American corporations are lining up to dump their retiree debit.

[rhett o rick]

The republican way is to turn your back on your retirees. Why will any American company pay retirees from now on when they can see the easy way to dump that debit. While the rich executives are paying themselves huge salaries and bonuses the funds for retirees are squandered. The justice system says that's just peachy. It's just business. Don't look for any help from a Republican Congress. These businesspeople don't have any morals and neither do their hack politicians.

[Spinzonner]

1. Corporatocracy means never having to say you're responsible

[elehhhhna]

19. Kleptocracy--same deal.

[jody]

2. Don't worry, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp (PBGC) will pick up the tab

:sarcasm:

The game is multinational corporations keep most of the profits if they win the business game and taxpayers and workers pay most of the costs if the game is lost.

[sadiesworld]

3. This is such a big issue for me.

I haven't been affected personally but the injustice of it all just bowls me over. I can barely stand to think about the exorbitant salaries and stock pay-outs that were made over the years while the corporadoes continued to underfund these pension obligations. And don't EVEN get me started on the politicians who have permitted this!

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[tsuki]

24. Time to call for a maximum wage for all CEOs of PUBLIC corporations.

If you are traded, it does not mean you can raid the company.

And how about a little outsourcing at the top levels. Maybe some Japanese and German CEOs that are doing well for their corps?

[Missy M]

4. This is another attack on the middle class of America......

first lower the wages, then take away retirement benefits and health benefits, raise the price of gasoline and natural gas, all to allow record profits for the huge oil companies and break the back of the middle class.

[rhett o rick]

5. I agree. nt

[sinkingfeeling]

10. Oh, and don't forget to screw them out of the Social Security they've

paid into for decades as well. What the hell do they think people in their 50's are going to do to recoop from these promises being broken? I have documentation from my 30 years with IBM, proclaiming how the pension plan was really 'deferred salary', which means it was my money!

[catmother]

45. pension plans

my husband has been with IBM for 36 years and fortunately was grandfathered in under the old plan. but over the years so many things have changed -- remember when IBM paid your health insurance premiums, dental, etc. every year our premiums go up along with our deductibles and co-payments. and how about the ESSP when you could buy stock at 15% less than the market value, now it's 5%.

[Chief]

6. 401K

Having companies run their own pension plans is a conflict of interest. It's just too easy for them to raid that big pile of retirement money that's sitting there.

IMO, it's much better to make the employee responsible for their retirement goals and for the company to partially fund 401k contributions.

[Skink]

7. Maybe now the baby boomers will vote Democratic..

They took it all then participated in giving the rest away.

[LiberalEsto]

9. Hey, I'm a boomer and I never got ANY

of whatever you're saying we got.

And I've been voting Democratic since leaving the Citizens Party (a predecessor to the Rainbow Coalition and the Green Party) in the reagan era.

Not all of us boomers are rich yuppies.

[Yupster]

42. Was that Barry Commoner?

Am I remembering my third parties correctly?

[LiberalEsto]

49. Yup. Barry Commoner

a scientist who researched and pointed out that incinerating trash and other waste in large incinerators releases dioxins and heavy metals into the environment. His findings were critical to an effort in New Jersey to stop and ban construction of these garbage incinerators.

Another year, the Citizens Party candidate for president was Sonia Johnson, a former Mormon who was excommunicated and vilified by her former church for becoming a feminist and asking questions.

But as we saw the emerging evils of the Ray-gun administration, many Citizens Party members left and joined the Democrats in fighting to take back the White House. Others moved on into the Rainbow Coalition headed by Jesse Jackson, and/or to the Green Party.

There are many things about the Democratic Party that I dislike - the pandering to corporations, the DLC, the votes for the iraqi war and the bankruptcy bill, and most of all the fear of speaking up and fighting back.

But at this point, it's the only chance we've got.

[raccoon]

26. This one didn't "take it all" and didn't give anything away. nt

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

38. What you talking bout skink?

Another baby boomer here who has been a life long Democrat, although crossing over for an occasional non-Dem worthy candidate.

I didn't take anything, what did I miss?

[Skink]

44. Just kidding Seniors and first time voters elected W

:nopity:

[windbreeze]

50. Generalizing is wrong...

"Seniors" elected W....I guarantee you, this Senior most certainly DID NOT...neither did my "Senior" husband...Neither did my "First Time Voter" daughter...
windbreeze

[tsuki]

25. Yea, give it to Wall Street, and the Social

Security also. Kenny Boy Lay needs a new pair of shoes.

:sarcasm:

[papau]

35. They don't raid the pension money anymore - they just do not contribute.

:-(

[nvliberal]

37. And you think companies DON'T raid 401(k)s? They aren't

REGULATED, for cryin' out loud.

That's one of the reasons those scams were set up, plus the fact companies want to dump the risk of retirement on employees because it's cheaper.

Think Enron.

You need to read about 401(k)s. They're pieces of shit.

[Yupster]

41. That's the direction it's been going

for the last 15 years or so.

