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Lot of talk in the news about wars, rumors of wars, Russia, gasoline prices and Cuba. Not much interest in this here ;
Congressional leaders hammer out deal to allow pension plans to cut retiree benefits - The Washington Post
The old, 'don't worry about the mule, just load the wagon.'
Will that allow the cutting of their pension's by any chance?
Expect 2015 to be the year of "we can't manage pensions anymore, so Wall Street will manage them from now on".
Time to do things the way grandpa did and stuff the matress,
This could be a lead up to the attack on railroad retirement...which is alive and very healthy. It's set up so that my wife can draw 49% of my retirement. Say if I draw $100 a month, she will draw $49 a month. I pay for it, but the spouse's of railroaders deserve it for all the time we are away from home.
Similar things are happening this side of the border also with company pension plans. Right now the pension that pays me is underfunded and should it fail and be wound up my pension would be greatly reduced, no grandfathering there. The CPP, Canada Pension Plan, paid to you by the Federal Government from mandatory contributions you made while working has been altered too recently. Now if you were born after a certain year you will not be able to collect a full unreduced pension till you are 67 instead of 65. Yes, no pension is safe, private or public from the squeeze. Adding to that squeeze is a rapid move to defined contribution type retirement plans, DCPP, from defined benefits type pension plans, DBPP. Very shortly in Canada the DBPP type will almost totally disappear and those lucky enough to even have a non CPP plan will be on a DCPP type. This old mule is about swaybacked or will be shortly.
The same type of thing is happening in Europe too I am sure.
Bob
Yeah, and banks get to gamble with FDIC insured money again, anybody can donate 35k to political parties, birds that happen to live in lands suitable for drilling can't be regarded as endangered....
Bottom line is, when the vote tally is a reflection of the political ad money and more than of the self-interest of the voters, the resulting laws reflect the interests of those who foot the campaign bills and not of those who cast the votes. About the only way to change it is voting differently the next time around.
We'll have a brand new congress in a month, may be they'll be interested in fixing some of this?
That's democra$y.
James.
.....Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
:roflmao
.....
Different world we live in now. There used to be, when I was growing up, a "social contract", but that is ancient history. Watch his short video of an example of that mindset from 1962 ;Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWNhWANkq0Q
Everybody knows he was a commie. Yeah me may have put an embargo, but he did secure for himself more than 1000 sticks - the Castros lived off this dollar infusion for half a century and just when it was about to out and Cuba wholeheartedly embrace capitalism the current commie gave up :pQuote:
Originally Posted by JimmyHAD
The point of the post/video is that there was a social contract between business and main street. A moral imperative unspoken, that we would be loyal to the company and they would be loyal to us. Tariffs, trade unions, designed to protect the American worker gradually went by the wayside, and so has the American worker. The pity is, you have to be 60 years old to remember when a man could support a family, own a home, a couple of cars, send a couple of kids through college, while the wife stayed home with the kids.Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
Then they started offshoring blue collar jobs, and the white collars didn't worry about it ......... until they came for their jobs. Anyway ....... it is greed that is the driver for all of this. They killed the goose that laid the golden egg ...... figuratively speaking. Their egg wasn't large enough apparently.
I'm not sure if it's greed or just the impassive and objective application of Capitalism. The principle of maximum profit only deals with cost and price, not people and society.
James.
True, but we all , to paraphrase JFK, breath the same air, live in the same world. They have made this what it is, from what it was. I guess if you can afford the gated community it is not that big a deal. OTOH, living in a fortress with a moat and a drawbridge isn't the best way to go through life either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimbo
I agree Jimmy.
At some point these things will settle down again and find an equilibrium, but at the moment there are such huge cost disparities especially in labour across the world that I fear things will get worse before they get better.
James.
Yup, it's happening here as well. When I started paying into the local pension system you could retire on a full pension after 37 years paid (I could have retired before hitting 60). It has since been changed to "65 years old earliest" with talks of moving it to "67 years old earliest". I totally expect it to be moved further before I reach 67. By that point, I'll have paid 49 years into the system and I'll get less than current retirees who didn't pay 37 years... if I even get something out of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobH
These words in retrospect will mean nothing to many. For many are living with their heads in the sand. Could this be you ? If you say the United States is a democracy, if you think what you hear on the news has any truth to it whatsoever, if you think the system is working, I say get your head out of the sand. No matter how good or bad of a job you think this man did, he died for what he believed in. And America wept. He was the last President I heard speak the truth. He was the last to stand his ground against enemies foreign and domestic. It wasn't long after this speech he was shot. 3 days I believe , but I could be wrong. It was the last time you heard the truth from a politician. The rest learned that they had everything to lose if they fell out of line. And so here we are.
http://youtu.be/QeYgLLahHv8
Could not agree more with Jimmy and Jim. The "social contract" was torn up and discarded a long time ago when it became increasingly a nonprofitable proposition for huge corporations.
