Defined benefit pension, working for or receiving ?

[ljb]

If you are working for or receiving a defined benefit pension, you may want to pick up a copy of this week's Time Magazine. Cover story, "The Great Retirement Rippoff" subtitle "How corporations are picking people's pockets - with the help of congress", may be of some interest to you.
Snippet:
To Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor who specializes in bankruptcy, this is just going to get worse as ever more companies see the value to their bottom line of ""scraping off"" employee obligations. "There's no business in America that isn't going to figure out a way to get rid of (these benefit promises)".
And now you know why I support Democrats.

[lsbets]

Companies have been doing away with traditional pension plans long before Bush became President. Its nothing new.

[Lefty]

aw, c'mom lsbets, you know nothing bad ever happened before Bush. Why we were in the Garden Of Eden, then this Bush guy comes along and we saw that we were naked.

[ljb]

Companies have been doing away with traditional pension plans long before Bush became President. Its nothing new.
Read the article. I did not say Bush was the cause. This is about pensions that people have worked 30 years or so to earn. The companies are backing out on their agreements with their retired employees. Congress passed laws making this legal and the courts have backed them up.

[lsbets]

ljb - my point is simply that this has been happening for much longer than Bush has been in office. You attempt to cast everything in a Bush and or Republican vs the people light, and that is not the case. Pension fraud and abuse ran rampant during the late 90s when fidiciary responsibility was thrown out the window in managing the funds to chase the inflated stock market where returns did not reflect any aconomic reality, but rather the illusion of prosperity. I believe it was in the early 90s (but I would have to check) that IBM screwed over a ton of people when they redid their pension. The laws allowing it have been around a lot longer than the Republican congress. If you think the Democrats are on your side, you're kidding yourself.

[ljb]

ljb - my point is simply that this has been happening for much longer than Bush has been in office. You attempt to cast everything in a Bush and or Republican vs the people light, and that is not the case. Pension fraud and abuse ran rampant during the late 90s when fidiciary responsibility was thrown out the window in managing the funds to chase the inflated stock market where returns did not reflect any aconomic reality, but rather the illusion of prosperity. I believe it was in the early 90s (but I would have to check) that IBM screwed over a ton of people when they redid their pension. The laws allowing it have been around a lot longer than the Republican congress. If you think the Democrats are on your side, you're kidding yourself.
Yes company sponsered pension plans have been declining since 1985 per article in Time. Congress passed laws encouraging private pension savings. 401ks etc. I remember saying to my dad, a retired dyed in the wool republican, "they are trying to do away with social security." He became somewhat fussy declaring "they will never do away with social security." He is gone now but I often wonder what he would say about that today.
However it was the current congress that passed a bankruptcy law that allows companies to disregard pension obligations if they file bankruptcy.
If you think the republicans are on your side you are just fooling yourself. Spend a buck or two and read the article.

[lsbets]

ljb - I've said it over and over again, but some of you guys don't want to hear it - no one is on your side. We need a third party. I am a conservative, not a Republican.

[Bobby]

Agree Ljb

Now the pendulum is way to the right. It'll slowly change over the next 10 or 15 years or so. BUT IT WILL CHANGE.

Since the "REPUBLICAN REVOLUTION" in the early 90s, everything has changed dramatically. Now its all about big business and special interests. Give the rich tax breaks. Wining and dining the corporate executives, the AMA, the drug companies, the oil companies, anybody that has a dime.

Workers have few rights. They have to work harder to make less. Health care costs are out of sight. Every company not increasing it net income by some certain % is looking to cut costs. And their cutting costs by cutting benefits to their employees. That's health benefits and retirement.

The sad thing is that the Democrats are gonna have to do all this--attract rich corporate executives by agreeing with them- just to compete financially with the Republicans in the elections. In the end, everybody gets screwed, especially the common folk.

[ljb]

ljb - I've said it over and over again, but some of you guys don't want to hear it - no one is on your side. We need a third party. I am a conservative, not a Republican.
Well ok. I would go for a third party also. I am conservative on many issues. Abortion, fiscal responsibility, gun control and the death penalty come to mind. However the current folks in power in dc and I include the courts and congress and the administration don't meet my definitions of conservative, with the possible acception of abortion. The Dems make laws and policy that tend to favor the working man/woman over corporate interests. Example of the reverse of this being the recent laws passed by this congress and signed by this administration.