Companies are shutting down their defined benefit plans (pensions) and replacing them with defined contribution plans (401k's, Simples, SEP's etc).

It's hard to blame them when the pensions are such a huge cost to them which is not associated with their prodct.

Soon the only jobs which will have pensions will be gvernment jobs.

[no_hypocrisy]

8. This I don't understand:

The pensions are based on money that the employees legally earned. It was part of their contract either through collective bargaining or non-union negotiations. As * would say, "It's (their) money!" The monies did not belong to the business/corporation. The pensions were part of the wages earned, taken out, sequestered, and put aside for the employees at a later date. Like social security, the pension monies were safe from speculation and destruction.

But yet, corporations are allowed to come out and announce that pensions no longer exist. Doesn't that make the corporate officers guilty of not being fiduciaries (guardians) of the pensions? The money was there, but now it isn't. Doesn't that mean that the money was technically embezzled by having the funds allocated out of the pension to be spent in other expenditures?

And how about breaking promises to the employees? They surrendered the monies to a corporate pension instead of being outright paid the money each pay period where they could have invested the money themselves for when they retired or became disabled.

It doesn't make sense, it doesn't sound legal, and I can't believe the corporations are getting away with this!!

[papau]

11. The Gov encouraged 10 to 12% interest assumptions for funding

those pension liabilities -


They have dropped lately - under 10% is more common.

Where the actuary has control it is 5 to 6.5 % - but those are small plans. The big plans underfund via high interest assumptions for future earnings. The PBGC must pick up the real tab when they claim business necessity to end the plan.

No money is stolen - it just was never deposited in the first place!

As with a great deal under Bush it is not a change from Clinton allowing higher than he should interest rates - it is just Bush has gone to extremes all the while not enforcing regulations that under Clinton would have caused gov audit questions - with no questions being asked, no problems - and we cut the Fed Budget in this area relative to need.

[sadiesworld]

13. Wasn't legislation regarding these interest assumptions

at issue when crybaby Bill Thomas called the capitol police on the house dems a couple of years ago? Do you recall?

[papau]

34. I believe there was a discussion of a max rate of 9% - but that was kept a

"reasonable to the actuary"

and big plans accounting firms hire the actuarial firm and clients disapear if you go conservative without the law forcing you to do so.

Small plans - where I play - I have the power!

But they (25 to 500 life) are dying because of the lousy economy.

Only newly rich tax worrying folks are starting plans for themselves and wife.

And the new tax bill will kill most of even the newly rich plans.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

39. Having worked for actuarial firms in the mid to late 80's, ie

Reagan, Bush 1 days...

I always described the plans to friends who asked as tax shelters. The assumptions used in Defined Benefit Plans at that time were mostly about 5% growth of investments.

Some plans were written with eligibility requirements to exclude specific people, ie except anyone born in June of 1962.

The owners were alerted regarding employees who were about to vest in a big way, and sometimes they were terminated to avoid that.

And in the beginning of many plans they used an accelerated funding method, thus getting the max deduction as early as possible.

These were smaller plans mostly, professional corps, medical, legal, accounting, etc.

The only ones who got much were the doc, lawyer, CEO of any of these organizations.

Sounds like things have NOT improved.

:puke:

[papau]

47. nope - got worse

The corporate world wants out of pensions that carry obligations.

So "money purchase" plans - with their much lighter than Defined Benefit plans obligation, are being converted to "profit sharing" plans with "grouping" for anti discrimination - the result being the plans pay whatever the owner wants - his decision each year - and the allocation has moved from the old 50 to 70% goes to the owner to our new world where in a 20 person firm the owner and family get 95% of the contribution - or more.

[Yupster]

43. Then there was 2000-2002

If the pension plan is assuming a return of 9 % and then in 2000 the S+P drops 9 % and then in 2001 it drops 12 % and then in 2002 it drops 22 %, then whatever projections you made are ripped to shreds regardless of whether you projected a 7 % per year gain or a 9 % per year gain.

[papau]

48. You have an annual loss that must be amortized - but the huge effect is in

the discounting of a dollar to be paid say 40 years from now.

You get in trouble 10 times faster when the assumptions are not conservative.

[Daphne08]

12. Americans workers are getting the giant SCREW from

corporations and it's shameful.

In fact, it makes me so angry I get a stomachache every time I think about this crap because I never thought I would live to see OUR government allow this kind of thievery against the American worker.

[No Exit]

14. FREEPERS: Ask not for whom the bell tolls--it tolls for YOU. n/t

[1932]

15. Barabara Ehrenreich, in Bait & Switch, quotes the daughter of BoA founder

Giannini who, when she saw the Bank of America was laying off a couple hundred employees said that she was appalled and that it wasn't so long ago when CEOs took pay cuts so they wouldn't have to fire employees.

The Bank of America was founded by an Italian immigrant who made loans to immigrants and small farmers and made a fortune building up a middle class out of a previoulsy ignored and desperate segment of the population.

