5 ms·

I have a much different experience. I have a dozen family members that were part of the auto industry in Michigan. They were on top of the world for decades. It

by mrits 4y ago

I have a much different experience. I have a dozen family members that were part of the auto industry in Michigan. They were on top of the world for decades. It ended with most of them thinking society has collapsed in the 80s and doubting they'd actually get their pension. My grandfather spent the last 30 years of his life in retirement collecting a pay check that he thought might be his last.

RivieraKid 4y ago
Why did he think the paychecks would stop coming?
- zdragnar 4y ago
  Not all pensions are well managed; some have needed bailing out from public coffers. Other companies have shuttered completely, and the lack of incoming money to the pension funds made them insolvent (again, not especially well managed).
  - guessbest 4y ago
    Its doesn't have to be public bailouts. There is something for Americans where the pension funds have been seized by the federal government to be managed. I worked for a company where the executives were using pension funds to give themselves annual bonuses until the federal government stepped in around 2009. There wasn't much money left over, so I'll be receiving very little, but at least the executives could raid the funds anymore. > Welcome to PBGC! Since 1974, we’ve protected retirement security and the retirement incomes of over 33 million American workers, retirees, and their families in private sector defined benefit pension plans. https://www.pbgc.gov/ https://www.pbgc.gov/
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      It's a shame that you got screwed out of what you'd been promised. I'm guessing yours wasn't in the $86 billion bailout (maybe because it only went to multi-employer union plans?) > https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-relief-bill-gives-86-billion-bailout-to-failing-union-pension-plans.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-relief-bill-gives-86-b... Unfortunately, it's not just the private sector pensions that have been mismanaged (or raided, as you pointed out) which are in dire straits. California, in particular, has a lot of public pension headaches that will be coming to a head (and in some cases already have): https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pension-crisis-davis-deal/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pension-crisis-davis-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/05/19/why-california-is-in-trouble--340000-public-employees-with-100000-paychecks-cost-taxpayers-45-billion/?sh=2c8d73825fb8 https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/05/19/why...
      - guessbest 4y ago
        No, this was a telecom company where the Canadian executives were siphoning money from the American work force, which was net profitable. The Canadian side was losing money by the billions. The pensions were down to a mid sixty percent reduction before the American government stepped in to stop the transfers. It was in all the papers.
  - hannibalhorn 4y ago
    Even well managed funds can result in someone getting the shaft. My dad's pension (Delphi Salaried) was cut to 50% of what it was supposed to be after the events of '08, and it was funded to something like $0.86 on the dollar, above the national average. The hourly workers (i.e., unionized) still got 100%, which was pretty unfair.
- giantg2 4y ago
  My grandfather worked for the steel mills. Some workers didn't get anything for their pensions. He was one of the lucky ones and got something, like 10 cents on the dollar. I think they even stopped sending them before he died (remember him saying something about that was the last check and complaining about the company).
  - refurb 4y ago
    Pensions are all insured in the US
    - giantg2 4y ago
