What the media is missing about the pension "scandal."

[Atman]

I use "scandal" because it is scandalous, not to indicate a particular person doing something wrong. Anyway, all of these companies with troubled pension plans; correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these pension plans INVESTED? They don't just sit there and rot, waiting for workers to claim their share, they are invested back into the economy.

So, Bushbots...if the economy is doing so damn well, as your fearless leader has been claiming for the past five years, why the hell are these pension funds performing so poorly that they can't meet obligations? Where are the fund managers? All we hear about is the low-life worker demanding too-high wages, and getting too much health care. In the robust economy Bush says we're enjoying, how can any competent fund manager be losing money?

Oh, yeah, that's right...it's all a big fucking lie.

Never mind.

[indepat]

1. Almost everything emanating from this Administration is a big f***ing lie

[wakeme2008]

2. 5 Years of a stock market that has not moved up

has caused a lot of pension plans into having problems. Normally they expected a 5-10% growth per year and they have not see that under Bush.

[rfranklin]

3. The management of thse companies is to blame because...

they used obviously unrealistic projections of returns on investment so they could underfund the contributions required. It's another case of Enron-type bookkeeping.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Capitalism is a racket.

Wall Street stock scandals, Savings and Loans corruption, Hedge Fund, Junk bond collapses...all of it usurps money from the middle class. And the more they do it, the more there will be cries for socialist solutions. You just can't keep taking money from the middle class without having a major impact in the political dynamics.

[mediaman007]

5. Absolutely, they don't have a "Free Market" anyway, that's why the lobby.

Maybe you've joined this discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3854639

[Warpy]

6. Pension plans were partially invested

but many were "invested" back into the company. Top management has been using pension funds as personal play money for decades. They were encouraged to do this until the mid 80s by ripping contributions off from younger workers who had no right to refuse contribution or take the contributions with them when they left that company. They were simply robbed. Top management has always regarded those employee contributions as nothing more than company capital, to be invested or used as they pleased.

That's the real scandal. These bastards are embezzling as fast as they can and calling it "pay packages" while they steal from their employees and cut them off when they get too old and sick to work.