This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge.
A dark storm is brewing in the world of private pensions, and all hell could break loose when it finally hits.
As the Washington Post reports, the Central States Pension Fund, which handles retirement benefits for current and former Teamster union truck drivers across various states including Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, New York, and Minnesota, and is one of the largest pension funds in the nation, has filed an application to cut participant benefits, which would be effective July 1 2016, as it “projects” it will become officially insolvent by 2025. In 2015, the fund returned -0.81%, underperforming the 0.37% return of its benchmark.
Over a quarter of a million people depend on their pension being handled by the CSPF; for most it is their only source of fixed income.
Pension funds applying to lower promised benefits is a new development, albeit not unexpected (we warned of this mounting issue numerous times in the past). For many years there existed federal protections which shielded pensions from being cut, but that all changed in December 2014, when folded neatly into a $1.1 trillion government spending bill, was a proposal to allow multi employer pension plans to cut pension benefits so long as they are projected to run out of money in the next 10 to 20 years. Between rising benefit payouts as participants become eligible, the global financial crisis, and the current interest rate environment, it was certainly just a matter of time before these steps were taken to allow pension plans to cut benefits to stave off insolvency.
The Central States Pension Fund is currently paying out $3.46 in pension benefits for every $1 it receives from employers, which has resulted in the fund paying out $2 billion more in benefits than it receives in employer contributions each year.
As a result, Thomas Nyhan, executive director of the Central States Pension Fund said that the fund could become insolvent by 2025 if nothing is done. The fund currently pays out $2.8 billion a year in benefits according to Nyhan, and if the plan becomes insolvent it would overwhelm the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (designed by the government to absorb insolvent plans and continue paying benefits), who at the end of fiscal 2015 only had $1.9 billion in total assets itself. Incidentally as we also pointed out last month, the PBGC projects that they will also be insolvent by 2025 – it appears there is something very foreboding about that particular year.
As the Washington Post writes:
Ava Miller, 64, and her husband, Ed Northrup, 68, could see their combined monthly pension income cut to about $3,000 from the nearly $7,000 they receive now, according to a letter they received from Central States in October.If the cuts go through, Miller, who worked as a dispatcher in Flint, Mich., said they will need to dip into their savings to help cover their $1,300 mortgage payment, heating bills and trips to visit her 84-year old mother. Northrup, a retired car hauler, has started applying for truck driving jobs that could supplement their potentially smaller pension payments.
What makes the cuts more painful, Miller said, is that she took pay cuts so that the company could continue making contributions to the pension.
“I did everything I was supposed to,” Miller said, adding that she and her husband made extra payments on their car loan to cut down on their monthly bills after they received letters in October informing them of the potential cuts.
All hope is not lost, however.
Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders has proposed a bill that would repeal the measure allowing cuts, and instead calls for the government to provide assistance to troubled pension funds.
In other words, another bailout.
Which brings us to the current juncture, where we remind everyone that the governments own safety net, the PBGC has itself become insolvent, and according to CNN, projects that more than 10% of the roughly 1,400 multiemployer plans, covering more than 1 million workers fits the current criteria to be able to apply for benefit cuts for participants.
“.” said Karen Friedman, executive president of the Pension Rights Center.
We can’t help but wonder that as more pension funds become insolvent, and more and more participants are forced to take reductions in benefits, whether helicopter money won’t soon become a reality for the United States, even before it becomes one in Japan. Especially if it is spun by some opportunistic politicans as the “only hope” for America’s workers to preserve some of their retirement savings.
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Work it back far enough and it goes back to the effects of Free Trade and its wealth creating evisceration.
OH BOO FUCKING HOO
BABY BOOMERS ARE DRAWING TWICE AS MUCH AS THEY FUCKING PUT IN TO SS
MILLENNIALS ARE GOING TO PUT IN MUCH MORE THAN WE WILL GET BACK (IF ANYTHING AT ALL)
WHO COULD HAVE FUCKING SEEN THIS COMING?
STARVE AND FREEZE YOU FUCKING BOOMER BASTARDS
YOU AINT GONNA CYPRUS ME BITCH
LOST ALL MY $$$ IN A TRAGIC BOATING ACCIDENT
Acid Etch
Its just what they want you to do, fight among yourselves. The simple fact is that those pensions are deferred wages. You work, you get paid. A haircut takes place make it from the top down.
What is going to be very interesting is how this socially plays out. In previous rebellions like the civil rights movement and Vietnam War protests the protestors could easily be marginalized from the “real Americans” the mainstream Mom and Pop. Blacks, hippies were outcasts to many. Now conversely its the bulk of the population effected. The Cop and National Guardsman has family, literally their Mom and Pop in the crowd. Them are us.
BABY BOOMERS ARE DRAWING TWICE AS MUCH AS THEY FUCKING PUT IN TO SS … absolute hogwash
actually they are. I am drawing SS Ponzi check. And almost everyone receives every penny they pain in within 3 to 5 years. most boomers paid a small percent on a low wage. The boomers parents made out like bandits. The received a hundred fold return on what they paid. Many of the boomer mothers got a big check when they turned 59 from their husbands wages. and they never paid one red cent.
Old guy: you are right, parents generation if they lived way past 65, made out with so much more than ever paid in. Most moms of boomers did not have jobs, got SS from spouse. Most boomer wives worked jobs and many still draw on spouses combined with what they paid in.
Old guy you are correct; I buy silver on my Ill gotten gains (Get all I paid in every3-4 years, been retired since I was 50, now 66) Love putting the shaft to people like Acid. What can I say, people who cannot figure net present value are to stupid to live. So they won’t. Here in Wyo people ARE DUMPING THEIR 4,500 SQ FT HOUSES AND LEAVING TOWN IN THEIR NOT PAID FOR 60K TRUCKS. They never learn.