      Do you have a source? I wonder if that covers all pensions or just public pensions? Or if that requirement is newer and didn't exist when the companies went under 50 or so years ago.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Even taxpayer funded DB pension recipients have had to accept benefit cuts, such as former employees of Detroit and Rhode Island. If the entity that owes you does not have the power to print money, then there is always a risk of non payment. And how much of a bailout you get depends on your political weight.
      - refurb 4y ago
        PBGC is “insurance” for pension plans.
        giantg2 4y ago
        Looks like their site says there was little protection for pensions before 1974. So it sounds like there wasn't any protection before that. Their wording around "insured pensions" also seems to indicate that some pensions may not be insured (no requirement to insure them).
    - fullstop 4y ago
- xen2xen1 4y ago
  A large number of folks think the world already ended, and we're just waiting on the collapse. That now both on the right and left.
  - bsenftner 4y ago
    I used to work in film, and every once in a while I get a script to read, passed around because it is "too good to be made". One such script I read about 2 years ago had the premise of an archeological discovery, rapidly verified and with duplicates found all over the world proving "the rapture" happened back in the year 1000 AD. The modern world realizes we're in the 2nd century of the 10,000 year reign of Satan. All hell breaks loose, of course.
    - xen2xen1 4y ago
      That's a great premise, and I say this with years of being pentecostal.
    - I-M-S 4y ago
      You probably meant 2nd millennium (VS century). Is this script available on the Black List?
      - bsenftner 4y ago
        I don't believe it is available anywhere, because it is entangled legally, as apparently the author of another literary work with the premise of finding lost bible books documenting a continued life of Jesus with a family and kids sued the author of this script. I've not followed the situation, simply because I don't care about such things.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  In the last few years, there's been some nostalgia in the US over pensions, but people tend to forget that they're tied to employers, so people feel tied to jobs because they're building up a pension, and the pension is often managed by and dependent on the employer's business in some way.
mushbino 4y ago
So it sounds like you're saying things have just been getting progressively worse. That doesn't sound like much of a different perspective. There was a time when people were optimistic about the future, but granted that was a long time ago.
nradov 4y ago
This is why defined benefit pension plans are so risky for retirees, employers, and taxpayers. We need to completely eliminate them and use defined contribution plans such as 401(k) instead. That way retirees actually own the assets in individual named accounts and those can't be taken away if the employer is sold or goes bankrupt.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Exactly, target date funds and broad market index funds with 0.03% fees have automated away the entire job of the pension fund. And the Feds will bail out the public markets, so retirement funds invested in the market are effectively insured by the best insurer possible at all times.
- dwater 4y ago
  Pensions do have risk, but you act as if 401(k) style plans don’t. Imagine how difficult it would be to plan fastidiously for your retirement and then have the stock market collapse and wipe out 1/4 or 1/2 of your savings. Yes, you should diversify your investments to reduce your exposure, but in this instance the risk and responsibility is on you the individual. Isn’t it strange how two different systems that on paper have totally different risk profiles both have a huge risk of low and middle net worth individuals getting wiped out?
  - nradov 4y ago
    In practice there is no risk of defined contribution plans getting wiped out unless the account holder does something exceptionally stupid. Most plans default to using target date mutual funds which automatically rebalance to reduce stock exposure every year. If there's a major stock market crash then older employees will have very little exposure and younger employees have plenty of time to financially recover.

