Pension Reform? How did Bush Screw us?

[primative1]

I wake up this morning and read this ...

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20060817/ap_on_go_pr_wh/pensions_overhaul_1

This one is news to me. So I wonder ... since the GOP passed it and Bush is signing it ... How are we screwed? Anyone know the details?

[babylonsister]

1. Good question, because we know he's trying to screw us somehow. nt

[primative1]

2. You State The Obvious ...

But I was hoping to hear the punchline before I head off to grab the pick and shovel ..

[babylonsister]

4. No punchline here, since it's being signed while Congress is

on vacation. I'm sure something nefarious is going on under our radar.

[waiting for hope]

3. The feeling I got after listening to NPR

this morning was is was going to make it more difficult for companies to even have pensions so the winner would be the big companies...Bush just gave them the excuse not to have them. Does that even surprise anyone?

[primative1]

5. Hmm ...

This is true, but so few companies offer pension plans now.
On a bright note it sounds like some of the people who actualy have them might someday get paid but ... hey, that off in the future, I'm sure they will fix it better by then.
The one detail I pulled out of the story was that employees would now be "automaticaly enrolled" in 401ks...
Sounds like another perk for wall street and corporate executives who need help timing the sales of their free stock options to maximize their tax free benefit.

[question everything]

7. This is true. Even companies that do offer pensions..

will they be there once the company goes under? Look at Bethlehem Steel, for example.

There was a program on PBS several months ago, and the person - from Harvard, I think, someone who is an expert on the topic - said how the 401K came as a footnote to help the CEOs of a few companies, Kodak, I think.

The main problem with 401K is that we are all so grateful for company match of, say, 3% or 5%. If there is a Democratic Congress, among other things it should force employer to match 50%. Yes, especially the ones where the compensation of the CEO is more that 4 times that of the average worker. One of the outcome of the new bill is that companies can now pay their executives more - don't ask me for the math.

Yes, the MSM media heralds this as good for workers as employees now have to opt out instead of opting in for 401K but, really you did not expect anything from Congress to favor workers at the expense of executives, right?

[meg]

6. They made lump sum conversions into cash balance plans legal

They declared that cash balance plans weren't age discriminatory even though courts have decided otherwise. This is exactly what IBM wanted. The class action suit that IBM employees won is hurt.

See cash pensions website

Though H.R. 4 eliminates the practice of wearaway in cash balance plans, it does not provide transition protections to the older employees who are most often hurt in cash balance conversions. The bill also includes provisions that would allow certain multiemployer plans to reduce the already-earned subsidized early retirement benefits that have been earned by truck drivers, construction workers and others.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. The day after this ugly bill passed the Senate, the Appeals Court

overturned Cooper vs. IBM. Wow, IBM gets to keep the $1.4 billion it took from 140,000 of its older employees in 1999! I have received a letter from our attorneys stating that we still might the ruling.

The bill that passed allows corporations to 'convert' to defined contribution plans and pocket the money that would have had to pay into the 'starting balance' for older employees to break even with their defined benefits plan (hey, IBM only took away $600 a month from my retirement).