[Rurudyne]

Back during the days of the Bank Bailouts ... which should NOT have happened ... I remember posting that “Too Big to Fail” should only ever be the title of some porno.

[mountainlion]

So why is it that they want to bail out the corrupt union retirement but steal Social Security funds to the tune or over $13T??

[farming pharmer]

You want to tell 400,000 retired union guys (my dad was a teamster for 42 years and worked full time until he was 72) that the pension they were promised is no longer coming? Even with a federal bailout, my father's pension goes from 38,000 a year to about 20,000 a year.

Blame politics and money managers, not the retired blue collars. AND, while we're giving free shit to illegal immigrants, our fathers deserve to be supported.

[Red Badger]

Bailing out any group or institution only invites more of the same bad behavior......................

[antidemoncrat]

Did I miss the Republicans the article the headlines said were backing this?

Looks to me like the Democrats in charge of big cities promised public sector employees a fantastic pension and didn’t bother to save enough money to pay them and now wnt the rest of the country yo bail them out.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Bad idea. And inevitable.

Go to Congress with a sufficiently butt-puckering Chicken Little story and you WILL get a bailout.

We all learned that lesson in 2009.

[blueunicorn6]

How in the world can pension plans be broke?

[blueunicorn6]

I guess we should use taxpayer money to make sure every business is profitable.

[Vermont Lt]

Richie Neal has his head so far Pelosi’s ass it’s scary. Pelosi stopped short once, and Richie had to wear a neck brace for a month.

[outpostinmass2]

Corporations have long understood that “over-promising” pensions.

---

It a little more than just that. Accounting rules changed under FASB 81 and FASB 106. Companies now had to account for retiree benefits (health and pensions). Before this rule many pensions and retiree health plans were allowed to be pyramid schemes where the workers were essentially funding the retirees. It works okay as long as costs don’t go up too high, the company stays in business and there are more workers than retirees. Too many corporations either went belly-up, had big layoffs and retirees lived long into their 80’s. Pensions are a fairly new institution most received them after World War II. Prior to World War II only the military, railroad industry and police and fire received pensions. All dangerous jobs where the odds of dying on the job was high.