by mrits 4y ago

RivieraKid 4y ago

Why did he think the paychecks would stop coming?

zdragnar 4y ago
Not all pensions are well managed; some have needed bailing out from public coffers. Other companies have shuttered completely, and the lack of incoming money to the pension funds made them insolvent (again, not especially well managed).
- guessbest 4y ago
  Its doesn't have to be public bailouts. There is something for Americans where the pension funds have been seized by the federal government to be managed. I worked for a company where the executives were using pension funds to give themselves annual bonuses until the federal government stepped in around 2009. There wasn't much money left over, so I'll be receiving very little, but at least the executives could raid the funds anymore. > Welcome to PBGC! Since 1974, we’ve protected retirement security and the retirement incomes of over 33 million American workers, retirees, and their families in private sector defined benefit pension plans. https://www.pbgc.gov/ https://www.pbgc.gov/
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    It's a shame that you got screwed out of what you'd been promised. I'm guessing yours wasn't in the $86 billion bailout (maybe because it only went to multi-employer union plans?) > https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-relief-bill-gives-86-billion-bailout-to-failing-union-pension-plans.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-relief-bill-gives-86-b... Unfortunately, it's not just the private sector pensions that have been mismanaged (or raided, as you pointed out) which are in dire straits. California, in particular, has a lot of public pension headaches that will be coming to a head (and in some cases already have): https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pension-crisis-davis-deal/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pension-crisis-davis-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/05/19/why-california-is-in-trouble--340000-public-employees-with-100000-paychecks-cost-taxpayers-45-billion/?sh=2c8d73825fb8 https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/05/19/why...
    - guessbest 4y ago
      No, this was a telecom company where the Canadian executives were siphoning money from the American work force, which was net profitable. The Canadian side was losing money by the billions. The pensions were down to a mid sixty percent reduction before the American government stepped in to stop the transfers. It was in all the papers.
- hannibalhorn 4y ago
  Even well managed funds can result in someone getting the shaft. My dad's pension (Delphi Salaried) was cut to 50% of what it was supposed to be after the events of '08, and it was funded to something like $0.86 on the dollar, above the national average. The hourly workers (i.e., unionized) still got 100%, which was pretty unfair.
giantg2 4y ago
My grandfather worked for the steel mills. Some workers didn't get anything for their pensions. He was one of the lucky ones and got something, like 10 cents on the dollar. I think they even stopped sending them before he died (remember him saying something about that was the last check and complaining about the company).
- refurb 4y ago
  Pensions are all insured in the US
  - giantg2 4y ago
    Do you have a source? I wonder if that covers all pensions or just public pensions? Or if that requirement is newer and didn't exist when the companies went under 50 or so years ago.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Even taxpayer funded DB pension recipients have had to accept benefit cuts, such as former employees of Detroit and Rhode Island. If the entity that owes you does not have the power to print money, then there is always a risk of non payment. And how much of a bailout you get depends on your political weight.
    - refurb 4y ago
      PBGC is “insurance” for pension plans.
      - giantg2 4y ago
        Looks like their site says there was little protection for pensions before 1974. So it sounds like there wasn't any protection before that. Their wording around "insured pensions" also seems to indicate that some pensions may not be insured (no requirement to insure them).
  - fullstop 4y ago
xen2xen1 4y ago
A large number of folks think the world already ended, and we're just waiting on the collapse. That now both on the right and left.
- bsenftner 4y ago
  I used to work in film, and every once in a while I get a script to read, passed around because it is "too good to be made". One such script I read about 2 years ago had the premise of an archeological discovery, rapidly verified and with duplicates found all over the world proving "the rapture" happened back in the year 1000 AD. The modern world realizes we're in the 2nd century of the 10,000 year reign of Satan. All hell breaks loose, of course.
  - xen2xen1 4y ago
    That's a great premise, and I say this with years of being pentecostal.
  - I-M-S 4y ago
    You probably meant 2nd millennium (VS century). Is this script available on the Black List?
    - bsenftner 4y ago
      I don't believe it is available anywhere, because it is entangled legally, as apparently the author of another literary work with the premise of finding lost bible books documenting a continued life of Jesus with a family and kids sued the author of this script. I've not followed the situation, simply because I don't care about such things.
dehrmann 4y ago
In the last few years, there's been some nostalgia in the US over pensions, but people tend to forget that they're tied to employers, so people feel tied to jobs because they're building up a pension, and the pension is often managed by and dependent on the employer's business in some way.

mushbino 4y ago

So it sounds like you're saying things have just been getting progressively worse. That doesn't sound like much of a different perspective. There was a time when people were optimistic about the future, but granted that was a long time ago.

nradov 4y ago

This is why defined benefit pension plans are so risky for retirees, employers, and taxpayers. We need to completely eliminate them and use defined contribution plans such as 401(k) instead. That way retirees actually own the assets in individual named accounts and those can't be taken away if the employer is sold or goes bankrupt.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Exactly, target date funds and broad market index funds with 0.03% fees have automated away the entire job of the pension fund. And the Feds will bail out the public markets, so retirement funds invested in the market are effectively insured by the best insurer possible at all times.
dwater 4y ago
Pensions do have risk, but you act as if 401(k) style plans don’t. Imagine how difficult it would be to plan fastidiously for your retirement and then have the stock market collapse and wipe out 1/4 or 1/2 of your savings. Yes, you should diversify your investments to reduce your exposure, but in this instance the risk and responsibility is on you the individual. Isn’t it strange how two different systems that on paper have totally different risk profiles both have a huge risk of low and middle net worth individuals getting wiped out?
- nradov 4y ago
  In practice there is no risk of defined contribution plans getting wiped out unless the account holder does something exceptionally stupid. Most plans default to using target date mutual funds which automatically rebalance to reduce stock exposure every year. If there's a major stock market crash then older employees will have very little exposure and younger employees have plenty of time to financially recover.