The pension system destruction continues

[dlhanson]

And today the rules are gonna change BECAUSE darn BAD AWFUL politicians elected by the dumb masses stole funds from a system that was WORKING!!!

You forgot the part of the story where the political hacks from the NEA and the state worker unions encouraged the state governments to put in place gold plated pension and retiree health benefits. There was no concern from the unions or the politicos about how to pay for this except I suppose everyone agreed to fleece the taxpayer. Now that the bill is coming due.....

 

[dumpster56]

You forgot the part of the story where the political hacks from the NEA and the state worker unions encouraged the state governments to put in place gold plated pension and retiree health benefits. There was no concern from the unions or the politicos about how to pay for this except I suppose everyone agreed to fleece the taxpayer. Now that the bill is coming due.....

Do you call 30,000 after working 30 years with medical bennies with heafty co pays GOLDEN??

By the way ef the darn unions they are as crooked as the politicians, and hey those UNION SHOPS!!! Have no choice but to join and the politicians have no b@lls to change that.

I will say this until I am blue in the face, I was given NO CHOICE when I SIGNED MY TEACHERS CONTRACT! I was TOLD by the STATE OF NJ I must contribute to the teacher pension annuity fund and have done so for almost 30 years, SORRY THEY MUST PAY the funds promised.

 

[Beststash]

As Bush and Company always say " F***  the employees, who do they think they are!!!"

As far as management getting better perks.....think again - I retired with 34 years and although my pension is still coming every day, my healthcare has gone to Texas!!!

 

[astromeria]

Lots of unfairness all around to be sure, but I think the worst will be when people with no pension or even 401k match--or even a 401k, no retirement medical benefits or even little or no health care subsidy during employment, are taxed to shore up other peoples' generous pensions. That's when my bleeding heart turns cold.

=astro, wondering if DH's teeny tiny pension from a compnay bought by a company bought by H-P will materialize when called for, or if the pension plan he's paying into at his state college will amount to anything

 

[REWahoo]

... I retired with 34 years and although my pension is still coming every day, my healthcare has gone to Texas!!!

Hey, that's good news for us Texans! Many of us have been looking for healthcare, but haven't been able to find it anywhere. Maybe JG's bringing it down with him.

 

[sgeeeee]

And the Klintonistas weren't also so inclined?  However, I do agree that pension plans are being dumped on the Pension Guarantee Board and taxpayers will apparently be stuck with the bills.  But that is due to laws that were initiated in and  passed by both houses of the US Congress.  

Actually, I think most political observers believe that this administration and it's justice department takes a very different view of the pension obligation of companies from the Clinton administration. This observation about the current administation's view on pensions is not one I originated. It is pretty commonly stated in the mainstream press.

 

[mb]

Actually I appreciate you comments WhodaThunkit.  I was stating my opinion but if that opinion is based on faulty data please correct me. DW certainly does

I would like to see the facts of the matter presented accurately, that's all.

MB

 

[Tadpole]

Consider if you bought an annuity and after a few years the insurance company said. Sorry we don't have enough to pay you any more. After all it was just a promise to pay if we could. I don't think many here would settle for that without fighting.

I actually think this will occur for some annuity providers if they take on too many boomer annuities and miss their projections. They will be allowed to go into Chapter 11 and off-load the annuities. Annuities do not have a safety-net so far as I know.

 

[Lazarus]

Can't stuff the money in the mattress either. They can inflate it out of existence. Hard to know what to do to insure a safe retirement. The system would rather we work up untill our death and create more wealth for the board of directors.

 

[haha]

Do you call 30,000 after working 30 years with medical bennies with heafty co pays GOLDEN??

Yes.

Ha

 

[ladelfina]

I agree with Ha.. golden.

What about all the schmoes who put in 30 years with NO pension? People who find themselves with NO health care coverage? I would love to have 30k coming in automatically for the rest of my life, without having to worry about squeezing that much out of my savings each year to live on, as I do now.