Why in the fook do we need social security? It is a ripoff scam. Forced retirement savings? If your so god damned stupid you can’t prepare to retire and are fooked, then do the world a favor and off yourself. Just another welfare bullshit tax. At least if your going to force it, make them buy gold or something tangible and when thats exhausted then yer done… but but I have to eat dog food because my SS doesn’t pay much, well then your an idiot to start with… I hope I can collect at least some of whats owed me but I ain’t counting on it…
Just like the teamsters retirement fund, a SCAM!
AND PEOPLE BITCH ABOUT THE FREE SHIT CROWD.
A dollar the baby boomers put in was worth 5 to 10 today. I started out at DuPont in 1976 at $5.66 hr. Made $13,000 that year and it was good money. If anything those boomers lost value.
Even adjusted for inflation those who are drawing from the social security Ponzi scheme still are getting far greater return than what they ever paid in.
Poor baby.
It’s a fact AC needs to get laid. He’s got way too much BS built up in his brain. Ac,it’s the pressure of growing up. We know it’s getting to you. Peace
Well, you will be doing the BOO HOOing, the Gov will get a lot of your money to pay for not only baby boomers but immigrants and free loaders as well. You mr. Acid will be working your Etch off to pay for the boomers, the immigrants and the free loaders. There is just no way for you to avoid it.
Precisely what my projections call for.
Because this is goddamned reality, isn’t it?
Not fantasy land where SS mails me a thing and says “If you worked to 65 you would get!!!!” (Way the fuck less than $7000 a month let me assure you). That wasn’t SS they’re getting that from, that’s impossible. They paid into a private fund or something. And instead of just going up to the “free shit” employer match and stopping there and handling the rest of their investment themselves, they went balls deep in this shit.
I get going to employer match, you’re gambling on doubling your money. Sure whatever that makes sense. But they don’t match up to that kind of cheddar, sir.
NOPE! This is reality… back to my point… and I shall be getting the “we’re sorry but due to unforeseen circumstances 30% haircut on your SS payments” (and that’s a BEST CASE scenario, ideally I’d rather plan for the entire thing to go down like the Titanic and if it happens to be there when I would need it… hey bonus, that’s great).
So! Anyone know anything turning 3-4% or so that’s reasonably safe?
Cause clearly this pension sure as shit wasn’t.
Sir, there are investment grade corporate bonds paying up to 6%. Check out the website “dividendyieldhunter.com” Your welcome! The Claymobile.
Acid: precisely my man precisely.
These fucktards are whining about fucking $3000 a month POST RETIREMENT? Are you even fucking shitting me or something?
Like… really? $7000 huh? You thought it was a good idea to count on your Mommy to dole out your $7k a month allowance huh?
Hint: if you don’t hold it you don’t own it.
Still got a mortgage, still got a car payment… and RETIRED. Or should I say RETARDED?
God my head just explodes. This actually kinda pisses me off. There’s no way in fuck I’m going to see that kind of bread in retirement ever, and you don’t see me going around with mortgages and car loans and turning the heat up to “July on the Sun”.
What happened to their *guffaw* “savings”, huh?
Oh right savings is how they punish people with my mindset. RIIIGHT. Got it. Let’s all go get drunk and eat tacos. Fuck responsibility.
“NO CUTS”
It gets cut now, or cut to $0 in a year or two.
Typical young Asshole who never worked for anything. Always wants something for free. Probably doesn’t have a job and still lives at home. Boating accident caused by your mistake that someone else has to pay for. Grow up Punk !!!!
No doubt a drunk boating accident…….
@ Acid Etch, I paid into the SS for the last 55 yrs, because I had to. Not because I wanted to. I worked in a union shop and I paid into that pension plan because I had to, not because I wanted to. You sound like like one of those cry babies who thinks every thing should be handed to them a silver tray. And by the way, what the heck did you need a ” bleeping ‘ boat for?
Don’t you like SOCIALISM, where you get something for nothing and politicians get a lifetime of real benefits you can’t even imagine? EVERY socialist program is now in financial problems because of the latest politician scam to get votes. Every state, city, school, library, fire dept, water dept and church is nearing bankruptcy because of a massive influx of non-productive people sucking up resources, endless destructive rules and regulations from the federal government and a financial “bailout” called TARP that ended up being the world’s greatest theft by fraud in history.
NOW GO OUT AND VOTE FOR HILLARY YOU IDIOTS, SO YOU CAN WHINE 10 YEARS FROM NOW.
Acid – unless you forget any interest at all over the years of SS deductions you are entirely wrong in your assumption. Actually, taking a low 5% over the years I am getting screwed royally.
If you want to actually pinpoint the problem you can look no further than all of our wonderful thieving representatives that took the SS deductions aad spent it on their pet projects over the years replacing the investments with IOUs that workers now have to pay in addition to the SS deductions. A double screwing as there is no way that anyone working today can actually make any interest or capital gains on their SS investments. Our politicians robbed us better than Bernie Maddoff ever did and he is in prison.
64 & 68 with a $1300/month mortgage?
How long did these goofs think truck drivers could keep getting $44K/yr each in pension payouts?
If you are not living debt free by that age, it either means that you had a major situation beyond your control or that you are truly stupid.
So true…
Car payments and and mortgage at 64 and 68 ???
Must be part of the liberal/progressive FSA
Yes that’s what I was thinking still in debt and cant live on $4000 per month at their age. Their story doesn’t invoke any sympathy from me. Boo Hoo they cant make it on a $1000 per week. Heck they in all probability didn’t earn that much combined take home when they worked ? At 68 Im not to sure he should be driving a 80,000 pound truck. I drove for 40 years. and as you get older your skills and body functions diminish. I quit driving semi at 62. I simply didn’t want to sell anyone any more of my life. However I was aware that I wasn’t the driver I was back during my prime years.
