the administration has claimed.

“I’ve thought for some time that this is politically motivated and that’s the reason it was happening. And, as I said, I’ve been doing this for more than 20 years and I’ve never seen anything like this until 2009, 2010. And the only thing that changed was we had a different administration,” she said.

There are some that have been trying to bring awareness to these politically motivated audits for quite some time.  One of these individuals is a former classmate of Obama’s named Wayne Allyn Root…

“I feel like a million bucks. I feel absolutely vindicated. I knew this was going on,” Wayne Allyn Root told WND.

Root, the Libertarian Party vice-presidential candidate in 2008 who has claimed Obama was strangely unknown to him and his fellow Columbia University classmates, recounted his story to WND last October of becoming the target of unusual audits, beginning in January 2011, despite a “spotless” 30-year tax record.

He charged in October that the order to audit him came from Obama himself, and he is even more convinced now.

“I believe this is not rogue agents, who would be risking their pension and careers,” he said.

In October, Root said the order to audit him “must have come from the highest levels of government.”

“Obama is using the power of the IRS and other government agencies to punish his political opposition and intimidate and silence his critics,” Root charged at the time.

In that same article, a number of other examples of this phenomenon were cited…

Last year, billionaire Frank VanderSloot became the target of investigations by both the IRS and the Labor Department after he gave $1 million to a super PAC that supported Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. The GOP’s biggest donor, Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, said a federal criminal investigation into his company’s business practices was politically motivated. Another casino giant, Steve Wynn, also has been investigated.

This week, Root has received many emails from people who identify as conservative and believe the IRS has been harassing them for political reasons.

What happened to businessman Frank VanderSloot is particularly noteworthy.  The following is from an article that Rob Bluey authoredlast year…

On April 20, President Obama’s campaign named VanderSloot to the first presidential “enemies list” since the Nixon era. Eight private citizens were singled out for their donations to Romney. They committed no crimes, sought no attention, and yet they became the subject of Obama’s scorn.

VanderSloot is now facing persecution from the federal government. Kimberly Strassel reveals in The Wall Street Journal that two federal agencies — the Internal Revenue Service and Labor Department — both launched investigations of VanderSloot after his name appeared on Obama’s enemies list.

No matter what you think of Obama’s politics, shouldn’t we all be deeply alarmed that he has an “enemies list”?

With each passing day, the similarities between Barack Obama and Richard Nixon become more glaring.

And Obama has even joked about sending the IRS after people that he does not like.  When Obama found out that he was not going to be receiving an honorary doctorate from Arizona State University, he made the following statement…

“President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.”

The IRS is not supposed to be used as a weapon, and the White House is not allowed to use information gathered by the IRS for political gain either.  But apparently last year someone at the IRS was leaking tax information to someone within the Obama campaign.  The following is from a recent article by Matt K. Lewis…

A little over a year ago, I reported that, ”It is likely that someone at the Internal Revenue Service illegally leaked confidential donor information showing a contribution from Mitt Romney’s political action committee to the National Organization for Marriage, says the group.”

Now — on the heels of news the IRS’s apology for having targeted conservative groups — NOM is renewing their demand that the Internal Revenue Service reveal the identity of the people responsible.

“There is little question that one or more employees at the IRS stole our confidential tax return and leaked it to our political enemies, in violation of federal law,” said NOM’s president Brian Brow, in a prepared statement. “The only questions are who did it, and whether there was any knowledge or coordination between people in the White House, the Obama reelection campaign and the Human Rights Campaign. We and the American people deserve answers.”

The IRS has been doing all sorts of things that they should not be doing.  They are a rogue agency that is completely out of control.

In fact, one new lawsuit alleges that the IRS stole the health records of approximately 10 million Americans…

The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.

According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.     “This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents,” the complaint reads. “No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records,” it continued.

And guess what?

The IRS is going to be the primary government agency in charge of implementing Obamacare.

Will we soon see the IRS use health information to attack the political enemies of the man or woman sitting in the White House?

Unfortunately, thanks to new “Big Brother” technology that the IRS has been implementing, pretty soon there will be very little about us that the IRS does not know.  The following is from a recent article by Richard Satran of U.S. News & World Report…

Consumers are already familiar with Internet “cookies” that track their movements and send them targeted ads that follow them to different websites. The IRS has brought in private industry experts to employ similar digital tracking—but with the added advantage of access to Social Security numbers, health records, credit card transactions and many other privileged forms of information that marketers don’t see.

“Private industry would be envious if they knew what our models are,” boasted Dean Silverman, the agency’s high-tech top gun who heads a group recruited from the private sector to update the IRS, in a comment reported in trade publications.

