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This is a great tool for the progressive left to raid bank accounts and it would not surprise me at all.
Pensions are another beast. I agree it is wrong to not honor an agreement with an employee of 30 years or more....but after the crash and after all that wonderful wealth disappeared, the pension funds were in trouble. Investments were made on employees behalf that did not do as well as they should. That is the risk they took with your money. Sad but a fact of life. I don't think a pension fund bailout is going to happen.
The PBGC has had deficits for 32 out of the past 41 years.
The only time it had a surplus was 1996-2000.
Scary times. The socialist don't get the fact that when the country and the global economy collapses, they will not longer have a welfare check or food stamps or heat or food until the dust settles. Then they get a cup of rice. Do these progressives not in leadership roles think their accounts are secure, their money safe, their income protected? The disabled will moan and groan, the couch sitters will weep, the street thugs will survive..they have the skills and will prey on the weak. So yes, I am not a fan of redistribution because it only trickles upward too.
This is exactly why I flat out refuse to depend on others for my daily needs and retirement. Liberals don't understand the concept of money, investment, returns, liabilities and responsibility. They think that welfare check is free when in reality they are literally taking money from their hard working neighbor. States aren't any better. They didn't adequately fund their pension commitments. They pissed money away on programs for votes and now they are in up to their ass in liabilities they can't pay.
I just don't think the average person realizes the true financial cluster we are in. We will never pay off the trillions in debt, we can't make our old commitments to worker pensions now let alone the new commitments. It's bad and low info voters keep swallowing the chit Sammich that politicians and liberal economists keep feeding them.. It's all going to be alright. We deserve everything we have coming.
We also were told that they were required, by law, to make sure the funds were rather conservatively invested and were very diversified so that it could not all be put into some crazy, get rich quick scheme.
I get it that virtually every investor (individuals and groups) took a big hit in the Great Recession created by the bankstas. What I don't get is why not a single person on Wall St. seemed to know that the Mortgage Backed Securites and other instruments really were too good to be true. I think that they did know and perpetrated a massive fraud. I also don't get why those same people, who were supposedly the best and the brightest with MBA degrees from the best schools got massive bonuses after the crash rather than being hauled off to jail, their assets being seized like drug king pins.
All investments carry market and issuer risk. Some moreso than others. Pension plans are required by law to invest in only investment grade securities.
Mortgage- backed securities come in all sizes and flavors. I can say with reasonable certainty that a percentage of your current plan is invested directly or indirectly in GNMA, FHLMC and FNMA mortgage pass-through securities.
Your plan may have , in times gone bye, invested in private label MBS derivitives that were rated AAA by independent credit rating agencies, S&P, Moody's and Fitch. These hybrid securities were backed in part by derivitives of non- conforming sub prime loans that did not qualify for FHLMC or FNMA.
The three independent credit rating agencies were " essential cogs" in and " key enablers" of the meltdown. These private label junk bonds could not have been marketed and sold to institutional investors without the complicity of the rating agencies. In effect, institutional investments funded the darkest subprime mortgages. Without these investments, the housing bubble would have been tempered.
Some institutional investors ( pension plans, retirement funds, insurance companies , conservative corporations and so on) did not rely on credit ratings. They did their due dilligence, read the prospectus, took the time to understand it and took a pass. Many, many did not. Instead they blindly relied on the AAA rating and were lured by the potential for too good to be true returns.
The rating agencies all claimed " flawed computer models" in terms of rating these private label MBS derivitives securities. Once they realized, ratings were abruptly lowered and behind the scenes panic began to set in. The rest is history.
Last edited by middle-aged mom; 12-23-2014 at 10:22 AM..
Most pension plans were, and still are, counting on fund growth to be driven by the return on investments. In my view this over the top expectation of the financial markets ability to provide for future obligations was a bad plan and should have not been allowed by law.
Those who seem to have forgotten this unreal expectation also seem to forget that our government is not managed by or for it's citizens, with the exception of those citizens who rule over government from the heights of their Wall Street offices.
Jim Hightower was fond of saying that when we find ourselves baffled by government's actions we need only to "follow the money" to find the truth. In this case that path will inevitably lead to the doorstep of all those beholden to the corporate interests that is driving this POS legislation.
I laugh at those who infer that Obama runs anything, he, like all pols, marches to the tune of America's real rulers, who are they? Follow the money...
And the moral of the story...be forewarned that if you are dependent on another entity to provide you money in retirement then have your "plan B" ready to be able to go it on your own using your own hard saved money.
And if your company offers you some sweet deals to get you off their books as a pensioner then definitely take a good hard look at it because the little bit you give up now may be your saving grace 10-20 years down the road.
Most pension plans were, and still are, counting on fund growth to be driven by the return on investments. In my view this over the top expectation of the financial markets ability to provide for future obligations was a bad plan and should have not been allowed by law.
Those who seem to have forgotten this unreal expectation also seem to forget that our government is not managed by or for it's citizens, with the exception of those citizens who rule over government from the heights of their Wall Street offices.
Jim Hightower was fond of saying that when we find ourselves baffled by government's actions we need only to "follow the money" to find the truth. In this case that path will inevitably lead to the doorstep of all those beholden to the corporate interests that is driving this POS legislation.
I laugh at those who infer that Obama runs anything, he, like all pols, marches to the tune of America's real rulers, who are they? Follow the money...
They found out that the unions were behind this and tried to interview them about these changes.
"NO COMMENT" came from those that would even reply to the journalists.
Unusual victory for unions: Pension reform | WashingtonExaminer.com
"We are not making a comment. We don't feel any particular need to. The omnibus is over. It's done," said Tom Owens, communications director for the North America's Building Trades Unions, a coalition group within the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) labor federation. Other unions that backed the changes included the 2 million-member Service Employees International Union and the 1.3 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers. Neither responded to requests for comment.
The FDIC has never been insolvent. The Pension Guarantee Corp is on the verge of it. Apples and oranges.
Better take a closer look. The banks are broke. They are taking billions of bailout money to keep afloat. The foreclosures of millions of homes took the capital out of the banks as well as the interest. This is never going to get fixed. FDIC is covered by more government debt.
It's not just the politicians. The unions backed this and probably came up with the idea so they could continue their control of the money.
The unions threw their own people under the bus.
Not all unions. It is mixed... in the link..
"Today, we have seen the ugly side of political backroom dealings as thousands of retirees may have their pensions threatened by proposed legislation that reportedly contains massive benefit cuts," said Teamsters President James Hoffa.
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