That is not taking into account their ss bennies??
Hey, let’s say you are talking about a man who is 16yrs into his fourth marriage. If they’d moved around and got a car ‘normally’, chances are HE would have both a mortgage AND a dandy car payment. These days you can exceed your mortgage payment by getting into a killer vehicle …and yet who, these days has enough to make $1500.00 payments per month for seven years at whatever %? I sure as hell don’t and intend to drive my wheels into the ground.
In and of itself, a fourth marriage is pretty stupid. At least two marriages ago one should have realized that they weren’t very good at the whole marriage thing.
Well, I am 64 worked from the time I was 14.Always paid SS – had to like every other normal working human. My husband died. Cut my monthly income by more than 1/2. I am living on his SS. It isn’t enough. My house payment takes about 3/4 of that. Can’t sell my house. My husband left me with IRS problems and they have a lien on my now flooded house – contractors not quite finished with rebuilding it from the last flood on the exact date last year. I have no money in savings – I was fired from my last job because I was doing a horrible job, knew it, didn’t know why until after I was fired. I was poisoned by Chantix – a prescription drug. Anyway, does anyone know what would happen to me if i just walk away? I am sure that the IRS
will take what they can and I guess that my mortgage co. will just follow me around for the rest of my life, which I personally would love to end, as ACID would have me do, but I don’t have the balls (my father committed suicide and I know first hand how it affects the children (which I have 2 that do not have the finances to help me much….my son is homeless and an alcoholic and my daughter is married to a great guy and they have given me 2 young grandsons. They are just starting their lives just bought their first home. They don’t need me to completely change their lives even though my daughter has told me that I could certainly move 3 hrs from where I currently live. I do not want to live off of my child. i just want to get out of this mess I am in and live by myself and be self-sufficient) Oh, and i have been dealing with the IRS since 2012 and have gotten nowhere. That is why I am asking (and perhaps I am retarded, Acid) if there is anyone out there who can tell me what happens if I simply walk away from my (would be $500,000 home) if it did not not have IRS liens and have flooded 4 times. I am not interested in hearing from people that want to tell me that I should do away with myself. I am interested in hearing from people that might understand my situation and maybe point me in a direction where I can live out the rest of my days and not burden anyone else. I am in pretty good health and am sure that I would be able to get a part time job. Thank You
Two things. Get a camper van for sleeping and keeping yourself fed and warm – to a degree. Then get a membership to a gym. The latter for showers and clothes changes. Gym bag for going between your camper and gym. And if you want an actual address for mail get a UPS mailbox. Last, a cheap pay as you go cell phone plan from Walmart.
Lots of parks in nice areas. Until recently most Walmarts let you park in their lots overnight – not so much anymore.
Amen
I also picked up on that detail. There are an incredibly huge number of moderately intelligent Americans who seem to have their heads buried up their asses when it comes to long term financial thinking and planning.
I’m sure everyone remembers a few years ago, when it seemed like the mortgage lending vampires had injected themselves with some kind of hyper potent speed drug and I’d get literally dozens and dozens of aggravating, obnoxious, infuriating phone calls from these lenders where they were trying to talk me into refinancing the loan on my house. To do what?
Save a few measly points on my interest rate? To shell out $2k or $3k bucks in closing costs, and then long before I could ever be able to recoup that outlay of cash due to a small reduction in my monthly house payment – the thieving, conniving, sonsabitches who sit on my city council would whisper to the real estate tax assessor that it was time to boost up the per-100 dollar assessed value rate, and also artificially wave his magic wand and say my home value had suddenly increased by 10 or 20 thousand dollars – which meant my real estate taxes would shoot up and devour any ‘savings’ that I had thought I would be able to enjoy by reducing my monthly mortgage payment through my refinancing effort?
These bastards all in cahoots with each other and they all conspire to rip off the average citizen. In the case of this 64 & 68 year old couple – I’d bet a case of cold beer that they fell for the refinance swindle and they also fell for the idea of taking out a home equity loan at the same time, and kept tacking the extra loan amount onto the end of their mortgage loan. This is a well known kosher strategy used by the ‘usury tribe’ to keep the gentiles into a permanent indebtedness trap.
Instead of being smart and putting extra principle into the loan each month – added to your regular payment, and helping you not only save thousands of dollars in interest over the life of the loan, but also helping you pay off your mortgage years sooner than would otherwise be able to do – millions of financially clueless and short sighted idiots will keep refinancing, adding more to the size of the loan via home equity loans that they use to pay for trivial and frivolous reasons – and so, they wind up retired, on fixed incomes, and they have still have massive monthly house payments to contend with.
This trap can easily be avoided. All that is necessary is for people to be financially frugal and avoid taking on additional debt, and to be wise enough to add extra principle payments to each monthly mortgage payment.
And, stop trying to live beyond your means.
“Stop trying to live beyond your means”????
(sarcasm extreme time)
We didn’t enslave all those third world rice farmers and rob all our future generations just to “live within our means”. This is our fucking playground and we’re going to burn the bitch to the ground on our way out the door.
PFFF “stop trying to live beyond your means”. You sound just like our parents, the “greatest generation”. They can’t be that great, they produced all us dope smoking coke snorting stock market bullshitting around hippies.
LOL.
During the 90s and 00s, just when you thought mortgage terms couldn’t get any crazier, they proved you wrong.
National crisis my ass. Nobody is gonna give a shit about these whining little crybabies
No more taxpayer bailouts!!!!