[so.cal.fan]

In observing political trends for the past 40 years, seems to me, things run in cycles.....a trend, either positive or negative can only go so long/far.
Then it swings back to center and then slowly back to the left or the right.
I predict that Democrats will make huge gains in the '06 elections.....no matter what.....then when they take control back of the house and senate and mess up, the Republicans will again get back, and so it goes......
I read Seymore Hersh's book The Dark Side of Camelot, and it was an eye opener into what politicians are "really" about......and it's not good.

[Big Bill]

so.cal.fan,

Here is another "eye opener" book you should read. It is Buying of the Congress: How Special Interests Have Stolen Your Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. A book written by Charles Lewis in the 90's.

Have a barf bag at hand if you read it as it will surely make you sick.

Big Bill

[eclecticapper]

You can also check the website opensecrets.org for info about political contributions, etc. Money makes the world go round; it just spins a lot faster in DC.

[Kreed]

Democrats will still have the re-districting issues in many red states.
It's still gonna be a Red vs Blue & I'm not sure if the 43 voters have
accepted the damage they caused our country.

[Secretariat]

Hope you're all well. Haven't been on much lately. Been quite sick. I did read a post today that I found quite itneresting though in lieu of what's going on.

"Jefferson Was Right
by Mike Byron
Most Americans don't know it but Thomas Jefferson, along with James Madison worked assiduously to have an 11th Amendment included into our nation's original Bill of Rights. This proposed Amendment would have prohibited "monopolies in commerce." The amendment would have made it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, or to give money to politicians, or to otherwise try to influence elections. Corporations would be chartered by the states for the primary purpose of "serving the public good." Corporations would possess the legal status not of natural persons but rather of "artificial persons." This means that they would have only those legal attributes which the state saw fit to grant to them. They would NOT; and indeed could NOT possess the same bundle of rights which actual flesh and blood persons enjoy. Under this proposed amendment neither the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, nor any provision of that document would protect the artificial entities known of as corporations.

Jefferson worried about the growing influence of corporate power until his dying day in 1826. Jefferson and Madison were so insistent upon this amendment because the American Revolution was in substantial degree a revolt against the domination of colonial economic and political life by the greatest multinational corporation of its age: the British East India Company. After all who do you think owned the tea which Sam Adams and friends dumped overboard in Boston Harbor? Who was responsible for the taxes on commodities and restrictions on trade by the American colonists? It was the British East India Company, of course. In the end the amendment was not adopted because a majority in the first Congress believed that already existing state laws governing corporations were adequate for constraining corporate power. Jefferson worried about the growing influence of corporate power until his dying day in 1826. Even the more conservative founder John Adams came to harbor deep misgivings about unchecked corporate power.

A few years after Jefferson's unsuccessful attempt to incorporate this amendment into the Bill of Rights, the fourth Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, John Marshall, unilaterally asserted the Court's right to judicial review in the seminal case of Marbury v. Madison in 1803. In practice this meant that the Supreme Court would have sole and unchecked power to determine what the Constitution meant. Jefferson was aghast. His fear lay in the knowledge that an unelected branch of government, one which is not subject to the will of the citizens, and is effectively immune from check by the two elected branches of government (Only one Supreme Court Justice has ever been impeached - none have ever been convicted and removed) was now solely responsible for determining the meaning of the Constitution. The meaning of the Constitution, and hence the very nature of our political system, was now in the hands of an un-elected and effectively uncontrollable body. "The Constitution has become a thing of wax to be molded as the Court sees fit" Jefferson lamented.

In 1886 Jefferson's twin Constitutional nightmares collided in a train wreck which has effectively derailed true democracy in this nation and indeed across the globe as other nations have either copied our unfortunate example, or have fallen under the dominion of our multinational corporations - or both.. The precipitating event was the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. This case is cited to the present day as having conferred the status of "natural" as opposed to "artificial" personhood upon American corporations. In fact the Supreme Court declined to rule on the issue. J.C. Bancroft Davis, the Clerk of the Court, an attorney, who curiously was also a former railroad company PRESIDENT, used his position to simply write this conclusion into the head notes which summarized the case. Ever since this fateful event; this sleight-of-hand rewriting of the Constitution, corporations have had the status of "actual" persons whose rights are fully protected by the Constitution. It was a coup against democracy which succeeded because there were no real external checks and balances on the Court, and because the Court itself chose not to act to repudiate Davis' rewriting of the Constitution. The thing stood. Precedent was established. Jefferson's "thing of wax" nightmare had come to pass."

