When the government steals your earnings through taxes at every level, the money for your bills has to come from some place else.

At least they are spending it, versus the government seizing it like in Cyprus to spend to correct their screw ups.

Sadly, many of those 25% voted for this situation.

Better them than the government. It´s coming folks.

Actually, this isn´t a bug but a feature of the Obama plan to not just tax the earnings of the middle class but to have them divest themselves of their assets as well. This truly is the fleecing of America by the Marxist and his thugs.

The future´s not set. There´s no fate but what we make for ourselves. ~~ John Connor

There are close to $19 Trillion in 401/403k accounts. The ´RATs are already talking about that being an easy ´fix´ to the National debt. The spenders might turn out to wiser than the frugal ones .

Yes it´s true. The District of Columbia has turned into one giant sucking machine, as in vacuum cleaner, under the benevolent Marxist reign of Emperor Zero. Time for a change of "appello"...How does The District of Oreckville sound?

Welcome to obama´s vision of the USA; high unemployment, high taxes, high gas prices, high dependance on big government.

65 million ignorant people voted for this buffoon... Now the other 245 million of us have to deal with his anti-American agenda.

The dems figured out the magical formula. Do NOT try to talk intelligent or rational - that´s too hard and impossible when it flies in the face of common sense. Instead, appeal to the Low Information Voter (give them free stuff) and then do everything in your power to get them to the polls on voting day. Actually, use "immigration reform", allow felons to vote, buss in indigents and have them vote multiple times and for gawd´s sake, screech about voter ID like its the worst thing in the world.

NOTHING matters at all up until Election Day. The dems could just save their money on primaries and everything else because they have the formula.

As other posters have said, why not spend it now before the government seizes it for the, cough, national good.

Posters get it right [yet again!].

Though in a rational world, in a functioning economy without gov´t know-it-alls constantly "helping" it and "fixing" it, such steps would certainly be self-destructive -- well, with that gov´t interference, with those gov´t-caused disruptions, with gov´t already long-ago having raided Social Security, with gov´t having raided Medicare, with gov´t for decades punishing the play-by-the-rules good guys to buy votes from the parasitic destroyers who get more and more opportunities to shed responsibilities, with the thieves in gov´t long having private savings at the top of the list of Private Property To Be Seized -- with all that and more, we get to a point where doing the wrong thing [spending your savings] might turn out to be your best, and maybe last, chance to use your money yourself.

Lessee... chicken feathers? Check. Fence rails? Check. Tar? Check....

FTA "American workers withdrawing money from 401(k)s or taking out loans against their accounts jumped 12 percent since 2008."

What in the world happened in 2008 that would cause people to take out their 401k´s? /s

Yes, and what is your point, LA Times?

A tiny house on a few acres of tillable land/forest is where I´m thinking of using mine. I just hope I can get that done in the near future before the king says I have to ´donate´ it to some needy LoFos.

Just as obami wants it. W/o savings the people become wards of the state

Don´t get sucked into the trap that 65m voted for Obama... they didn´t; OFA voted for them, off the SS database & with the help from Soro´s owned machines & software.

Without major reform, they´ll do it again in 2016... Stupid dem cogress critters are openly bragging to their constituents about The List....

BTW... The reason Pelosi & Obama say there is no debt problem.. They are counting our 401k´s as their $$.

There´s another thing different about this generation that everyone overlooks: this is probably the first generation where a significant percentage of the population is getting a sizable inheritance.

The other thing that is different now is that a lot of people have kids who won´t be done with college until the parents are in their late 60´s or even early 70´s. These people are not planning on retiring anywhere near 65.

I borrowed from my 401k because I knew I would be getting an inheritance in the next few years. Now I´ve paid off my debts and I have a nest egg and I can set more aside for retirement.

I know a lot of other people who´ve done the same.

The ironic thing is, when you take money from your 401K early, the government takes even MORE of it.
But don´t worry, we´ll always have our social security checks to live on. /s off/

Beware...that is how I ended up with no retirement and a ton of tax debt!! Of course, nobody can afford to buy groceries anymore since everything costs 2-3 times more now since the price of gas skyrocketed and taxes for everything...especially sales taxes have gone up again.

I saw the first article about our 401K´s in January before King Putt was sworn in and have seen several since. I´m quite often tempted to pull mine and put it in a can in the back yard. Can´t do any worse except for the $$ Uncle Sugar will get.