"Long-tail" pensions? wtf!

[SoCalDem]

Pensions are DESIGNED to be "long-tailed".. People routinely GIVE UP raises, to defer compensation for a time when they can no longer work..

Just now on MSNBC, yet another "expert" (Joel Klein) uttered that new (to me) phrase to describe the pension "problem".

The real problem is that companies decided to move pension funds from the liability column, to the asset column..and then said. "WOW, Look at all that money.. I think I'll buy some shit.. & give myself some hefty bonuses".

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Remember the objective is to return the US to the 1920s

there were NO pensions back then... and people either saved for old aged or starved. Well, you know most starved.

But that is the objective. To achieve it we need to malign both unions and pensions.

[patrice]

4. I believe that at least some of them are thinking it is a return to "entrepreneurship". That's their

justification for what they are doing.

It is just too bad there does not seem to be a dominant enough voice to counter this business entrepreneurship selling point:

- It's NOT authentic, and hence democratic, entrepreneurship, because it is built out of the economic inertia, read that "subsidized advantage", that preceded it.
- That which is actually new and different, and perhaps even essential to certain significant and highly needed economic SOLUTIONS, is anti-thetical in the system that is supposed to produce this "entrepreneurship".

[SoCalDem]

9. Entrepreneurship would flourish IF

we had a national health care plan.

There are LOTS of people who would love to start their own businesses, and who could probably survive the start up , growing pains, if they were not chained to jobs they hate, but have to have for the insurance they can barely afford now.

[patrice]

11. Authentic Education + Authentic Health Care, would be a foundation that could

actually result in what could legitimately be called ONE nation again, America, and its human bounty could produce all of the authentic entrepreneurship we could possibly need.

Sorry about the over-use of the word "authentic", but we are being fed so much bullshit and it's being called whatever TPB want to call it rather than what it actually is. Case in point, the Medicare Reform fight that is on our horizon.

[awoke_in_2003]

16. My wife and I were musing one day...

and she said "would you quit working if you won the lottery". I said no- health insurance is too damn expensive (and is only going to get worse).

[awoke_in_2003]

15. they have been trying to drag us back...

to the pre-union days ever since the end of WWII. Nixon opening trade relations with China was the first shot.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Go much further back

the first shot was Taft Hartley. which was vetoes by truman but the Republican Congress of 1947 overrode. It created Right to Word states, among other things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act

China... Nixon... no, not really. The China of Mao was not going to embrace any market any thing... that happened in the 1980s with a second generation of leaders and very slowly at first.

[awoke_in_2003]

18. forgot that one. thanks for link. nt.

[gratuitous]

2. All part of the cover story

If enough people can be persuaded that the pensions or social security benefits or whatever else they've worked for during their entire careers is really just some unfunded liability or too costly to pay for now, then they'll be more amenable to its being cut. Not the beneficiaries, mind you, but everyone else. "I don't get a pension from waiting tables at the local diner, why should anyone else get a pension?" We're supposed to believe that the standard should be a mom-and-pop diner, even if you worked at a highly skilled position for a multinational corporation for 40 years.

This is the 2005 "privatization" scheme back in a new guise, with more sophisticated rhetoric and now with bipartisan cover, thanks to the Deficit Commission.

[leveymg]

3. And, let's not forget to thank Barack for bringing this issue forward.

Funny, though, I don't recall he ran in '08 in favor of cutting Social Security and pension benefits. Anyone remember otherwise?

[tinrobot]

5. ...and when it comes time to collect those pensions

The people who long-tailed will most certainly be short-changed.

[Lasher]

6. Unless you're a senior executive.

They've taken steps to ensure their lavish pensions will be there no matter what.

[SoCalDem]

8. Long-tailed, short-changed by ring-tailed

[DCKit]

7. What y'all ^ said. nt

[Rex]

10. The destruction of the middle class can only be done if the uber rich

can direct the somewhat rich into doing away with retirement plans...no one retires from the company anymore, they just die (sorry company doesn't pay for plot of TS). I feel sorry for the children of tomorrow, they are fucked and don't even know it yet.

[BzaDem]

12. The pension problem they are talking about is generally about governments, not corporations.

Governments have to balance their budgets. So some governments have refused to adequately fund their pension funds, since their current tax revenue weren't adequate for full funding. Others are facing a demographic problem (i.e. the raises people gave up weren't enough to cover their full pension). Actually, both factors are in play in basically all pension problems (since if the raises people gave up/withholdings from paychecks were sufficient, they would not need any general tax revenues in the first place).

Some of this could be solved by raising taxes to an adequate level to fully fund public employee pension benefits. But some states have electorates that are averse to this (either directly, or indirectly, passing ballot measures that block all tax increases without bipartisan support).

[kickysnana]

13. They will steal the money somehow...

Remember when they gave out stock options instead of raises. Remember when all the companies dumped their promised health insurance for retires? Most pensions are now underfunded and there is no place to put the money for growth. Land, commodities, metals and the stock market are still in bubbles.

Just another scheme to steal money from the have nots.

[awoke_in_2003]

14. You know, when Hoffa...

loaned pension money to the mob he was vilified (even though the mob pays back with decent interest rates). Todays business man is nothing but a predatory animal, yet he gets extravagent pay and golden parachutes.