Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Catholic Living in the Modern World => Topic started by: FeeneyFan on June 04, 2019, 09:59:44 PM
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I have a 401k that I had from an old job before I converted. I want to rollover this money into investments that would align with the traditional Catholic faith. Unfortunately the “Catholic” mutual funds like Ave Maria Mutual Funds have investments in bank stocks and/or bonds.
I have found a few Moslem firms that offer “Shariah compliant funds” which avoid bank stocks and bonds. However when reviewing the income statement of the companies they invest in they all have interest income listed albeit this is normally not an extremely significant amount.
I really don’t want to have to take the penalty for withdrawing early I would prefer to be able to find an investment that is pleasing to God and not tainted with usurious income but this is proving extremely hard. I have spent much time trying to figure out what to do and it bothers me very much. If anyone could offer some advice it would be much appreciated. Thank you.
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Advice?
The jews will steal our investments anyway, so focus about your Heavenly bank account.
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If you want to keep your 401k active, you’ll have to invest in some type of fund that’s connected to the markets...which I believe (at least in the US) are headed for a downturn. If you listen to economists like Peter Schiff or Lynette Zang or Jim Willie, they all say we’re headed for huge market problems - high inflation, market losses and economic chaos.
If it were me, I’d take the hit and cash out and I’d use the $ to buy long-term food, silver, pay off your debts and some ammo. Start planning for turbulent times. Plan for food shortages and maybe worse.
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You say you are a single guy of 30. Do you own a home? Are you looking to marry? I would suggest property of some sort.
I am not American, so what would 401K buy you?
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Roll it over into an online account like Ameritrade or Fidelity or ? and control the whole thing yourself. You can invest in whatever you want, and you can add and withdraw (with penalty) funds as you like.
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If it is a 401k (i.e., employer-sponsored fund), there isn't really anything you can do to get away from the banksters.
Leave the money in there and let it grow. When the time comes to receive penalty-free distributions upon retirement, be generous in having Masses said for your deceased family members, priests, and the poor souls. Help the poor.
Going forward, you have the option to cease making future contributions to this fund, and instead, with the money you would have contributed to the 401k, start investing with post-tax dollars in things like real estate (land), physical metals, Gold/Silver IRA's which are backed by physical silver/gold; etc.
PS: Also important to keep in mind the difference between productive and non-productive loans: The former has never been condemned; the latter has been condemned. In other words, one way to invest is to become a financier of ventures (i.e., you finance someone with a good business idea, and receive a percentage of the profits earned). That is called a productive loan, and is distinct from interest. See Dr. Davis Allen White's talk in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" for a good discussion of WHY interest/usury was condemned.
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You should detach yourself from "the penalty" as well as being different from everybody else. You should happily embrace both.
Just be glad you have a 401K to cash in! Think of all the Gen X and Millennials who don't even have such a nest egg to worry about!
The penalty is a small price to pay considering the BIG CRASH hasn't happened yet -- after that, you'll be left with near nothing. Git while the gittin's good!
Once you cash it in, pay off ANY debts including your mortgage, and invest it in equipment, supplies, and if you have cash left over, keep some in cash and then put the rest in physical gold, which has never been considered worthless since Adam & Eve were created.
Stocks, bonds, and cash have been worthless more times than historians can count.
If the stock market crashed, my 5 acres wouldn't magically shrink to 2 acres, 1 acre, or even 1/4 of an acre! But such reductions in wealth have happened DOZENS OF TIMES with fiat currencies, and stock market crashes.
Be smart.
The stock market is gambling. Consider yourself at Vegas, having won (however much is in your 401K). What do you do? "Let it ride", or cash in your chips and call yourself lucky?
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And if you are taking comfort that you have this big nest egg -- in the Stock Market or cash no less! -- but have no other "preparations" for the future, you're being a fool to be honest.
Being prepared ("prepped" as it were) for the future takes a lot more than a pile of cash, and certainly more than a bunch of e-cash or stock market 1s and 0s!
How about the 8 Gs?
God - your spiritual house in order, this would also count having a chapel nearby that you have supported for missionary priests to say Mass, spiritual books, etc. Your home should be a mini church of sorts
Gold - Financial resources - includes silver, some physical cash, and barter items
Guns - any means of security and self-defense. Besides things bought at a gun shop, there's cinder blocks, plywood in storage in case you need to cover windows, etc.
