Fund Manager: Without Unions And Pensions, America Faces A 'Horrendous' Future

[democracy1st]

Run time: 12:35 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNf1LdHG17U   Posted on YouTube: April 21, 2010 By YouTube Member: setonhall Views on YouTube: 1603   Posted on DU: April 27, 2011 By DU Member: democracy1st Views on DU: 264

 
He is an unlikely Jeremiah, a funds manager in a pinstripe suit with a résumé that includes a stint as chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond, Va. Yet Thomas Mackell Jr. is warning of a future in which the homeless elderly live under bridges and the old and the young engage in “intergenerational warfare” over disappearing jobs.

Mackell, a graduate of Seton Hall and Rutgers, spoke last week to a convention of Bell System retirees in Atlantic City. He got up to speak at the same time the lawyer for the Christie administration, miles away in Trenton, rose to tell the state Supreme Court it should not bother itself with “minor” breaches of constitutional law involving schools.

There is a connection between the two events. Peter Verniero, the former court member and state attorney general hired by the governor to defend cuts in school aid, represented a strain of political thought that the rich cannot be taxed further to help the poor. His governor regularly bashes public employee unions as “selfish” and “greedy” and wants to reduce pension benefits.

Mackell takes opposite views. Unions protect the middle class, he says, pensions are essential, and, if the rich do not pay a greater share of their wealth, then the “nation faces a horrendous future.”

“If something doesn’t happen soon, this country will go the same way as every other empire,” said Mackell. Citing the growing income gap between rich and poor, the deterioration of infrastructure, and, most of all, the problems facing the 77 million aging members of the Baby Boom, the financial funds manager called America’s prospects “abysmal.”

Mackell predicted unemployment would top 9 percent, states would take bargaining rights from public employee unions, and Congress would seriously consider cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits — all ideas that seemed over the top then.

Now Mackell, son of a former Queens district attorney, travels the country warning of the consequences of the shift in pensions from defined benefits — in which retirees are guaranteed a set amount based on the number of years they worked — to defined contributions — in which retirees contribute to and manage their own pension funds, mostly through 401(k) plans.

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/fund-manager-without-unions-and-pensi


Dr. Thomas J. Mackell, Jr. is Chairman of the Board of Directors of United Benefits and Pension Services, Inc., a Partner of Rx Well Card and is President of the Association of Benefit Administrators and Editor of its Newsletter, Insights.
He has had a life-long career in the management, administration and investment management of employee benefit funds.
Dr. Mackell was appointed a Class C Director of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond on January 1, 2003 where he served as Deputy Chairman since June 2003 and as Chairman from January 1, 2005 until December 31, 2008.

Dr. Mackell is a member of the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank that focuses on social, political and economic issues in Latin America, a Director of the Foundation for Fiduciary Studies, a member of the National Board of Directors of Volunteers of America and the Editorial Advisory Board of Institutional Real Estate, Inc.- Publishers and Consultants, and a member of the Council on American Politics at the George Washington Universitys Graduate School of Political Management. He is also a member of the Advisory Council of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a member of the Board of Overseers of the Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations of Seton Hall University and a member of the Advisory Council of Cornell Universitys School of Labor and Management Relations.
He was a White House appointee to the ERISA Advisory Council to the Secretary of Labor from 1997 through 1999.

Dr. Mackell spent 14 years with the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association as Administrator of their jointly-administered trust funds and has worked for over 28 years in the investment management and financial services industry working with Taft-Hartley, public, corporate pension funds and endowments and foundations on asset allocation and corporate governance issues.
In the past, Dr. Mackell was a professor at C.W. Post Center, Long Island Universitys School of Health and Public Affairs, and adjunct professor at the New York Institute of Technology Graduate Center for Labor and Industrial Relations School of Management.
He was a member of the Ethics Committee of the Investment Management Consultants Association, a member of the International Foundation for Employee Benefit Plans, a past member of the board of the American Benefits Council, and a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors. He was a director of the Association of Investment Management Sales Executives and a trustee of the community based New York Foundation. He was a former member of the advisory boards of the Empire State College, St. Thomas University School of Law, and the Corsi Institute of Labor-Management Relations of Pace University.

Dr. Mackell is the author of the book: "When the Good Pensions Go Away, Why America Needs a New Deal for Pension and Health Care Reform."