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"As the first of the 80 million Baby Boomers have begun to retire, it has become increasingly apparent that the United States is facing a pension crisis of unprecedented magnitude. State and local government pension plans are woefully underfunded, dozens of large corporate pension plans either have collapsed or are on the verge of collapsing, Social Security is a complete and total financial disaster and about half of all Americans essentially have nothing saved up for retirement. So yes, to say that we are facing a retirement crisis would be a tremendous understatement."
If you can't add to the discussion then be kind enough to be quiet and not attack the source.
Did your marvelous source include this tidbit? - Bloomberg
March 8 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is trying to encourage public retirement funds that control more than $2 trillion to buy all or part of failed lenders, taking a more direct role in propping up the banking system, said people briefed on the matter.
Who needs who to protect them from the falling sky? Keep screwing with us pensioners and we will let your banks fail and stop buying your public bonds and let your bridges and roads crumble.
"As the first of the 80 million Baby Boomers have begun to retire, it has become increasingly apparent that the United States is facing a pension crisis of unprecedented magnitude. State and local government pension plans are woefully underfunded, dozens of large corporate pension plans either have collapsed or are on the verge of collapsing, Social Security is a complete and total financial disaster and about half of all Americans essentially have nothing saved up for retirement. So yes, to say that we are facing a retirement crisis would be a tremendous understatement."
Problem is that most of us public especially state pensioners are getting our annual statements and know how much in the way of reserves our OWN pension funds have and how many years of pay outs that amounts to. Yes many of us sleep very well knowing that we have a source of income that is more secure than employment. Just ask the bank when they give us a mortgage for a second or third home. So do we buy the argument our sky is falling when we have our statements in hand? NOT!
Location: Finally escaped The People's Republic of California
11,329 posts, read 8,671,488 times
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Social Security could be easily fixed by eliminating the cap, (Yes, tax the rich)
Limit who recieves it, If your collecting 2ooK a year or more do you really need 1500 a month from SS??
and oh my God........Cut Military Spending.......is 13 Carrier Battle Groups really enough????
So is everyone saying that pension funds are in good shape, when they have to invest their money somewhere and for years almost all investments have lost money? On the private side, businesses know that all they have to do is a legal maneuver called a "change of control" to effectively throw out any and all pension promises. On the public side, the taxpayers are now being forced out of their homes to pay for the lucrative pension plans of the Town Employees that generally treat citizens like dirt. As to State and Federal government, the average American faces a more and more grim future while these fatcats continue to load on the taxes and overregulation and pure abuse of power?
Our pensions were stolen years ago, and Social Security is a joke for us, just like anyone 55 or under (though we continue to pay over 15% of every paycheck to it, thanks to the "employer match" slight of hand that only liberals don't understand).
But anyone who isn't preparing for the worst, hasn't been keeping up with the state of the economy since wages stagnated in the 1970s. That was 40 years ago, when the war to eliminate the Middle Class began.
Got our annual report under the PPA and we're 143% funded. Our company has asked for employee approval to suspend further pension payments until it drops to 120%. in return, the company will invest half the savings back into making us an even stronger company in the industry and the other half will be an employee retun as bonus.
Years ago pensions invested in very stable investments but the returns were below the averge rates of return. People started yelling and bitching that penions should be allowed to change their fiduciary responsibilities for stability to a more aggressive investment to match market returns. Theyw ere given that ability and everyone was praising market investments because they were making money.
Our company refused to follow that trend and when the markets went south, our pension held its own, making money when others were dropping. people wanted market investing for pensions and you got it. Guess it wasn't as good as it looked!
In January 2009 our pension plan adjusted to provide a 28% increase in projected pension payments, how many others can say that?
Pensions funds took a lost because the average person wanted bigger rates of return and let their funds move from stability to chasing rartes of return. You got what you wanted, just the rates are in the toilet. Stop crying!
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