Kent
If you bail out the pensions the taxpayer gets hurt. If you don’t the people on pension promised X dollars and receiving Y get hurt. In the end the wealth of the nation, largely thanks to Free Trade eviscerating wealth creation reduces. The plans to forestall the grim reaper via QE and falsely propping up the stock market have shifted wealth upwards. I guarantee this; the standard of living will over time continually reduce.
Watch, they wont bail these funds, but will cut SS to cover shortfalls in gov employee pensions.
Its all BS, and the political elite retire from office with full pension and full bennies for life,
Any questions who our domestic enemies are?
Fuck with the Teamsters pensions and there will be …. SHTF !!! LMAO !!!
This is just the beginning. Cops and municipal workers all over the country are going to have their pensions cut due to poor returns, low interest rates, and a major loss of principal when the markets crash.
BUt hey!!! You could rush right out and roll your pension into a GOV 401K !!! If you don’t hold it, you don’t own it !!! 🙂
BTW, Someone here warned about pensions YEARS ago. Yes, its in the archives. 🙂
Me
Yeah, try not to pat yourself on the back too much. There have been MANY people, including public persona, warning that pensions are a Ponzi scheme over the years.
When I mentioned it here in 2010, NO ONE was talking about it !!! NO ONE !!! 🙂
DK
this cannot be happening the MSM says ALL is great the economy is on the rise, what the hell is wrong with that picture, HOW much longer can the average couch potato still be so stupid!
There is a reason that TRUMP resonates with so many people; that the crowds to see him have lines like a Star Wars movie and the venues are LARGE.
America is awake. America is aware. The couch potatoes are stirring. 🙂
DK
If Trump gets the primary he will mop the floor with Hillary. She will get an insignificant amount of Republican votes, Trump will get tons of Democrat votes. It will be a landslide.
Well this is the same government that claims that welfare works, and yet gives people like Paul McCartney’s childless ex like tens of millions of his money for… doing… basically… nothing…
You can’t have it both ways.
Either welfare fucking works or not. Be consistent.
BS Durango I’ve got the newspaper articles from 1982 telling people what was going no. Comments were from the Chief Actuary of SS to Congress just before he quit in disgust. The C States Pension was looted by Hoffa in the 1960-70, everyone knew it they just ignored it/ As ANN Raynd said “You can ignore reality, buy you cannot ignore it’s conciquences”
Public employees are often retired for longer than they “worked”.
DK
I’ll be a betting man and say that cops will not receive a pension cut of substance. Al Capone needs to keep Frank Nitti happy. Firemen, teachers and the rest are disposable, not the enforcers.
K2: Maybe. Maybe not. I would draw the line at Federal Employees. Cop pensions are (under) funded by the local communities where they live and work.
For the most part, those communities are broke. 🙁
They’ll roll them into Federal, call them DHS.They ain’t pissing off State Troopers and the like. They need them. Actually they’ll need them then more than ever.
Kevin 2, Hello. Most cops and firemen put into the same pension funds while on the job. 8 percent of my bi weekly pay goes into the plan. 60 percent of salary for 25 years of service. I work the ghetto battalion with 3 stations located in the area. Rode a busy ambulance for most of those years too. Non stop runs for the entire shift, trust me when I tell you I earned every penny of that pension. Thanks
nope
Yes it is happening, and the Teamsters Pension is just a hint of what is coming.
As a card carrying Teamster in late 90’s and early 2000’s, i often pondered what would happen to the company i drove for, Roadway, when all those tens of thousands of drivers started retiring and collecting their $36k annual pension checks, with lifetime Insurance benefits..
Shortly after i left for a more laid back job, the dominoes started to fall, as the masses started retiring. One of my former co-workers and fellow Teamster, has just told me recently, he expects a reduction in his benefits soon, as they have already cut his insurance plan to pieces.
Just like SS Retirement, the system was working fine, as long as people kept working, and paying in. The workforce has been cut way down and the whole system requires too much of the funds for operating costs and big salaries, for cushy jobs at the top.
The old “too many chiefs, and not enough Indians” trick.
I was a teamster as well. I think the cause of this pension collapse is due to the rampant corruption that the fund was subject to. I never liked that union or its practices. It’s a good example of communism. I believe they will be terminal and on life support in the next few years. They tried very hard to get into the company I’m at now and did get into a couple terminals, small ones. But most of our terminals kicked their asses pretty bad. The terminals that did vote them in, well over a year ago, still have no contract and are askin how to get them out. The teamsters are a band of thugs, plain and simple. I also believe YRC, yellow and roadway merged, will also collapse within 5 years. Don’t think it can happen? Consolidated Freight, Carolina, and Preston all did. It’s weird, I’m an instructor for my company and given the sad state of the economy, we have candidates lined up to go through our driver school till the end of the year. Somethings coming. Oh yea, did you know most of the teamster business agents make well into 6 figures? I wonder how many of those bastards took pay its in 08 like a lot of truckdrivers did. That’s top notch representation for ya. Solidarity YEAH!
Most teamsters are morons. They are so stupid they can’t figure out that their pension is the same ripoff scam as social security. They have no pension so to say. If you live long enough to get some of it good for you but if you die, we’ll heres 10k and were keeping the rest. They can’t cash it out, they can’t borrow against it, they are just duped into paying a shitload every month for money that they don’t control whatsoever. Now on the other hand the electricians and concrete workers CAN cash out twice a year so they actually have some control and own the money, teamsters sadly eat shit.
You got it, and so did i many years before i got sucked in to the muck. I got out because of the war between management and the Union. I was near the bottom of the totem pole in our terminal, and the management was run by a stupid cunt uneducated adulteress woman, that hated the drivers and the Teamsters.
