Does anyone know if the government can borrow money from your savings account?

Sometimes I wonder where my son comes up with stuff. He asked me not long ago if I was aware that the guy running the country here, and we’ll leave his name out, is trying to pass a law so that the government can basically take and use the money in your bank account. I guess this is called a bail-in law. My response was to stare at him, wondering if he’d lost his mind and was messing with me. “Yeah, there’s no way,” I replied. “And why would they do that?”

He pointed out to me that this is already in Greece, and other countries are following. So I stared at him, wondering why he drops these little bombs on me at times—likely because he figures he’s smarter than me. After thinking about it a little too long, I told him I would look into it. I know very little about the massive legislation than can happen with the flick of a pen behind the scenes. You know why? Because I’m writing books, marketing them, and doing the tons and tons of work that goes into selling them so I can make money to feed my kids and keep a roof over our heads! It basically comes down to trust, not wondering what harebrained thing is going on behind the scenes. I assumed it was “fake news,” a term I hear from too many places and have found myself unfortunately assuming as a go-to as of late.

But on looking into what my son had said, I discovered a lot more than I wanted to know. There it was, sure enough:

With a bank bail-in, the bank uses the money of its unsecured creditors, including depositors and bondholders, to restructure their capital so it can stay afloat. … A bank can undergo a bail-in quickly through a resolution proceeding, which provides immediate relief to the bank.

In other words, bail-ins will not add to the government’s deficit. It will simply allow banks and financial institutions at risk of failing to take some of your deposits to bail themselves out. … If they become insolvent and a disaster strikes, it would trigger orderly liquidation authority – essentially a bail-in.

And here is another fact: Governments have a history of needing more than their citizens’ tax money to pay their bills, and if the situation is bad enough, they don’t shy away from targeting your personal assets.

Does that leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling, as it did me? It certainly had me saying a few choice words as my son walked away, having brought me out of my happy place with the thought that my money, which I’ve worked my ass off for, could just be taken. It left me with a really uncomfortable feeling. Anyone who knows history, and I’ll be the first to admit that there’s too much I don’t know yet should, knows that history teaches us that unprecedented causes lead to unprecedented consequences.

Speaking of history, who should be your go-to, your parents, your grandparents? I had a conversation with my elderly mother yesterday about the 1930s, the depression, and asked her, “Hey, what really happened during that time?” One thing many have forgotten is that in the 1930s, the US president confiscated everyone’s gold savings under penalty of imprisonment and heavy fines. He paid everyone $20.67 per ounce of gold he confiscated. Then, after all the gold was collected, he immediately increased the price to $35, dropping the purchasing power of all Americans’ cash holdings by nearly 40% literally overnight. Then gold was illegal to own or possess until the early 1970s.

During this chat with my mother, she replied, “Oh, yeah, I guess that did happen.” But then, my grandparents had a farm and six children, and they grew their own food and raised pigs, chickens, so they were okay. If you didn’t have your own farm and weren’t self-sufficient, it was a hard time.

With all the crazy shit going on everywhere, on top of the little bomb of information my son dropped, I found myself going back to a blog post I wrote a few years back. Remember the blog “Where focus goes, energy goes”? People fear what they don’t understand and hate what they can’t conquer, and let me tell you, it is so easy to go to the doom and gloom when the world is focusing on that. Take one thing at a time, and focus on that one thing when you feel yourself getting overwhelmed.

When I wrote that post, I had an incredible amount coming at me, and right now, with the craziness going on and what seems to be a mob mentality and panic taking over, I think it’s more important than ever to look after yourself and your family first. Remember that if you allow yourself to listen to hysteria, panic, and the big picture of all the problems out there, you can spend your day so wound up, terrified and filled with the poison of anxiety, worry, and fear. What comes out of fear is anger, and it is human nature to be angry at someone—you know, to play the blame game.

Dial it in and keep your focus forward. Work on what you can fix and do, and remember to look after yourself first before you help someone else. When you keep your focus forward, that’s where your energy goes. Either you can become a product of the negative mob mentality environment or you can take that negative and make it a positive. As for my son, I’m sure next week he’ll toss out something else, but if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that history has taught us a lot, and we need to learn from the mistakes of the past so we don’t repeat them.

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