It'd be quite a different world if that amendment had passed.

[Lefty]

lbj, your pronouncement that they're trying to do away with SS is quite a stretch from the corporate pension stuff. I can't understand why anyone thinks that a party that blves in raising taxes every chance they get is on the side of anyone, much less, poor people.

[Tom]

ljb - I've said it over and over again, but some of you guys don't want to hear it - no one is on your side. We need a third party. I am a conservative, not a Republican.


MAJOR difference. But I disagree-we need NO parties. How about just AMERICANS, taking various side on multiple issues. I have NEVER seen anyone who represents even most of my views. You cannot serve a party and serve your country at the same time.
JMHYAAACO.:jump:

[Tom]

Hope you're all well. Haven't been on much lately. Been quite sick. I did read a post today that I found quite itneresting though in lieu of what's going on.


Reading that stuff, no wonder youve been sick! :D
Read two articles here and call me in the morning!

http://www.nationalreview.com/

:lol:

(You'll feel better after cashing that fisrt BC tic, fer sure!)

[PaceAdvantage]

Sec, here's hoping you're feeling better....

[ljb]

lbj, your pronouncement that they're trying to do away with SS is quite a stretch from the corporate pension stuff. I can't understand why anyone thinks that a party that blves in raising taxes every chance they get is on the side of anyone, much less, poor people.
Lefty,
My story about "doing away with SS" was just a sidebar that came to my mind as I was typing. However, it appears the current government has found a way to alleviate corporate America from their pension burdens and GWB was storming the country trying to put the kabosh on SS so, in a broad sense they do have a relationship. Get the Mag and read the whole story.
As for taxes, other then folks like you that live in an area where the tourists pay most all the taxes, regular Americans are now paying a higher percentage of their personal income in taxes/fees and other charges for government related services then prior to Bush's tax cut. When you include the increase in medical expenses, tuition, gas prices and other items, the average American's standard of living has actually gone down under Bush and company. You see Lefty the tax cuts were designed to benefit only the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. The rest of us are now bearing the burden.
And also taxes are not included in the axis of evil, inspite of what you have been led to believe.

[Bobby]

squander Clinton's budget surpluses to give tax breaks to the rich.

That's what happened.

[Secretariat]

Sec, here's hoping you're feeling better....

Thanks PA. Limiting my posting here a bit for now. Everybody. Good luck on BC.

[Lefty]

lbj, you clearly don't know what you're saying; or rather the blogs you get your crap from have led you astray. Bush wasn't trying to put the kybosh on SS, he was trying to save it. What spin you libs are capable of. I'm not wealthy and my lifestyle better during this adm. You can spin it anyway you want but Bush has been good for the country. His tax policies saved us from recession after 9-11. Too bad you don't realize that. Tax cuts benefit the wealthy, you say. Isn't time for a new mantra? That dog don't hunt. The tax cuts have benefitted everyone.

[ljb]

lbj, you clearly don't know what you're saying; or rather the blogs you get your crap from have led you astray. Bush wasn't trying to put the kybosh on SS, he was trying to save it. What spin you libs are capable of. I'm not wealthy and my lifestyle better during this adm. You can spin it anyway you want but Bush has been good for the country. His tax policies saved us from recession after 9-11. Too bad you don't realize that. Tax cuts benefit the wealthy, you say. Isn't time for a new mantra? That dog don't hunt. The tax cuts have benefitted everyone.
Lefty,
Talk about rehashing old cliches. If i had a nickle for everytime I read that dog don't hunt on this board, I wouldn't be worried about rising health care costs, rising tuition, rising gas prices, rising fees at the public parks, rising fees for garbage pick up, rising fees for sewage disposal, rising local taxes ad infintium. Bush wasn't trying to put the kybosh on SS ? I see he was trying to improve it like he did prescription drugs for seniors. :D Think about it Lefty, when Bush and his cronies make a change, it benefits the wealthiest 1 percent or the leading corporations. You and I get the crumbs that fall off their plates, if anything.

[Lefty]

lbj, why do I bother? Go back to your lib blogs and blame Bush for everything.
We were in the Garden and then along came Bush. Brotherrr!