Bob
Now a woman can do it, while the husband takes care of the kids :)Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmyHAD
Seriously, I have several friends just like that. Of course the wife is not a blue collar worker, but a 'professional' - banker/doctor/CTO/etc.
Actually, working longer doesn't seem bad to me. People now live 8 years longer than they did in the 1960s, and are generally healthier - they've got to work some of those extra 8 years so that there is money to pay for the balance where they draw a pension. Or if they want to work the same amount of time that means that the money they get in retirement should be less than they were promised because it's being spread over a longer period.
Anything else is demagoguery and forcing the financial burden on your children and grandchildren.
That's the intra-generational social contract and it's heavily slanted to the benefit of older people because they hold the political and financial power.
As far as corporations being part of the social contract - that was probably the exception than the rule as in the previous gilded age they weren't. It seems to me that it's fundamentally darwinian and at a certain period of time the power balance was better.
Or may be I'm just too young and from what I've seen corporations have never been concerned with what is moral, only with what is legal and only in terms of calculating the cost/benefit to breaking the law or not. Those with deep pockets can simply buy the law instead, cf. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CPRT-11...3HPRT91668.pdf
gugi I get your math and reasoning but you are missing a factor. When my Father past my Mother started to receive his pension being the higher of the 2. (she had 1 with the same company). Gas was about 1.25 a gallon then. Bread was 50 cents a loaf. She may live longer than her Mom who passed at 102 1/2 last year , but things are going to coast a lot more by then and her income will not go up to meet those costs. These costs are driven up by the same people who ,,, well pay that pension and todays wages which have pretty much stood still for the last 20 years . Just saying :<0)
Yes, perhaps the "social contract" was really a shame all along to keep peace and things moving along until the pretense of having one no longer served any purpose for corporations. After all they now have millions of workers that will to do your job for far, far less cost in other parts of the world. That is now that they have access to them without import penalties thanks to Globalization. There is no need to pretend any more and workers just have to be competitive after all.Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
Bob
But the money has to come from somewhere. It either comes from the contributions being set aside while working, or you put it on the card and have the debt-collectors get it from your grandchildren.
Yes, the cost of living has increased but the money that's being put aside has been growing during all those years with the economy rather than being buried in the back yard.
Alternatively you can think of say 10% of the current GDP should go to pensions - it's getting collected as taxes and that's it. You pay your 10% while you work and when you retire you get paid from the 10% that the current workers pay. That's perfectly sustainable, when the economy grows and the prices grow people get more money, when it contracts they get less.
What is not sustainable however is to pay 10% while you work and after you retire to make the current workers pay 12% just to get what you want. When they retire they make the then workers pay 15% and it snowballs until it's no longer possible, the young working people revolt and start voting and the last generation of retirees in that process get ends up holding the bag and end up living in misery, everybody after them who's paid into the system doesn't get anything back and there's a new social contract drawn up. Could involve some blood too, not just voting - the longer it is kept on the unsustainable path the worse.
It really is not rocket science, just elementary school math at its core.
Well pension money was also invested so it did grow substantially. Invested in secure stocks. Back when real estate always went up and profits from tha in paid interest was sort of tied into your benefits. Homw owners sort of paid into your pension in a round about way. Like anything else thrown into the market the pigs feast on it until it is all gone and becomes paper and nothing more. The 401k was one of the biggest mistakes people fell for. Clinton was another. Sorry, just referring to his repeal in 1999 of the Glass-Steagall Act. It all sounds like a good idea at the time but it turns out to be more like taking your savings to Vegas to double them.
Yes, I think everyone understands that or at least should by now. If you remember one thing about these pension plans or schemes, if you will, is that they were put together and managed by people with letters after their name. By that I mean well educated professionals who where trusted with a fiduciary duty to ensure the safety and viability of these pensions going forward for the less educated and aware masses. Being one of the masses, it sure do look like that trust was misplaced at the very least. Can't change that now, just have to be more competitive dontcha know. Hard not to be a bit jaded, a bit bitter and just a little pregnant after all that.Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
Bob
Yeah those are enormous pools of money, so they're extremely attractive.
I think this country needs to have a frank discussion about what level of support its safety net should offer along with the associated costs, i.e. how much support it is prepared to give to somebody for just being a human being regardless of merit. Then tax that and anything more is based on what everybody earns for themselves on their own. If they don't save anything for retirement, invest their retirement savings in a pension fund that goes bust, or work for a company that goes bankrupt along with any pensions, then all they get is that minimum support.