[sadiesworld]

16. And some liberals

with their one-world-they-deserve-jobs-as-much-as-we-do-happy- horseshit have enabled this disloyalty. There, I've said it.

[1932]

17. huh?

You're saying immigration is the reason companies are more concerned with CEOs making millions than seeing people who work for a living have secure jobs?

You're misplacing your anger.

Nobody who works for a living is helped by the exploitation of someone else who works for a living.

[sadiesworld]

18. You don't think "free" trade has anything to do with this mess?

[1932]

20. Yes -- mobile capital and immobile labor helps to exploit labor

where it's cheapest. If labor were mobile, it could move out of countries where it's exploited, which would force the CEOs to spend more of their money to buy labor.

The advocates of globalization generally don't advocate that any country where we export capital should be entitled to be freely emigrated/immigrated from/to, and I think that should be an essential component of free markets (if capital is free, so should labor be free; if labor isn't free, then capital cannot be).

[sadiesworld]

21. Ha!

I knew it was you.

[1932]

22. It's a good idea, isnt' it?

Google it up. It's everywhere now.

[sadiesworld]

23. No, I don't think it's a terribly good idea.

What caste would I belong to in India? Does India want me there? Will I receive special dispensation to say "democracy" in China? Could I have more than one child? How can all this possibly be good for the environment? Why did you change your username? Seeking new clients?

[1932]

27. So let's back up: you think it's immigration that explains why the middle

class is disappearing? You think white collar employees have no job security because of immigration?

Bait and Switch includes a lot of anecdotes about what is happening to white collar America, and not one of them was a story about an "American" who lost his or her job to an Indian, or any other immigrant who got treated better -- who got a job for life, decent raises, more and better benefits, etc.

[sadiesworld]

29. You don't think the loss of jobs and the reduction/stagnation

in wages of the ones remaining are impacted by our trade policies? I tire of this--we've done it before. Same place, different names. Oh wait...I have the same name.

[1932]

31. So immigration isn't the problem?

You admit the problem for white collar workers is not that immigrants are coming to America taking their jobs?

Do you agree that corporations treat their workers like shit largely because the government lets it happen?

In your first reply above you implied that it was immigration policy that was the problem. In your last post you say that it's the export of jobs to cheap labor markets that is the problem.

So what is it? And what's your policy prescription?

[sadiesworld]

32. Please point out where I referred to immigration?

[1932]

33. I assumed "one- world- they- deserve- jobs- as- much- as- we- do"

referred to "them" deserving jobs here.

But if you were criticizing the idea that people deserve to work in their home countries, I'm still interested in hearing what you think the policy prescription should be.

Another possiblity is that that statement is an inellegant criticism of globalization that makes wealthy corporations wealthier, and if that's the case, since the last free trade vote, I'm not sure you can say a lot of liberals are interested in that. It seems to be an attitude confined to the DLC and Republicans now.

[sadiesworld]

36. An inelegant criticism of (corporate) globalization?

Perhaps. But it is also a fairly accurate, shorthand version of the language used to get dems (an entirely different approached is used with repubs) to support the further enrichment of the elite at their own expense. I may be inelegant, but their tactics are evil.

Where did I criticize the idea that people deserve to work in their home countries? I thought I was promoting the idea that US citizens should be able to work in the US. Weren't you the one implying that all would be well if only US citizens could work in India, China, etc.?

My policy prescription? Let's stop digging the hole. Yes, I appreciated the votes against CAFTA. Unfortunately, just enough dems crossed over and CAFTA still passed (don't you hate when that happens?). Of course, there is still mass rioting over this issue in CA so, who knows? Why are they protesting CAFTA? Do the people in CA not want to work in their own countries?

edit to add: Bye for now--it's been fun.

[1932]

46. inelegant because it sounded like a criticism of immigration policies

and I'm still not clear abourt what you're criticizing.

Riots in CA? Over what? I can't make heads or tails of that paragraph.

Why do you think corporations are turning the middle class into job-insecure debt slaves?

[Gormy Cuss]

28. A. P. Giannini

He was the son of immigrants and worked in his stepfather's produce business for years before he went into banking. He understood the working class market potential. He revolutionized consumer banking in the U.S. He's remembered for reopening his bank within days of the 1906 earthquake. Most of the stodgy banks took weeks to reopen.

The current BofA is really Nations Bank more than BofA.

[1932]

30. Yes. And it was the daughter of A.P. Giannini who couldn't belieive what

her father's bank had turned into.

She knew where he came from and thought that firing employees to protect executive salaries was 180 degrees from what her father's business was all about. In her father's day, the CEOs would have bit the bullet so that the employees didn't suffer.

Things have changed in America. Our government makes it much easier and much more lucrative for CEOs to do things which are very bad for America on a macroeconomic level and on a social and political level.

[lostnfound]

40. My company is one of the few still funding pensions in spite of losses

and I'm proud of them for that.

Most others in our industry are trying to walk away from all pension promises, or dump it on the government.

Decent corporate leadership is rare.