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Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

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Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

Kepler said:
I'm not sure we should respond to the 2006 Financial Crisis by turning over the entirely of the $x trillion in US workers' savings to those same criminals.
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Then provide an option that invests entirely in US and/or state treasuries.
 
St. Clown said:
It's because they're expensive to maintain and rules and regulations have made them more difficult to continue - especially with companies using fewer employees to produce the same number of goods.
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Which again goes back to my original answer, which is that companies have shifted the risk off of themselves and put it on the employees. Which appears to be society's preferred option these days, but I don't have to like it or agree with it.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

Kepler said:
I'm not sure we should respond to the 2006 Financial Crisis by turning over the entirely of the $x trillion in US workers' savings to those same criminals.
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And pensions don't do that? Pensions don't stuff their money in massive mattresses.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

dxmnkd316 said:
And pensions don't do that? Pensions don't stuff their money in massive mattresses.
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Yeah, but my understanding is that there are a trillion rules and regulations concenring risk that keep the banksters from just freebasing the money the way they do with my 401(k).
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

Kepler said:
Yeah, but my understanding is that there are a trillion rules and regulations concenring risk that keep the banksters from just freebasing the money the way they do with my 401(k).
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And yet, those rules don't apply to Social Security, which uses the exact same model. Oh wait, I forgot the golden rule... He who has the gold makes the rules.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

Kepler said:
Yeah, but my understanding is that there are a trillion rules and regulations concenring risk that keep the banksters from just freebasing the money the way they do with my 401(k).
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Huh? You work for a large company. Don't they have a total stock market fund? Or a Wellesley equivalent? I've always seen 401(k)s as some of my most conservative investments.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

And that ignores the biggest problems with defined benefit pensions. They have become increasingly invested in riskier areas to make the returns necessary to meet the required benefits.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

Slap Shot said:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Euphemism
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Yes, I'm well aware of what he was doing, thanks. Still, at that level of a position - the burger flippers, street sweepers, parking lot attendants, etc., they're not rich in retirement plans.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

dxmnkd316 said:
And that ignores the biggest problems with defined benefit pensions. They have become increasingly invested in riskier areas to make the returns necessary to meet the required benefits.
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Sure, but who set the "returns". Basically the companies lied to the employees about the returns they would get to depress their wages. Knowing that later on they wouldn't really be paying out the money. It's classic bait and switch. Always has been. Did the same thing to my dad with his pension.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

ScoobyDoo said:
Sure, but who set the "returns". Basically the companies lied to the employees about the returns they would get to depress their wages. Knowing that later on they wouldn't really be paying out the money. It's classic bait and switch. Always has been. Did the same thing to my dad with his pension.
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According to pension laws, the company has to hire an actuarial team from an auditing firm to calculate the variables used for pension contributions. Nobody calculates the estimated return used in those values per se. The acctuaries are given an assumed rate of return, and based upon what we know from some public pension funds that have had trouble lately, we know that they generally use an annualized return rate that's on the optimistic side of market averages. Using market averages and trends that are optimistic might be fine for some companies, but they don't all have the size and diversity of a GE.

For that reason alone it's an excellent reason not to trust in a pension fund as an individual planning for retirement, as well as an employer looking to minimize its own costs.
 
St. Clown said:
According to pension laws, the company has to hire an actuarial team from an auditing firm to calculate the variables used for pension contributions. Nobody calculates the estimated return used in those values per se. The acctuaries are given an assumed rate of return, and based upon what we know from some public pension funds that have had trouble lately, we know that they generally use an annualized return rate that's on the optimistic side of market averages. Using market averages and trends that are optimistic might be fine for some companies, but they don't all have the size and diversity of a GE.

For that reason alone it's an excellent reason not to trust in a pension fund as an individual planning for retirement, as well as an employer looking to minimize its own costs.
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I'll tell you right now I trust my pension a lot more than any 401k or stock plan.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

ScoobyDoo said:
There is nothing worse on our national news channels than a plane crash. We still don't know anything and yet they will drone on and on and on and on about the same things we don't know over and over and over and over again.

It's ridiculous.
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Gotta keep the Communist News Network engaged somehow! :D
 
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