I have to admit when she pulled an illegal stunt, my local did a good job of preserving my job. I then turned right around two weeks later and gave my two week notice, so the bitch could not make more fake documents/charges, and fire me. I have never been fired from a job in my life and was not going to let her do that to my career. She got wind that I was possibly going to transfer to the Central Break Bulk Terminal about fifty miles away, so that is why she contrived the scheme to fire me.
She falsified more documents and changed my “reason for leaving” to “discharged” for spite. I wrote a book about her and her illegal doings, and sent to every person connected to her through the company. Because she had been fucking the terminal’s district supervisor, she was protected to a point.
Her evil ways soon sought her out and the terminal’s shipping business failed so bad after a year from the time i quit; they closed the terminal and consolidated it with three others.
Because she held the discrimination card, they didn’t fire her, but moved her to a terminal fifty miles away, and gave her a desk inside a dusty old closet, beside the loading dock.
So much for her cushy big salary. After six months of getting shunned and ridiculed by the others at the terminal, she quit.
Sweet justice!
About a year or so later, the wife and I were eating at a pizza place, and she and her hubby and youngest daughter came in, and sat at a table right across from us. She had her back turned so she never even knew i was there, until we got up to leave. Her daughter, 22, recognized me from her being at the office and talking with me about my horses. She smiled and spoke as i walked by, turning around so the bitch saw me and dropped her head. She had aged twenty years in those four or five, since our ordeal.
What goes around comes around.
My stress level dropped by half, after I left roadway and the Teamsters. I then worked as a Driver Trainer via a company that had their own TD School. Now i had some real idiots and making weekly runs from coast to coast, just about killed me..literally.
I fired one trainee from my truck, but he had some pull and got to driving local for them, with less than two months experience. I told the dispatcher that he was the most dangerous driver i ever tried to train. Dispatcher said..”even worse than old so and so that ran up a curb and guide wire and just about pulled a transformer on top of you in the bunk?”
Yep.
Three months later the dumbass trainee fell asleep less than five miles from the terminal, and flipped an International Eagle w/ less than 100k with a nearly new 52′ trailer, off the side of a mountain. Totaled the whole train and almost took out a mobile home with six people inside sleeping.
Two years later, the company closed the doors.
But the pension fund covering their union bosses is OVER funded. Man, that union really looked out for you. Aren’t you glad you paid your union dues all those years?
didndonuffin
Many companies did the same. Anyone with control of money that is not personally theres has the potential for mismanagement. The greater the money, the higher the position the greater the protection from legal recourse upon the managers. See Jon Corzine.
My wife lost her workmen’s compensation from Chrysler when they went bankrupt as the successor was not bound to the previous companies liabilities but was still allowed to use their name. They were allowed to be self insured because they were “too big to fail”, sound familiar? The state did not back them up. 100% their fault, wheelchair bound, with that there is no debate. The reality is we are going backwards very rapidly and any working person that gets anything is ganged up on by the masses. Few protest bankers getting bonuses with bail out money. One day the robber baron up on the hill will look down as two serfs argue over a loaf of bread. He will smile as the plighted fight among themselves leaving him alone.
Sheep are oh so easy led.
If you are 68 years old what are you doing with a $1,300 per month mortgage payment? You are an idiot? Their combined pension was $84,000 per year. Their combined SS will probably be in excess of $36,000 per year, should they start drawing it. Why don’t I feel bad for these people?
Ed and Ava, sell the house and get a condo in one of those controlled communities in FLA. Sell the Mercedes and the F350 diesel 4WD crew cab, all you’ll need is a golf cart. They provide shuttles to the outside world.
Exactly!! If you’re still paying a mortgage when you’re retired, something is VERY WRONG!!
We bought our first house in our early 20’s, upgraded to a bigger house in our 30’s, paid that one off in 20 years. Now in our mid 50’s, we’re socking that money into IRA accounts and living debt free, planning for retirement. Would I LIKE a fancy NEW house??? Sure… Do I NEED a fancy new house? Nope. We live within our means, like to many people DON’T do.
relic.
$1300 mortgage. + No more Gravy Train. =
More Senior Burger Flippers.
Senior burger technicians soon to be automated out of THAT job.
Yes. That is the truth. And yet, that is what perpetual renters set themselves up for. Start a 30 year note at 25 years old and you are done at 55. Or before if you pay principle down like we did. Buy small, save big. People just can’take wade through the years in anything now… finances OR relationships.
Yeah, how many broke people do you know that drive gas guzzlers? I see it all the time. Poor people love old, big SUVs that are barely running because they need to pretend they are wealthy. People who are broke at a higher level buy new or “pre-owned” ones on payments they can barely afford. Sorry, but most people without Mormon-sized families can make do just fine with a 4 cylinder compact or sub-compact car. Learn to live beneath your means.
(For anyone who thinks I am a hypocrite, I drive a 4 cylinder hybrid every day and keep an old 4 cylinder pickup as a backup plan for when my subcompact isn’t able to haul larger things.)
If I live, I’ll have income to my dying breath rellik, and then my spouse, if still alive, will continue to receive half of what I receive from The VA and all of what I receive from SS (she forfeits her SS at that time).
So, hell yeah, we’re both 59 and only 10-years into a 30yr mortgage and owe more than $10k on the wheels, but can’t really do any better on the wheels ‘part’.
If there’s a crash, exactly who is going to come for any of the properties? (And who would surrender them to begin with)?
Interesting day in articles..
Prince is gone, 2+ years ago he spoke out against the Illuminati. Makes one wonder.
John on Patmos wrote about the bear (Russia) and the dragon (China) teaming up to attack Israel. Seems to be going in that direction.
Thanks Mac for the clean up of posters…
Prince Was also the 2nd largest land owner in Carver county up there. An atheist church is 1st as having the most. Its the only wilderness areas left for animals not humans. Voted top 10 best places to live in us a few years ago. Not so much now. Rules, regulations , high cost to live.
