Posted on 06/01/2012 4:01:17 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co will cut nearly a quarter of its U.S. pension obligation by transferring the management of its pension plans for 118,000 white-collar retirees to a third party and offering lump-sum buyouts.
The two moves unveiled on Friday will cut $26 billion from the automaker's massive U.S. pension liability of nearly $109 billion. GM's pension overhang is a top concern for investors. It was one of a handful of issues left untouched during GM's U.S.-financed bankruptcy restructuring three years ago.
GM retirees represented by the United Auto Workers union are not affected by Friday's announcement. Hourly retirees account for the bulk of GM's U.S. pension obligation.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
In other words, the non-UAW retirees get screwed for the benefit of the union thugs.
What else is new?
I’m so glad the UAW goons are protected from reality.
I would not call every member of the UAW a thug or goon. Most of them are ordinary Americans doing honest, productive work. Class warfare should belong to the Democrats.
GM made their own bed with the unions. For years their strategy was to add future benefits instead of modest present day pay raises. Now it’s come time to pay the piper.
“I would not call every member of the UAW a thug or goon. Most of them are ordinary Americans doing honest, productive work. Class warfare should belong to the Democrats.”
I’m a U.A.W. retiree and have never voted for a democrat in my life. I worked hard and raised a family and with my two recent adoptees, I’m raising another one.
Pictures of them at the link:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2886877/posts
Why is this a screwing?
I’m one of those affected.
Explain to me, please.
You betcha. We’re among those who 40 some-odd years ago were promised a somewhat good retirement in lieu of decent wages. Now we’re considered the problem because the city has decided to bail out on their promise......never mind we paid 9 to 10% of salary to make that happen. So now we’re in our golden years and some want to take our pension away. There are those on here that think the burden has passed down to them and I’m sorry for that but one day they’ll get old and expect their retirements to be there for them. They lambaste me but I think they should direct their anger to the sleezy politicians who have and continue to waste money in city, county and state governments causing shortfalls in the aforementioned agencies.
UAW is positioning itself to kill off the company and reward itself with GM assets.
I was a union member for a few years and I've never voted for a Democrat either. We used to laugh at the neo-Bolshevik agitprop from national HQ.
What you were promised was based on rosy returns that could not possibly be sustained over the long term. Sad, but true.
Now many public sector employees expect taxpayers in the private sector without defined benefit pensions and no guarantees of life long health care benefits to make up the shortfall in the public sector.
You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip and you can’t squeeze anymore out of an already wrung dry middle class private sector.
We are mad at sleazy politicians who have made and are making promises that absolutely cannot be kept. But in the end, it’s the math that counts and the math says that the money’s gone and there is zero chance that it will come back.
So public sector retirees are just going to have to tighten their belts several more notches like the rest of us have had to do.
When a person’s full time job no longer garners a full time income (and a lot of us are in that boat now), you just have to make lemonade the best you can.
The UAW - One of the two major reasons why an $18,000 car costs $46,000.
The other is the EPA.
randita I don’t know how old you are but I do hope you have a good retirement and haven’t fallen for the politicians LIE that if you contribute to a retirement plan you’ll be OK. I have kids and grandkids and I do worry about them but I still say if governments be it city, state or federal would cut waste and fraud FIRST instead of going after pensions, social security and medicare, it might make a difference....for ALL of us. I take care of my elderly mother who has Alzheimers and I’m not asking for ANY help other than what we can provide her. I wouldn’t feel right in doing so even though she deserves all the help she can get because my father was a veteran of WW2, he worked and paid taxes all his life. We TRIED to make sure we would be self-supporting at this time in our life and I’m not going to apologize for that. We’re not to blame.....it’s the system of total wasteful spending on any branch of government’s failure to keep their financial houses in order!
congrats to you.....
most of us are stuck in unions, we go our own way when voting...
We're not to blame either that the stock market crash wiped out a portion of our retirement savings and that the recession has lessened demand for the products we sell to the point that our income has been cut by at least a third. But there's no entity that's going to make us whole. We just have to adjust to economic realities. Instead of retiring at 66, we'll be working 4-5 years beyond that. But that's okay. We'll be okay barring a total economic collapse, in which case all bets are off for anyone.
There's no doubt that there is government waste, but when pension actuaries base their projections on a consistent 8% return and we have ZIRP, you're not going to recoup the difference by just cutting government waste. To maintain status quo, the rest of the difference has to come from taxpayers who have already had their pension savings reduced by the crash and their salaries and benefits cut or frozen.
Social Security and Medicare as they are currently structured are unsustainable without extreme hardship on our children and grandchildren.
We have to face facts. The collective fairy tale we have been living the past few decades has come to an end. It was all a house of cards based on borrowing and spending money we didn't have and never would have.
P.S. God bless you for caring for your mother. That’s a very difficult and challenging task but you will be rewarded in heaven for your selfless service.
You were promised something 40 years ago that was impossible to be Delivered. Now people who never recieved the Wages and Benefits you received are Paying for that Promise you were made.
I dont begrudge what you made or were promised,I dont want to be the Sucker who has to pay for your Crooked Unions and Politicians who made those Promises that could not be Kept.
You expect taxpayers who have struggled for years, to pay for your Crap,well we have been screwed for years and we dont have a Corrupt Marxist bailing us out with others peoples Money and screwing Bond Holders who provided Money to run your Pathetic Crap
You were promised something 40 years ago that was impossible to be Delivered. Now people who never recieved the Wages and Benefits you received are Paying for that Promise you were made.
I dont begrudge what you made or were promised,I dont want to be the Sucker who has to pay for your Crooked Unions and Politicians who made those Promises that could not be Kept.
You expect taxpayers who have struggled for years, to pay for your Crap,well we have been screwed for years and we dont have a Corrupt Marxist bailing us out with others peoples Money and screwing Bond Holders who provided Money to run your Pathetic Crap
You were promised something 40 years ago that was impossible to be Delivered. Now people who never recieved the Wages and Benefits you received are Paying for that Promise you were made.
I dont begrudge what you made or were promised,I dont want to be the Sucker who has to pay for your Crooked Unions and Politicians who made those Promises that could not be Kept.
You expect taxpayers who have struggled for years, to pay for your Crap,well we have been screwed for years and we dont have a Corrupt Marxist bailing us out with others peoples Money and screwing Bond Holders who provided Money to run your Pathetic Crap
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