So what is the IRS going to do with all of this information?

Well, the following are just a few of the things that they have already said that they plan to do with it…

• Charting and analyzing social media such as Facebook

• Targeting audits by matching tax filings to social media or electronic payments

• Tracking individual Internet addresses and emailing patterns

• Sorting data in 32,000 categories of metadata and 1 million unique “attributes”

• Machine learning across “neural” networks

• Statistical and agent-based modeling

• Relationship analysis based on Social Security numbers and other personal identifiers

So are you alarmed by all of this?

You should be.

As I discussed in my previous article entitled  “100 Years Old And Still Killing Us: America Was Much Better Off Before The Income Tax“, Congress should close the doors of the IRS and throw away the key.  It is a deeply, deeply corrupt government agency that has gotten wildly out of control.

After what you have just read above, is there anyone out there that would disagree with me?

Since its November bottom, the broad market has gained about 22%. That’s a few years’ worth of gains in a short time. And as my colleague Jeff Clark has pointed out, a lot of stocks are overextended to the upside.

But one place we can still search for “bargain bin” value is the uranium sector…

For the past six months, I’ve been writing about the building supply/demand crunch coming in the uranium market.

Uranium is the fuel that powers nuclear reactors. Physical uranium and uranium stocks were crushed after the 2011 Japanese nuclear disaster. But over the past year or so, the sector has managed to put in a tradable bottom.

Since uranium stocks are badly oversold and since uranium demand will keep rising, the situation presents the opportunity to make enormous gains.

You can monitor this situation with shares of Cameco (NYSE: CCJ). It’s by far the largest publicly traded uranium producer. It’s the “ExxonMobil of uranium.”

Cameco has a collection of world-class uranium assets… and I still like the looks of its long-term chart. As you can see in the chart below, Cameco was hammered after Japan’s nuclear disaster. But notice that the uranium blue chip has spent the past 18 months “digesting” its huge loss…

I believe this sideways trading range is a good place to pick up Cameco shares. It represents the worst the sellers could throw at it.

Now, given the bullish uranium picture, the path of least resistance is up for Cameco and the rest of the sector.

Good investing,

Matt Badiali

Further Reading:

Last week, Matt gave readers a rundown of the latest news in the uranium sector. “It’s possible we’ve seen the final bottom,” he writes. Learn why here: A Major Source of Energy Demand Is Set to Hit the Market.

And read more about another market shift that could trigger an increase in uranium prices here: Where to Find 100% Returns in Natural Resources.

He made tons of money in the stock market in a short period of time, but his actions were driven solely by excess greed, refusing any advice to lighten his positions. He had a sense of invincibility and felt the stock market was heading much higher.

In 2000, when the NASDAQ traded above 5,000, my overconfident friend was so extremely bullish on the stock market that he decided to take out a reverse mortgage on his parent’s home to play stocks. He promised great returns, early retirement, and a new lifestyle.

The problem was he was investing in speculative issues that had minimal history and financial success. He thought the NASDAQ could rise another 30%.

At that level, he was thinking he would make over a million dollars, pay back the mortgage, and quit his day job to become a day trader.

Luckily, he did not quit his day job, as it’s the only thing he had left after the stock market imploded in early 2000.

New bubbles come and go. Each one is different and driven by different factors—the only commonality is greed.

We are hearing some whispers that this current stock market is bubble-like. While I’m not fully in agreement, I do feel the rally in the stock market to record highs has largely been driven by the Federal Reserve’s easy monetary policy, as is the case with stock markets around the world as global central banks from Europe to Asia cut interest rates.

The reality is there is no viable alternative in which to invest your money other than the stock market. Investment-grade bonds are yielding very little, and unless you are willing to take the risk and invest in bonds in Greece, Spain, Italy, or Portugal, you are out of luck.

There is little choice at this time. I don’t think the stock market is in a bubble yet, as long as the Fed maintains its easy money flow. But you should be careful; interest rates will inevitably rise, and then we’ll see traders making a mad dash toward the exits.

At this juncture, don’t fight the trend. (Read “S&P 500 Could Hit 1,700, but Weaker Stock Cycle Ahead.”) You will never win.

Ride the stock market higher, but at the same time, understand the current rate of the advance this year is not sustainable.

Yes, I feel there will be a pending correction; I’m just not sure when it will happen and by how much. The only thing I know is that a stock market correction will provide a buying opportunity.

Remember the story of my friend; look to lighten up on some of your bigger winners, especially those in the growth and technology areas.

Take some profits off across the board. There’s no shame in this. Greed is not your friend.