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When companies go belly up the pensions often go the same way. I understand that. The company I retired from is spending over 1 BILLION dollars on upgrades and their doing it with cash not loans. They aren`t going belly up. The PBGC insures our pension anyway.
It's the PBGC that takes over whatever is left in pension funds and gives everyone a big haircut.
It's the PBGC that takes over whatever is left in pension funds and gives everyone a big haircut.
Someone probably told him that the PBGC will make his "pension" "whole" should the fund managers screw up. Nothing is further from the truth. At BEST a failed pension plan will have 50% benefits.
I'm still not sure if he has a pension or a 401K. There's some mixing terminology going on (and I think it's deliberate). A 401K is company controlled, but individually owned, until such time as you retire or leave, and then it's yours to do as you wish - subject to time limits, etc.
A pension, by definition, is a company-funded, company managed retirement plan that is is either defined benefit or defined contribution. The defined benefit gaurantees a specific amount to be paid after retirement, for all retirees from a single common fund. The defined contribution mechanism generally works more like a 401K with no assured value at the end, merely whatever comes of what you put into it.
Someone probably told him that the PBGC will make his "pension" "whole" should the fund managers screw up. Nothing is further from the truth. At BEST a failed pension plan will have 50% benefits.
This is true - you are lucky to get 50% from a failed pension plan.
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I'm still not sure if he has a pension or a 401K. There's some mixing terminology going on (and I think it's deliberate). A 401K is company controlled, but individually owned, until such time as you retire or leave, and then it's yours to do as you wish - subject to time limits, etc.
He could have both a defined benefit Pension AND a company 401k ...... we have both. They are not common, but a lot of companies grandfathered Pension plans and added the 401K when they changed over.
I have a 401K that the company administers through BNYMellon but it`s self funded by whatever we chose to deduct from our paycheck but we have a well funded pension plan too that my father has been drawing on for years. This company is investing $1.2 BILLION in the local plant and they aren`t going anywhere for a long time. We saved our money, own our home and vehicles and our kids are out of the house. If the pension plan disappeared tomorrow we would survive. You`ll have to look elsewhere if you need to gloat.
Originally Posted by Swingblade View Post
I do not understand their signs " the banks owe us" ? how does the banks owe them anything? Is it because the federal gvt bailed them out? Does anyone know why the banks owe these people a dime since they have never worked for a bank?
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Originally Posted by Rakin
This is the million $$ question. What does the Banks have to do with anything ?
They looking for someone evil to take the blame ? If so, they are misdirected by the true culprits.
I think that these Union people are wearing shirts and holding signs that Demand the "Banks Pay", because they have been taught that it's always the fault of the Bank, that's where the money is. They have to blame somebody, the Bank is a handy target and they sure are not going to blame the corrupt practices of the Unions.
Bloomberg has a pretty good article about the latest plan for Detroit - the part that they appear to have left out is that the State of Michigan will be "bailing out" Detroit to some extent and the the State Legislature will have to vote on that.
The Detroit bankruptcy is at the center of an international social counter-revolution aimed at redistributing wealth into the pockets of the corporate and financial elite. Trillions have been handed to the banks, while the rights and benefits won by workers through a century of struggle are being revoked. In the process, laws and constitutional protections are ignored and increasingly anti-democratic forms of rule imposed.
The one thing we know for sure is that Detroit is a mess - the longer the Unions and Pensioners fight this haircut, the more hair will be cut. Bond holders will fight it also, but they don't have a much to lose even though most of them will get 20 cents on the dollar with the current plan. The Unions are hoping that they will get the same sort of "deal" that GM and Chrysler got, which is that the Secured Bondholders are judged "un-secure" and have no standing in court. That's not likely in this case - the Auto-Maker Bailout and Bankruptcy was managed by the Obama Team (pre-determined & in a hand picked Court), this bankruptcy is not. Detroit is very lucky to have a group of private Corporations, Foundations and Private Citizens that are willing to front a lot of Private money to save the Detroit Art collection. It's one of Detroit's few assets.
All this talk of blame the Banks (which had ZERO to do with the bankruptcy) and "Make the Banks Pay" is designed to cause a lot of trouble and deflect the real blame for their problems. It's the sort of thing that only works well with the uninformed that are highly susceptible to Propaganda.
If governments coordinated services, instead of providing them, then there wouldn't be government employees and their pensions would not be an albatross around the necks of tax-payers.
People like me? I have worked my entire life in the private sector, so I wont be receiving any pension from the government (except SS). I count on no one except myself for my retirement. Even the 'socialist' scandinavians use private pension funds to lessen the burden on the tax payer, and I think that is a way to go. After all, they approach is actually less socialist than ours.
I think, when preparing for future retirement that you should discount that SS statement of future pensions by 25% if you are around 50 and 40% if you are around 30.
I do not understand their signs " the banks owe us" ? how does the banks owe them anything? Is it because the federal gvt bailed them out? Does anyone know why the banks owe these people a dime since they have never worked for a bank?
Nobody owes them one thin dime because they never contributed one thin dime into their own pension program.
Being the true parasite class these Detroit "workers" were working hard to get something through nothing from their public sector union thug bosses.
The Looting of Detroit’s Pensions
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Public employee unions point out that Detroit’s average pension benefits are low, at around $20,000 per year after a career in public service. In reality, though, Detroit’s employees got a much better deal than you’d think — and not all of it was entirely by-the-books. For instance, the GRS’s seemingly modest average benefit is drawn down by short-term employees who worked only a few years. It also excludes other benefits employees receive.
To illustrate, consider a Detroit city employee who retired after a full career of 35 years on the job. He would receive a traditional “defined benefit” pension of around two-thirds his final salary. Adding Social Security benefits, that Detroit worker could retire at around 95 percent of his prior earnings. This is a better pension than most Americans will receive and more than adequate by financial advisors’ standards.
And Detroit workers got this pension on the cheap: while private sector workers must finance most of their retirement, and the average state or local government employee contributes around 6 percent of pay toward his pension, Detroit workers contributed nothing to the GRS.
But it gets better.
As reported in a 6,000 word report by the Detroit Free Press they got 13 monthly pension checks every year. Now if only the federal government would do that with my social security check....
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Gifting a billion in bonuses: Pension officials handed out about $1 billion in bonuses from the city’s two pension funds to retirees and active city workers from 1985 to 2008. That money — mostly in the form of so-called 13th checks — could have shored up the funds and possibly prevented the city from filing for bankruptcy. If that money had been saved, it would have been worth more than $1.9 billion today to the city and pension funds, by one expert’s estimate.
How do you call pigs... Suweeeeeeeeeeee! or something like that?
These workers can all starve to death for all I care. They voted for the union thugs, they were members of the union mobster organization and now I vote with them to give them everything they deserve which is nothing.
I have a 401K that the company administers through BNYMellon but it`s self funded by whatever we chose to deduct from our paycheck but we have a well funded pension plan too that my father has been drawing on for years. This company is investing $1.2 BILLION in the local plant and they aren`t going anywhere for a long time. We saved our money, own our home and vehicles and our kids are out of the house. If the pension plan disappeared tomorrow we would survive. You`ll have to look elsewhere if you need to gloat.
Nobody is interested in any "gloating".
We just see you putting your faith in a company, rather than yourself... and are reminded of the countless thousands before you who did the same and ended up in extreme hardship.
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