Mom, watching Cnn about him.
He was an interesting, caring, talented artist.
I liked his music, even went to a concert.
Too bad he left us like he did.
At least he died in his abode, like Elvis.
Safest place, I guess.
He was quite funny from what I am hearing.
Life, one never knows when one is going to check out…
And last concert in the Fox in ATL, what a way to go.
Accoustically the best place to see a concert…
I have seem many concerts there, awesome…
Prince & WWTI.
RIP….
He was a genius. I don’t know when I “got” that, because I am very conservative. But, I am also a musician and I have been thinking of him for several months now.
The sun will rise without prince in the world.
He sang songs. My hero…
Wow prince died, hmmmm, I never would have known lol.
Eppe;
Amen
So, who benefits from these pension funds running out of money? Obviously, not the people relying on the pension payments.
Is it to the government’s benefit, because the desperate pensioners look to the government for answers?
Bernie also has promised infinite free ice cream to all Americans.
I’m sure 99% of the lemmings will vote for that!
Free beer would be a different story
Well, I wasn’t going to vote for him, being a free thinking person who can wipe my own ass, but free ice cream just might be enough to make me change my mind! (But only if it is Ben and Jerry’s.)
The ASSAULT on Pensions began with the gimmick known as the 401(k), which conveniently excused corporate (and other) employers from setting aside (as the had always done) PART of their profit to honor the lifetime contract they and their employees made with each other going back and honored for many decades..
The result was the incredibly unjust enrichment of corporations who had succeeded in the past 4 decades (and continue) to have their tax obligations legislatively reduced thus increasing the tax burdens of all individual tax payers.
The next attack came when pre-existing Pension Funds across the country became mismanaged resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
The third attack happened in New Jersey: Mrs. Christie Whitman, a very personally wealthy woman, took zillions from one of the 8 healthiest pension funds in the country– that of the State workers and Teachers. With Reagan in national office, this enabled her to deceive most on the State level by giving out ‘her own’ tax cuts and shift the property tax burdens entirely to municipalities = solely to individuals with money she stole from Pensioners.
The results of the Union’s law suit that reached the NJ State Supreme Court?
One, the Court ruled what Whitman did was “legal”, but all have known her behavior was grossly immoral and unconscionable.
Two, no succeeding NJ Governor has EVER been able to replenish (re-fund, fund again) the billions she stole. In the words of a now retired State employee, what Whitman did was “politicized theft”. As we all know, what is legal” is not necessarily moral.
The third effect is that it set up Mr. Christie, a former Prosecutor, to scapegoat and vilify Teachers and State workers in front of the public for their hard earned, legally contracted Pensions because he recognized the problem Whitman caused.
But instead of identifying, naming, and remedying that evil– something a true or genuine leader does– he committed another travesty through his scapegoating.
The fourth effect is that the newly elected very personally wealthy Governor of PA, Tom Wolfe, in his very first act as Governor, rather than working for legislation to reclaim tax revenues wealthy corporations legislatively stole over decades, instead proposed raising the State’s SALES Tax which would put yet another disproportionate burden on the Vast majority of PA’s non-wealthy indvidual taxpayers.
Do you see the pattern(s) here?
Gandhi continues to be right, “Truth needs to be repeated as long as there are men who disbelieve it.”
— the Lone Ranger
Christie Whitman was right but timing is everything.
After watching the markets make trillions through the 90’s Whitman thought they could boost the retirement fund by investing it. Her husband was key in the money handling. They moved billions into the markets in 1999, just in time for the tech bubble pop.
They lost huge. Really poor planning. Lousy investing practice, no diversification. NJ taxpayers are now on the hook for those losses.
” Her husband was key in the money handling. ”
Dating myself let me say:
“Danger Will Robinson”.
Unfortunately that all had an easy solution: Shoot Dr. Smith
The pattern I see is the “I’m a victim” pattern. Entrusting one’s future on the words of another is… well it’s just not the smart thing to do. Like paper silver/gold, if you don’t hold it, you don’t own it! The same applies to the resources needed to retire on.
So, a 401K is bad because the individual now has to take some responsibility in preparing for their future? At least with a 401K you can take your contributions / earning with you when changing jobs. I’d prefer to have at least the semblance of control and ownership with a 401K vs putting all my faith into the words of another.
Yes, as a retired Army NCO I do have a small pension; but I lived below my means and invested throughout my active-duty career. Would have loved to have had the 401K option that today’s service members have available to them. Needless to say I don’t expect the military pension to always be there, but I’ll be able to live comfortably because I made the conscious effort to control my own financial destiny outside of the “promised” pension.
I’ve little sympathy for those who spend all their income living large during their earning years, only to blame others for their financial hardship in retirement. Pension funds are like the snake oil salesmen of yesteryear.
You guys act like the government is going to let you keep all the money in your 401k’s. If they want it they will take it.
And face mass revolution? I doubt they want to fight that fight…
I just talked to a friend of mine that drives a truck for a living. He told me that the independent drive has nothing to haul. Well you can haul something but they are not paying you anything. He said lower than minimum wage. He told me he was going to go to work for Micky “D”s. He said he could make more money.
Sgt.
Yep- here we go. It will take through summer to trickle down to the peons. Husband said the store shelves were empty Sunday night. Just wait. BdI says Walmart is going to be very spacious indeed. Look for wider aisles, folks.
Fuck walmart and fuck the stores, we need bigger isles so I’m not trapped by the fat ass fuckers who block them all the time 🙂
I work for a public school and I realize that my pension will not be there when I go to retire in 20 years. Unfortunately, while I am still employed with the public indoctrination center, I can’t touch the money or invest it myself, I have to be terminated for 90 days. So I am going to get into a different field just so I can cash it out and buy land and build a nice cabin.