 

[dumpster56]

I agree with Ha.. golden.

What about all the schmoes who put in 30 years with NO pension? People who find themselves with NO health care coverage? I would love to have 30k coming in automatically for the rest of my life, without having to worry about squeezing that much out of my savings each year to live on, as I do now.

Again That was the program I signed for in the 1970s.

I had NO CHOICE!

I CANNOT take the sum now in a lump sum, so What is wrong with my situation?

Sure HA it looks good, but the medical copays are now pushing 3,000 a year which is still not bad but then again AMERICA the greatest place on earth and we have how many WITHOUT health insurance?? 45 MILLION?

 

[Lazarus]

Even though others may not have a pension at all does not change the fact that it is still theft to take away benefits that were promised to those that do. I didn't get a pension accidentally, I chose a company to work for that had one. Many other people could have done the same. Back when companies had ethics we didn't dream they would drop the pension if they were still in business. We were wrong. Hope the government doesn't decide to revoke the tax status of 401K's and IRA's or quit paying social security.

An no I don't think a $30K pension, after a lifetime of service is excessive. If companies don't take care of their workers the government will end up with the bill. Not everyone, in fact most will never be able to invest for themselves and end up secure. The whole point of the pension is they didn't have to. They could concentrate on their job.

 

[LRS]

Right on Lazarus. Thanks for pointing out pension default is theft, not to mention breach of contract. I contributed to my pension; it is not an entitlement.The state matches my contribution per my contract with the state. I worked for state government for low wages specifcally for the pension. This does not make me a parasite or a whiner.

If you are not getting a pension from your company, then there is something wrong with your company, not with me. I had nothing to do with it.

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

Right on Lazarus. Thanks for pointing out pension default is theft, not to mention breach of contract. I contributed to my pension; it is not an entitlement.The state matches my contribution per my contract with the state. I worked for state government for low wages specifcally for the pension. This does not make me a parasite or a whiner.

If you are not getting a pension from your company, then there is something wrong with your company, not with me. I had nothing to do with it.

It sounds like you're characterizing the migration from DBPs to DCPs as "changing the rules in the middle of the game." Perhaps so, but when the game lasts for decades, and a company is faced with severe economic consequences (i.e. bankruptcy) if it continues to pay pensions, it would make far more sense not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

 

[LRS]

Actually the state I worked for changed from a DBP to a DCP. They split the workforce into two tiers. Old timers are entitled to benefits from the earlier program and able to continue in the later program. The new hires only contribute to the DCP.

This is the solution after literally decades of warnings from analysts about the coming pension crises. I remember reading about the upcoming baby boom bubble back in the '80s when I was a newbie. It pisses me off that nothing was done. We were fed a lot of lies about our pensions. We were cynically offered deals on our pension in lieu of wage increases (for instance, the state picked up our monthly contributions in exchange for a several years' wage freeze.) Not only that, but our healthy pension funds were raided repeatedly at the state's whim.

Now I and my fellow workers are being blamed for the state pension crises. It turns out we were suckers for believing we would get our contractually promised benefits. Yes, the rules changed in the middle of the game, but no, it's not my fault and forgive me for not being a good sport about it. I had to uphold my end of the contract with the state, but they can get away with murdering my pension.

 

[yakers]

Actually the state I worked for changed from a DBP to a DCP. They split the workforce into two tiers. Old timers are entitled to benefits from the earlier program and able to continue in the later program. The new hires only contribute to the DCP.

This is essentially what happened in the Federal Govt employee retirement system. In the 80s (1986?) there was a changeover from a DB to a DC system (CSRS to FERS). Employees could change over, new ones were under FERS. The new systems are actually better that the old IF the employee makes the maximum contribution. Those who don't will have a serious retirement problem. The old system was more "idiot proof" which was not all a bad thing as how many 20 year olds (except for readers of this board) even think of retirement planning.