Grain - food, water, and medicine
Goods - supplies to produce more of these by hand - water filters, garden equipment, wood chipper, composting equipment, survival books, etc. Plus repair supplies to maintain everything by yourself -- including your family, house, garden, vehicles, etc.
Ground - owning land. This includes moving to and/or living in the right geographic location, and being debt-free wherever you are.
Grasp - Knowledge and hands-on experience of practical things. Not just a stack of books, but internal, tested knowledge and muscle memory. They can never take knowledge from you. Invest money in training, not just physical stuff. 1000 rounds in storage and 9000 rounds put downrange* is better than having 10K rounds in storage that will do you no good!
Group - getting to know your neighbors, forming relationships and groups BEFORE the collapse. Working with others will be vital in any collapse scenario. Even a Bingo club would be better than having no pre-existing social net.
*Note: I haven't gone to the range yet myself, but I just learned this and it's certainly true.
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Thanks everyone for your advice... I think it’s clear now that I should cash it out so as to avoid making money through usury. Thank you Matthew for your advice too I think your post pushed me over the edge to stop worrying about the penalty and what others will think. God bless you all.
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Thanks everyone for your advice... I think it’s clear now that I should cash it out so as to avoid making money through usury. Thank you Matthew for your advice too I think your post pushed me over the edge to stop worrying about the penalty and what others will think. God bless you all.
Epic imprudence!!
May I advise you to speak with a priest before squandering 40% of your savings based of armchair advice???
Foolish!!
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Somebody call a priest!
(just not a neoSSPX one) :farmer:
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"Ah my dear faithful FeeneyFan... we could use your 401K funds to help the Society save the Catholic Church"
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Even the moral implications here that seem to be taken for granted are probably wrong.
Are you a formal or merely material participant in usury simply by investing your money in a mutual fund that sometimes buys bank stocks?
You can probably find funds that do not hold bank funds (that are specialized in certain ways).
Unless you are personally loaning out money to people and extracting interest, your participation in usury would only be material, and material participation can be justified morally under certain conditions.
So, you absolutely need to speak with a priest here.
Matthew, isn't this the same mentality that you've rebuked as the people who refuse to shop at certain retailers because they support immoral causes?
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If it is a 401k (i.e., employer-sponsored fund), there isn't really anything you can do to get away from the banksters.
Leave the money in there and let it grow. When the time comes to receive penalty-free distributions upon retirement, be generous in having Masses said for your deceased family members, priests, and the poor souls. Help the poor.
Going forward, you have the option to cease making future contributions to this fund, and instead, with the money you would have contributed to the 401k, start investing with post-tax dollars in things like real estate (land), physical metals, Gold/Silver IRA's which are backed by physical silver/gold; etc.
PS: Also important to keep in mind the difference between productive and non-productive loans: The former has never been condemned; the latter has been condemned. In other words, one way to invest is to become a financier of ventures (i.e., you finance someone with a good business idea, and receive a percentage of the profits earned). That is called a productive loan, and is distinct from interest. See Dr. Davis Allen White's talk in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" for a good discussion of WHY interest/usury was condemned.
Do you have a link to “David Allen White's talk in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice"”?
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I really don't understand the whole usury debate. So many conflicting thoughts. Apologists say things. But anyway is it okay to have a savings account, or is that usury? I have a savings account. Right now I have about a thousand dollars in the savings account. So far this year I have received 2 pennies in interest payments. Pretty soon I will be rich. The Jews who own my bank are so generous.
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Do you have a link to “David Allen White's talk in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice"”?
So far as I am aware, it is only available here:
http://stmarcelinitiative.com/bookstore/products/The-Christian-Comedy-of-Shakespeare%27s-The-Merchant-of-Venice-%252d-Part-I.html (http://stmarcelinitiative.com/bookstore/products/The-Christian-Comedy-of-Shakespeare%27s-The-Merchant-of-Venice-%252d-Part-I.html)
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One interesting observation Dr. White makes in the conference is that Dante placed both the usurers and the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs in the same circle of hell (ie., the circle of the violent).
An interesting pairing, no?
The reason is because the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs do violence against nature by taking that which is meant to be fertile and making it barren, whereas the usurer does violence against nature by taking that which is meant to be barren and making it fertile.
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Even the moral implications here that seem to be taken for granted are probably wrong.