One silver lining is that most of the teachers there have slowly awakened and the pendulum is beginning to swing back in the other direction.
Depending on your state, you can make a one time election to switch your plan to the investment side. Then you can play with your own money, plus you get your check within 30 days of quitting or retiring. Good luck.
Thanks for the advice, but in Ohio it’s in our contract. : /
What a good move; you’ll be living the dream; cabin on your on swath of land.
Paleface:
When ever I hear or in this case read someone say they are going to buy land and build, I always think I should tell them to look for a structure, usually a home on a large lot with a couple of acres or more. You need someplace to live while you’re building. Sometimes the price is not much more than just land, which by the way is harder to sell.
The cheapest way to go is to buy an old used mobile home as a temporary home until the house gets built. You can get one pretty cheap. I did that many years ago. I bought a trailer for $3,000, then sold it three years later for $2,000.
Cry me a river I have been driving for 36 years as an OO. I have had to pay all the taxes and truck payments and maintenance and house payments and collage and the rainy day fund and retirement. Now you want me to pay you to sit on your ass and wine. Oh hell NO!!!!!!!! Get a dam job and stop voting for thieving Democrats and slick Republicans. Damn my back hurts pulling the wagon
My sons teachers are doing the “work to rule ” thing instead of striking. They’re upset because they’re being asked to kick in higher health insurance premiums and deductibles. I told them that that’s what Obamacare leads to. Insurance companies are forced to cover everything but they can charge whatever premiums and deductibles they need to. Government is making out, insurance company is making out, and we become serfs begging for government run healthcare.
Eventually, the city and town pension liabilities will outpace taxpayer revenues. Detroit is only paying their retirees 21 cents on the dollar. The Hegelian dialectic at work.
Over on drudge…..
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/04/21/Get-Ready-Huge-Obamacare-Premium-Hikes-2017
Civil War brewing folks ?????????
Pension funds are going under word wide and not just in the USA. The problem is built around the central bank ZIRP and NIRP model that is screwing the pension funds 6-8% a year returns model. Fixed asset returns used to play a big role in providing bond interest at much higher levels.
To fix this problem there is talk behind the scenes of a national take over of 401k plans. From these plans the government will take a big administrative fee that will partially go to cover pension fund losses…
So if you are young, start a business of your own. You can’t get fired (laid off). You have to work hard sometimes but at least you don’t have to put up with bosses and bs like pensions that are there for somebody else to take. When people work for a pension, they’ll put up with all kinds of crap. Just to have it ripped off. Save ten per cent of every pay check no matter how little or how much. Pay yourself first. Then pay your bills. That is your safest guarantee to retire rich. Don’t advertise your stash. X-spouses will be sweet as pie until you bow out. Besides, who wants somebody who wants you for your money. Tell everybody that you are broke. Watch them scramble to get away.
Paying yourself 10% first is a great plan. That what we did. and we have never had but one mortgage that was paid off 40 years ago. . and never a car payment. no debt
Let’s see, the only real need for a pension is to pay mandatory insurance and taxes – higher than car notes or house notes. Eating beans by candle lite.
I could live like a king on 7,000 dollars a month. Same thing is going on with teachers pensions (PERS) here in Oregon. They can collect their pensions AND go back to teaching and collect salary. They do live like kings. Blame the greedy unions. Let them figure it out.
Here in NC, retired teachers can’t go back to work except as part-time temps because of Obamacare. If they work more than the allotted hours in a month, their retirement insurance will be taken away and they would have to go on the current lesser plan. Also, they would lose their Social Security from age 62 to 65, although in the rich states they wouldn’t need to go on Social Security early like many have to in NC. NC is one of the lowest paying states for teachers, and most of the state budget is going for teacher and state worker salaries.
Emily;
I live near you and agree. But don’t forget teachers are “heros”, just like police and firemen. What you need to do is form a union and proclaim yourselves heros. Seems to work for them.
It’s all planned.
About teachers. Not too long ago, teachers were known for making shit salaries. Who wanted to be a teacher? Nobody. These pensions were promised to folks who taught (or babysat) the dregs of society’s offspring. One of the promises they did this for was old age security. So now, everybody is outraged? Forget that. Nobody who didn’t put in years of dealing with these little =€_%€_%€_ is eligible for anything but the nut house or a pension. And I know personally, ( my mother) and several close friends that paid it forward in ways a pension will never come close to compensating.
2isone
“Not too long ago, teachers were known for making shit salaries.’
I had a conversation with a retired Massachusetts gym teacher getting $100k /yr. His pension is on the order of $70% of that. This guy didn’t groom the next Einstein that is going to cure cancer, he taught gym. Oh he was a super Hillary supporter. His excuses for her $21 million? She is a good speaker. Guns? All guns should be 6ft long so everyone can see who has one. Free Trade? Bill Clinton got more for Social Security for his support of that. We were in a pubic swimming pool and I politely said, “Excuse me but I’m going to talk to an adult”, and swam away.
Just another sign of coming troubles. I have been on both sides of this. Is it the unions fault for asking for more and more. Is the corporations fault for giving in to large demands.
Unions were needed at a time where safety and life were not taken seriously by companies. Now unions have become money laundering institutions for democrats. The corporations are not much better. They donate millions to candidates to try to get favorable legislation sent through.
I am now a salaried supervisor. I have people who care and work hard for me. If you end up with people who don’t care and are lazy then you have a huge problem. It is almost impossible to fire them. Some say we would not be making near what we are if it were not for the union. I say it is not true if you are working for a good corporation. They want to keep the best workers. Some would be making more than they are now. It is socialism in the corporate world.