 

[justin]

I like the new trend for companies to automatically enroll their employees in the 401k unless they opt out. My wife's company does this after 6 weeks. For all 401k plan participants, the investment choice defaults to Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth for those under 45, and VG lifestrategy income (or conservative growth, can't recall) for those over 45. Not a bad plan design, I think! You have to be proactive to get OUT of the 401k. I believe the default contribution rate was either 6 or 10%.

 

[sgeeeee]

. . . but when the game lasts for decades, and a company is faced with severe economic consequences (i.e. bankruptcy) if it continues to pay pensions, it would make far more sense not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

This is just nonsense.  Pension obligations do not cause bankruptcy.  List the expenses for a large company -- all of them.  They would include executive compensation, executive perks, stock option giveaways, the HR budget to circulate full-color inspirational posters all over the facility, . . . as well as all those things actually required to make a product or deliver a service.  

But company executives want to cut costs and they don't want to reduce their own level of comfort or to actually have to work and figure out where their corporate inefficiencies really are.  Instead, they engage in this nonsense publicity spin:  "We have to screw the employees out of the pensions we've promised them or we'll go bankrupt."  What's next?  "We have to stop paying the employees from time to time to keep from going bankrupt."  or maybe, "We have to force the employees to actually pay us to work here so we don't go bankrupt."  

I'm tired of hearing how much pensions are costing companies and being told that the only way for the company to remain solvent is to break the pension agreeement.  Pension expenses should be among the easiest to predict.  Planning to have enough to pay out pensions should  be a no-brainer.  If the pension expenses are causing a crises, then management is incompetent or corrupt.  Either way, I think it makes me justified in saying that I want to see the rest of the numbers.  I'll bet you I could find a lot of other costs to cut before I had to cut pensions.  

 

[SteveR]

Makes you wonder what would happen if the Government did not pick up the DB plans and the corps. had to deal with the fallout without the taxpayers picking up the tab.

 

[dumpster56]

Here in New Jersey Christy Todd Whitman the Gov at the time raided the pension fund and did not put the required amount of funds into the account for 3 years.

She tried to balance the state budget with money taken that did not belong to her budget.

Now in 2006 with a new gov and a 5 billion dollar hole who knows what things will look like in the future.

That is one reason I will take my early retirement now , the writing is on the wall they plan to take the option of early retirement away and raise the age that you will have to work to 60 or higher.

EF em.

I am so tired of being told I am the problem, nope I held up my end and put 5% a year of my so called great teacher salary for 30 years into the pension system.  But politicians stole it.

So far at least the state is not like a company, It will take much more to drive pensions out.

 

[MasterBlaster]

In a perfect world, the ongoing pension obligations would be funded throughout an employees career. Companies and governments wouldn't use bizarre pension accounting to increase profits and fund other things.

The real crime here, is not that the promise has been broken. It is that these pension plans have not been funded along the way as they should have been. Now that the tab is comming due all of a sudden it's a crisis.

So my question is: where were the watchdogs?  This has been a slow train wreck that anybody in the know could have seen comming.

 

[dumpster56]

In a perfect world, the ongoing pension obligations would be funded throughout an employees career. Companies and governments wouldn't use bizarre pension accounting to increase profits and fund other things.

The real crime here, is not that the promise has been broken. It is that these pension plans have not been funded along the way as they should have been. Now that the tab is comming due all of a sudden it's a crisis.

So my question is: where were the watchdogs?  This has been a slow train wreck that anybody in the know could have seen comming.

We all saw it comming here in new jersey, but heck BUSH gave Christy a promotion!! REMEMBER!!

 

[MasterBlaster]

NewGuy:

This problem started long before Bush ever came on the scene.

 

[bbuzzard]

I will say this until I am blue in the face, I was given NO CHOICE when I SIGNED MY TEACHERS CONTRACT! I was TOLD by the STATE OF NJ I must contribute to the teacher pension annuity fund and have done so for almost 30 years, SORRY THEY MUST PAY the funds promised.

Just curisous. Did you also contribute to SS? How much did you have to contribute to you TA?