Posted on 04/25/2009 4:28:07 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Plight of Carmakers Could Upset All Pension Plans
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
Decisions that the government will make soon on the future of General Motors and Chrysler could accelerate the decline of traditional pension plans, which have sheltered generations of workers from an impoverished old age.
Pension experts predict that a government takeover of the two giant plans would spur other auto companies and all types of manufacturers to abandon such benefits for competitive reasons.
For hundreds of thousands of retired auto workers, a federal pension takeover would mean sharply reduced benefits. For the federal agency that insures pensions, it would mean a logistical nightmare in the short term — and most likely a slow demise eventually as fewer and fewer small plans remain in the system and pay premiums.
So far, the prospect of a grueling grind through bankruptcy court has been a major deterrent to companies that might want to rid themselves of pension obligations. But retirement and labor specialists are watching closely to see whether the administration’s auto task force will give either of the auto companies an easier way to shed their huge pension funds, blazing a simplified trail for others to follow.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
LUV DIC, ping!
That’s ok. These are the people who voted for Obama, so it must be what they want.
With the average life span of people today, it's suicidal for a company to offer any kind of pension to someone retiring at 55.
“That’s ok. These are the people who voted for Obama, so it must be what they want”
I didnt see a sarcasm tag, so I’ll assume you’re serious.
Read the article. This is about the private pension system going belly up. This is about every americans retirement.
If our private pensions are broke from buying mortgage backed securities that are worthless, and the insurance system is about to fracture because of the automakers default, and what money the pension system has left is stored in private bank-issued notes (bonds, securities, stocks) from banks that are catastrophically insolvent and we around here are screaming to let go bankrupt, which means they discharge the private paper with the banks ...
Can you imagine what happens politically when every American finds out they dont have a penny to retire on?
They’ll demand a roll back of government regulation to the glorious 19th century when America grew and shined?
Or they’ll fall for any socialist who’ll promise them what they want to hear?
You can bet that whatever bargain is struck, the UAW existing pensions will be not/not be affected. Obama won’t allow it.
I remember Al Gore casting the tie breaking vote in favor of extending Social Security benefits to immigrants who don’t have a thing to live on after they immigrate to America. I know people from Russia who now get a high Social Security benefit since moving here. Their justification: They worked hard when they were in Russia.
It’s not just Americans who find out they don’t have a penny. You can come here from Eastern Europe and Russia and make the same argument.
I’m a bit of a student of history, so I’ll tell you that during “the glorious nineteenth century when America shined,” which you so admire, there were many elderly people who starved and died in miserable poverty.
Today people can work, save, and sacrifice in very prudent ways all their lives—contributing money to a retirement plan, making wise investments, buying and upgrading their houses, not spending to excess, taking part in a company pension plan—and now find themselves wiped out. Unable to get a job so they ca continue working to support themselves. Sick, in pain, in danger of losing their crappy little apartments, facing an old age of hobbling to a soup kitchen every day.
They were told for years that if they were abstemious they could at least live in comfort in their old age. But with no pension, personal savings destroyed, social security threatened, taxes rising, and perhaps only a tiny social security check to live on, some compassion is in order here.
I am seeing this with some old people I work with as our company prepares to close down. They are puking with fear.
Its not sarcasm, its a fact. If they are stupid enough to vote for him, they get the consequences. It ain't sarcasm, its a simple fact.
Many young and middle-aged also starved and died in miserable poverty. I am not interested in returning, like the Greens, to the technology of the 19th century, just the liberties. I prefer my car, home, Internet and the rest of modernity.
The problem you describe in your post:
Today people can work, save, and sacrifice in very prudent ways all their lives—contributing money to a retirement plan, making wise investments, buying and upgrading their houses, not spending to excess, taking part in a company pension plan—and now find themselves wiped out. Unable to get a job so they ca continue working to support themselves. Sick, in pain, in danger of losing their crappy little apartments, facing an old age of hobbling to a soup kitchen every day.
They were told for years that if they were abstemious they could at least live in comfort in their old age. But with no pension, personal savings destroyed, social security threatened, taxes rising, and perhaps only a tiny social security check to live on, some compassion is in order here.
If they voted and fought against government intrusion in their lives like Social Security, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, et al they have my sympathies, but if they did not they don't.
They thought nothing of me and my generation when they sacked us with all this debt, regulation and control.
As pitiable as their situation is they'll be long dead when my children are forced to pay their bills. I am as compassionate as the next man, but not when he's deeply vested in creating a monster and then asks me to sacrifice my life and the lives of my family so that his monster won't eat him.
They are like thieves to me, deigning innocence once they themselves have been robbed by the very guild they designed, created and membered.
So by your argument my children should starve that they may live. No way.
Vote against these boondoggles now that hindsight has proved them wrong and immoral and save the next generation from a similar fate, but that would involve sacrifice something missing from a majority of Americans' lives.
If any compassion is to be paid, let it be paid by them to the next generation by voting against theft and for liberty.
We are generally in agreement; don’t want my kids ruined by European-level taxation either. I am just expressing great dismay that old people are facing a future in which they will be facing a nineteenth-century level of poverty and suffering, through no fault of their own (for the most part).
It is terrible, but maybe it will lead to a call for a return to 19th century liberties and values.
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