Are you a formal or merely material participant in usury simply by investing your money in a mutual fund that sometimes buys bank stocks?
You can probably find funds that do not hold bank funds (that are specialized in certain ways).
Unless you are personally loaning out money to people and extracting interest, your participation in usury would only be material, and material participation can be justified morally under certain conditions.
So, you absolutely need to speak with a priest here.
Matthew, isn't this the same mentality that you've rebuked as the people who refuse to shop at certain retailers because they support immoral causes?
Ladislaus would investing in stocks that are in some form of licit business but also have interest income be ok? For example an oil company that makes most of its profit refining oil but also has some money in interest-bearing accounts?
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Usury is hard to define today as wrong unless it’s excessive because global inflation and the rise in prices makes it necessary to charge interest unless it’s a really short term loan. Usury was wrong in former times because money held its value so a long term loan didn’t hurt the lender. Today, $20 will buy 5 gallons of milk. 5 years ago, the same $20 would buy 7 gallons. Due to the loss of money value, interest is necessary. In my opinion, an example of usury today are credit card rates, such as 15% or higher.
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Usury is hard to define today as wrong unless it’s excessive because global inflation and the rise in prices makes it necessary to charge interest unless it’s a really short term loan. Usury was wrong in former times because money held its value so a long term loan didn’t hurt the lender. Today, $20 will buy 5 gallons of milk. 5 years ago, the same $20 would buy 7 gallons. Due to the loss of money value, interest is necessary. In my opinion, an example of usury today are credit card rates, such as 15% or higher.
Inflation is a consequence of usurious monetary policy (eg., our “fractional reserve” system), but neither it, nor the term of a loan, is the essence of the evil of usury which, as explained earlier, is evil because it does violence to nature (and therefore the author of nature), by making that which is intended to be barren fruitful.
A loan of one penny for 1 day at 1% interest would still be considered usury, and evil for the aforementioned reason (though usury allows for parvity of matter).
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Usury is hard to define today as wrong unless it’s excessive because global inflation and the rise in prices makes it necessary to charge interest unless it’s a really short term loan. Usury was wrong in former times because money held its value so a long term loan didn’t hurt the lender. Today, $20 will buy 5 gallons of milk. 5 years ago, the same $20 would buy 7 gallons. Due to the loss of money value, interest is necessary. In my opinion, an example of usury today are credit card rates, such as 15% or higher.
I tend to agree with you here. I think that the only way to get back to a sound system is to go back to the gold standard.
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Epic imprudence!!
May I advise you to speak with a priest before squandering 40% of your savings based of armchair advice???
Foolish!!
I think I will speak to a priest first but I don’t know if that will change my mind. I had been thinking of rolling over with brokerage IRA and choosing my own stocks.
When looking for stocks that you would think would be ok I found that all or most have interest income listed on their income statements. In your other post on this thread you say that one penny loaned at 1% is still evil. So wouldn’t investing in a stock that makes some interest income be evil as well?
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Ladislaus would investing in stocks that are in some form of licit business but also have interest income be ok? For example an oil company that makes most of its profit refining oil but also has some money in interest-bearing accounts?
I would not have an issue with that, but I would check with a priest first.
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Usury in modern banking is a bit tricky.
So, for instance, there's a cost to keep services running (customer service people, computer systems/IT, buildings, etc.) ... so it's a bit different than old Shylock handing you gold and demanding 50% back for doing nothing. Also, the business incurs loss when people default on loans. Businesses are allowed to pay their employees and make profit. So they could either do that with a flat fee system or make it graduated in proportion to how much money one has on loan. I believe that the graduate (aka interest) system is OK because the institution incurs increasing risk as the amount of money increases, so the risk is proportionate to the amount of money on loan. So it's like saying insurance companies can charge more for people with health problems in the past or with a poor driving history.
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I think I will speak to a priest first but I don’t know if that will change my mind. I had been thinking of rolling over with brokerage IRA and choosing my own stocks.
Strongly consider taking more control of the 401k. Some businesses don't provide many options, so that might mean rolling it over to another company (eg Ameritrade) that will let you select the stocks and funds.
If you take money out of that 401k today, you pay taxes and a penalty on it, and you can't just put it back the same. You're only 30, you have a lot to benefit from compounding returns. If you don't need the money for something else, you are probably better off keeping it in a tax-benefitted IRA.
