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In the corporate world, probably not. Pensions obligations just look like debt on the balance sheet... but they have high administrative overhead. Further, th
by anonuser123456 7y ago
In the corporate world, probably not. Pensions obligations just look like debt on the balance sheet... but they have high administrative overhead. Further, there is the risk that life expectancy will continue to grow... thus making those liabilities much larger.
In government... I don't think pensions ever went out of fashion. Why bother when you can always just print more money?
- voxic11 7y agoNot all governments can just print more money, which is why many state and local pension programs are in major trouble.
- anonuser123456 7y agoGood point. I'll amend my statement with "or raise taxes!"
- mywittyname 7y agoOr, more accurately: issue more traffic citations.
- hiram112 7y ago> In government... I don't think pensions ever went out of fashion. There are a lot of different pension schemes out there as the feds, states, and localities do not use uniform plans. What I've seen, though, is that there are now "two tiers" - one for older employees and another for younger ones. You can guess which plan is more generous... A lot of localities and states see the writing on the wall - that their perpetual 9% growth rates and population increases won't keep up, and are thus moving new employees into 401K plans, no different than the rest of us in the private sector. Honestly, I don't think I'd be able to tolerate being a teacher or state employee, and knowing that my manager, 20 years older than me, has a retirement worth 3x as much, and it will be funded by increasingly shorting me on salary and benefits (along with tax increases) as the pension liabilities become harder to pay. Look at certain cities like Chicago and Baltimore and states like New Jersey for a current example.