On the salaried side they keep cutting the lower ends of management. The CEO and vice presidents never seem to get a cut though.
I truly believe in freedom and free markets. You will never hear me say someone makes too much because that is just pure jealousy and greed. What I do say is you make whatever you can but don’t mess with my little world. Unfortunately it does not work that way.
Again these are just signs of things that must change eventually. When it does it will cause pain, violence, jealousy, and trouble.
What a world we now live in.
The bansters will cull the population instead of paying out on 401k and will start race wars in the USA so that both sides kill each other off.
Just look at history and how the British rules india to see the game they are playing and Europe has trouble coming too and this is why scum-ban Merkel is importing immigrants from all over the world and giveing more rights to immigrants than her own people in Germany.
Both sides are being set up like mad pit bulls at a fight with the bankers sitting back and taking bets on which dog will win.
Ya I can see retirees revolting. Not. The corporate filth and gov demons will pilfer any funds they can to keep the collapsing shit hole going. The too big to fail attitude is the green light to rob people. People accept it so it will continue. When the gov bailed out banks there should’ve been revolts and uprisings. Nothing the coward boot licking drive up window crowd did nothing. gov is like a child testing his parents to see what he can get away with. They will push till people rise up. But it will never happen with the dumbed down stoned masses. Just accept it and stop complaining if not gonna organize some sort of rebellion. what’s the gripe.
According to Deagle.com a government think tank, by 2025 the US population will be 65 million. So don’t worry, there is a solution planned to take care of you.
Its the result of too many highly paid and benifitted takers and too few makers. Its simply not sustainable.
There are no intentions, that I am aware of, of ‘sustaining’ a damned thing in America. Using Obama and his Administration as a baseline, absolutely everything the man has done was in the interest of weakening America in some way, large or small, many of them meant to ‘cripple’ years down the road.
We’ve seen Congress allow Obama to step right around them and try all kinds of illegalities …with his time left how many more are in the works or already being done?
The way Fox reads today, one would believe that Hillary was already the sitting president. I hates Fox News…
So union workers who receive unrealistic retirement benefits who then turn to politicians to bail out the underfunded pensions at the expense to the tax payer. Pure 100% theft…
I do not have a problem with companies offering pensions. I do have a problem with said pensions being funded by tax payers or consumers. It seems it is the American way to make other people pay for the lifestyle of a select few.
Whether that is for funding a teachers pension with an increase in property taxes or funding government jobs with an increase in taxes.
It seems everyone’s costs are past on to someone else and the buck never stops until the money runs out.
Did you know that when you go to the mechanic that they add 2-3 times their cost of parts onto your bill plus labor?
Same goes with doctor’s and hospital bills. Everyone has to get their slice of the pie. The worst is those drive by docs who poke their head in the room and then bill you for it.
Promising a person that they can receive 70% of said salary upon retirement is just ridiculous.
BABY BOOMERS ARE DRAWING TWICE AS MUCH AS THEY FUCKING PUT IN TO SS
Ignorant shithead. Always a comment, never an intelligent thought behind it.
Screw u “phicrappazappa”. I have less of a problem with boomers taking their SSI than I do the greedy pricks described above.
Let me guess you fall into one of the 4 above mentioned categories. As I have said before we all excuse our behavior when it benefits ourselves and our own.
Everyone draws more from SSI than what they paid into it, that’s the way the system works. Bank 15% of your salary for 45 years, that’s exactly 6 years of salary. Now live on that for the rest of your life. Isn’t going to happen. The rest of it is a gift. It’s a shell game, doesn’t matter who is taking a benefit, you’re next in line.
ll changed in December 2014, when folded neatly into a $1.1 trillion government spending bill, was a proposal to allow multi employer pension plans to cut pension benefits so long as they are projected to run out of money in the next 10 to 20 years.
PROJECTED BY WHOM?
Hey man I’m a little cash strapped today, can I bum a smoke off ya? Hey thanks you’re the best man…
Como se dice conflict of interest?
Ava Miller, 64, and her husband, Ed Northrup, 68, could see their combined monthly pension income cut to about $3,000 from the nearly $7,000 they receive now,
Oh boo fucking hoo.
Seriously that’s the crisis? SERIOUSLY???
My parents got by on something like 2200 a month in SS. Now 1400.
What the fuck would I even DO with 7k? I mean honestly what the fuck would I do with it (inflation adjusted as time goes forward of course).
Shiiiit… if dis goan be DAT kinda party… something something mashed potatoes…
Pfff my math projects $0 in SS, that’s what I’M attempting to work around. Lemme tellya, it’s… very fucking unlikely I can make $0 SS work but… not impossible.
Car loan?
MORTGAGE???
… RETIRED?!?!?!?!
… no cure for stupid, is there?
Buy a beater move to Alabama bam done. Really, you’re worried about this shit? Unfuckingbelievable. What planet am I on?
There is only one real solution: https://raptureandendtimes.com/2016/04/09/all-things-new/
Since it was the feds that wiped out the funds for SS, it is up to them to replace them lest they hang. That’s simple enough even for them to understand …and one day soon they may come to understand many things “on the business end of a gun.” (They have left us little, if any, choices in the matter).
Anyone who draws SS, except the elderly, draw WAY more than they ever put into the system, but the system wasn’t designed to work, it was just a ‘kick the can down the road’ that everyone bought into. Now, it is coming to an end, perhaps. (They could also keep “kicking the can” (printing money).
with salaries being cut for current workers there will not be enough dues payments to keep things going.
This is all depressing. If the cuts are going to be made to SS or pensions or whatever then laws have to be changed allowing people to live anywhere. Tents, cardboard boxes, in the woods or under the bridge. More than likely the poor will be the culled or die from exposure or hunger.