I mean that's in a sense what safety net is supposed to be, but it seems that many people want it to give them either at least what they've put in, or a moderate living standard. If people want moderate living standard when they retire they should be prepared to give up the necessary portions of their earnings while they work. If they aren't then the safety net should be something to allow them life in poverty instead of extreme poverty.
Here is one thing I would change. If you retire and have the means to support yourself after your working days are up then you don't get that measly little SS check every month. It is for those who can't or failed along the way. I know a lot of people who are well off and still love to get that check even though they don't need it. Makes the BMW payment every month. That is wrong. The country need a change alright but like I said many times before, it is going to take a disaster to bring it on. The BBs are stacked and I am just waiting for something to jar the table.
Some attempts were made to change that, but just few days ago Congress started reverting those measures and the taxpayers are again on the hook for bailing out banks when their trades on derivatives and similar financial instruments turn bad. Of course when they turn good the bulk of profits go to the banks, not to the taxpayers.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobH
And not even a whiff of the outrage and finger pointing from 2008/2009 - the big supposedly polarizing story in the news is that US will start normalizing relations with a small neighboring island.
To me this is a prime example of manufacturing contention over something moderately relevant while an issue of enormous significance is being glossed over.
My family is all union and from the trades. Some unions invested wisely and are funded other unions didnt do right by their members. Carpenters union is good. Electricians not so much. And family that started trucking companies and put away money for their OTR drivers is under funded.
When you have a front row seat to watch it all unfold it is painful to bear. Money doesnt grow on trees to fix it.
Less people paying into the remaining jobs at lower wages. Something has to give, an its going to be the little people who gave.
City of Detroit goes bankrupt and the first thing they go after is the Art and the pensions.
Daddy Warbucks always protects the art for rich folk and the rank and file took a cut. Lets save the Original Howdy Doody and sacrifice the fireman who put in 30years. Its messed up real bad.
My view is pragmatic. I am going to work as long as I can and then hope not to have a long slow decline. Even my father fails to understand the quantum shift in the 20 years since he retired. The defined pension plan that so generously pays him is a unicorn these days. Instead, if you are lucky, you have a 401K with employer matching payments that some fund manager is scooping out all the profits on.
Me, I gambled on my own business and buying some commercial property. Social Security is going the way of the dodo if Rand Paul gets his way and my business isn't worth much to sell. I'm facing a grim future.
Folks become complacent. They think what happened in the past is gone and as time goes on things get rosier and rosier. They need to learn that as soon as you let your guard down the evil ones are just waiting to devour you. That is exactly what is happening now and the sad part is a large segment of the population who are most affected don't seem to care.
Many of these pension plans are in the shape they are in because the companies simply stopped contributing years ago. Now they wring their hands and say it's insolvent, not our fault. it must be the stock market crash or something.
Once the republicans take over I'm sure they will have the answers to fix everything.
Riiiiight!!!!:shrug:Quote:
Originally Posted by thebigspendur
Part of me wants to go Ghetto and suck off the government tit till it goes dry.
Dont work get free healthcare.
Free foodstamps and go disability.
3 generations of family coloring between the lines, and I watch the rug getting pulled out from under a 30 year commitment back when the factories and trades earned there keep and benefits. There is no honor or taking care of those who made a company survive,
I watch give back after give back. Cuts in there healthcare. They were told paid lifetime, healthcare now the Big 3 give retires a stipend and tell them to find there own.
Pensions , Sorry take a third cut or lose it all. There is no shame in blue collar and working for your future. Mine put in there due, now the rug is getting yanked out and I get to watch them fall. And you want me to follow in those footsteps and hope for better??
My country brings in illegals and gives them better benefits without bringing anything to the table. And then no contribution to the system working under the table.
America is built on making it better and working harder, Now some lobbyist and slickster in Washington short changes me and mine.
You want me to follow that line?? Born at night but not last night. 30 year old college grads asking me if I want fries with that. How is that making my country a better place.
Smart people know when they are being taken advantage of. American ingenuity is my ace in the hole , because standing in line waiting my turn is waiting to be a victim.
Perhaps the sheep of the country wont notice.
But smart people did. Now we are told it is a compromise.
The only ones compromising are those who paid in with there backs , sweat and tears. They sent there kids to get a better life and education to graduate to mom and dads basement.
Take a page from the Russians right now, economy is crashing so buy tangible goods that will have value once money is worthless. Learn to fix broken stuff for the upper class. Rich people get leaky roofs and flooded basement too. And they have no idea how to fix it. How you gonna compensate me for my skill set?