Yes, a market correction is due. My investment advisor (with a big investment company, and not a "prepper" by any standard) started saying so 3 years ago. We've now had 10 straight years of bull markets. How many 10-year bull markets have their been? One. This one.
You can invest in stocks or funds that are likely to handle a downturn.
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When a business borrows money and pays interest on the loan, isn't that more a sharing of the profits of the business than usuary?
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What's really garbage is the Federal Reserve system, where banks borrow money at next-to-no interest from the Fed. What are Fed notes backed by? By the people. In other words, they're borrowing money from us and then lending it back to us at interest. At least the old-fashioned Jew usurer gave you his own gold (ill-gotten as it was). Here the Jew borrows gold from you, then gives you the gold and demands it back with interest. They're laughing all the way to ... well, to their perdition.
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They're laughing all the way to ... well, to their perdition.
Yes. I think it would be interesting if Jews secretly had themselves baptized on their deathbeds so they would have a chance at salvation after spending their lives serving Satan. Like if that was common.
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I think I will speak to a priest first but I don’t know if that will change my mind. I had been thinking of rolling over with brokerage IRA and choosing my own stocks.
When looking for stocks that you would think would be ok I found that all or most have interest income listed on their income statements. In your other post on this thread you say that one penny loaned at 1% is still evil. So wouldn’t investing in a stock that makes some interest income be evil as well?
I took the penalty and closed my 401K about 17 years ago. Dumb move. I don't know but I don't think they had online brokerages that handled IRAs or 401Ks at the time, but I wish someone at that time would have told me to roll it over into one of those. That would have most definitely been a very smart move.
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The thing is we are supposed to have properly formed consciences to act on them properly, you need to speak to a priest who is knowledgeable in financial matters. Avoid most younger priests (the SSPX in particular seems to ordain children with no real world experience in the US ever since +Williamson was moved from the seminary) they lack enough knowledge
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I have a 401k that I had from an old job before I converted. I want to rollover this money into investments that would align with the traditional Catholic faith. Unfortunately the “Catholic” mutual funds like Ave Maria Mutual Funds have investments in bank stocks and/or bonds.
I have found a few Moslem firms that offer “Shariah compliant funds” which avoid bank stocks and bonds. However when reviewing the income statement of the companies they invest in they all have interest income listed albeit this is normally not an extremely significant amount.
I really don’t want to have to take the penalty for withdrawing early I would prefer to be able to find an investment that is pleasing to God and not tainted with usurious income but this is proving extremely hard. I have spent much time trying to figure out what to do and it bothers me very much. If anyone could offer some advice it would be much appreciated. Thank you.
Do yourself a favor and define usurious income before you do anything.
I've been a businessman for 45 years now, and banks are my least expensive source for money. If I partner up with someone I have to pay 50% and put up with them butting into my business, while banks charge me say 8% and leave me to run my business. I would not call that usury, and no one would call the partner taking 50% usury either, as it is normal.
If banks did not loan out money for home purchases, practically no one would own a home. I would not call that usury.
If someone borrows money from a bank to buy luxuries he can't afford, he is a fool, but the bank is no usurious, for their rates are very low.
Credit card company loans are usurious, and anyone that uses credit cards to buy luxuries is a fool.
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..you need to speak to a priest who is knowledgeable in financial matters.
I don't ask my financial consultants about spiritual advice, nor my priest about financial advice.
Easier to find a real Catholic financial consultant
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I don't ask my financial consultants about spiritual advice, nor my priest about financial advice.
Easier to find a real Catholic financial consultant
Careful you don’t fall into Lockean nominalism, which asserts a division between business and morality.
I would say a Fr. Fahey type priest would be an ideal consultant.
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Right, and careful not to use the legal definition of "usury" vs. a Catholic one. In legal terms, only exorbitant interest is usury, but in Catholic terms, any interest is. As I said, though, modern banking is a little different because of the costs and overhead required to operate the business. They have to make money somehow, and you can consider the interest as helping pay for their operations.
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Right, and careful not to use the legal definition of "usury" vs. a Catholic one. In legal terms, only exorbitant interest is usury, but in Catholic terms, any interest is. As I said, though, modern banking is a little different because of the costs and overhead required to operate the business. They have to make money somehow, and you can consider the interest as helping pay for their operations.
Lad, correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that in Catholic terms, usury was the accruing of interest only from non-productive loans.