By nationalizing retirement accounts, a sudden influx of cash would appear in DC's coffers, helping to make the country look better on paper and potentially last just a little bit longer.

You may think that the nationalization of retirement accounts would never happen here in America, but there have been a lot of things that have happened over the last few years that we never believed could happen on American soil.

And besides. It's happened before. 

I'm a firm believer that we can learn from the past to gauge how things may work out in the future. Your parents likely taught you cautionary tales with the hopes that you would learn from their mistakes. They taught you the past with the hopes that you would glean lessons of how the future could turn out if a similar path is followed.

There are plenty of countries that have nationalized retirement accounts, even throughout recent history, just as there are plenty of countries that consider torture to be a regular part of the judicial process.

Let's take a look at a few of them. Perhaps we can learn a thing or two about the American economy as a result.