boycott united forever

StellaStarr wrote:

You seem to think a pension is some kind of welfare.
It's money you arranged to have taken out of your paycheck, to save
up
for retirement.

You know...a "personal account."

And the "sitting around" part is supposed to be the retirement they
worked for all those years. They were wrong to plan for that?

One of us seems to be failing to understand something...

I think you missed the boat there Stella. I'm not sure what you're
describing, but it is not a pension.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

"John Galban" wrote

StellaStarr wrote:
You seem to think a pension is some kind of welfare.
It's money you arranged to have taken out of your paycheck, to save
up for retirement.

I think you missed the boat there Stella. I'm not sure what you're
describing, but it is not a pension.

From the Wikipedia...the on-line encyclopedia:

A "pension plan" or "retirement plan" is an arrangment by which an employer
(for example, a corporation, labor union, government agency) provides
income to its employees after retirement. Pension plans are a form of
"deferred compensation" and became popular in the United States during the
1930s, when wage freezes prohibited direct pay (in the form of salary) to
increase.

John...note the "deferred compensation" part. Sounds sorta like what
Stella wrote.

Bob Moore

Bob Moore wrote:
From the Wikipedia...the on-line encyclopedia:

A "pension plan" or "retirement plan" is an arrangment by which an
employer
(for example, a corporation, labor union, government agency) provides

income to its employees after retirement. Pension plans are a form of

"deferred compensation" and became popular in the United States
during the
1930s, when wage freezes prohibited direct pay (in the form of
salary) to
increase.

John...note the "deferred compensation" part. Sounds sorta like what

Stella wrote.


The deferred compensation described sounds like the company promising
to pay you later (originally because they couldn't afford to pay now).
Stella's description sounded like some sort of individual account, like
a 401K, where actual earned dollars (not deferred) are used.

A 401K (or similar individual retirement account) is usually not
under the direct control of a company, and cannot be squandered by
them. A promise by a company to pay your salary after retirement is
just that. Words.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

Pension plans are a form of
"deferred compensation" and became popular in the United States during the
1930s, when wage freezes prohibited direct pay (in the form of salary) to
increase.

That's the problem with Wikipedia. Some damn fool typing faster than
his mind could follow!

I assure you, there were no wage freezes in the 1930, nor were they
showing any tendency to increase.. Wages were going *down* in the
1930s!

What the Wiki guy meant to say was "during World War II," but he
probably couldn't remember what number it was (I, II, III?).



-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
the blog: www.danford.net
In Search of Lost Time: www.readingproust.com

On Thu, 12 May 2005 19:04:40 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

Not to diminish what has happened at United, but it was reported on NPR that
United pensioners are guaranteed their pensions, up to $45K annually.

The guarantee of course is by the American taxpayer. (Speaking of the
nation, not the airline.)

I have little sympathy for airline employees, who in the good days set
the airlines up for future bankruptcy much as the United Auto Workers
did. (To be sure, the airlines and the auto mfgrs were enablers.)

Who in his right mind believed that generations of workers could
retire at 60 with $50/$60/$70K annual pensions and medical benefits
for the next twenty or thirty years?

The pension overhang guaranteed by the PBGB (whatever the order of the
letters: PGBB?) is half again as large as the savings & loan bailout
that wrecked the economy in the 1980s.

-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
the blog: www.danford.net
In Search of Lost Time: www.readingproust.com

It's the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and it is still
technically not taxpayer-funded. All employers with defined benefit
plans pay insurance premiums that in theory will cover the cost of
bailouts, assuming that not too many are needed. UAL does not yet break
the bank but it comes close. Then, as with the S&L crisis, Congress
will end up authorizing a payout from the General Fund.

This is a class-A debacle because every option si in a sense bad. The
judge in the case basically said, better to have the company stay in
business and pay *some* obligations than go bust and pay none. If UAL
were to be liquidated it would be quite a foodfight. Would today's
retirees do better that way? Highly unlikely. It's crazy to think so.
So keeping UAL going is in one sense better for all UAL people.

However, by allowing UAL to do this, the court has created a major
moral hazard with regards to Delta and American, whose pensions are
just as expensive. Basically the gov't says to your competitor, "Oh,
that huge expense you were required by law to take? We'll let you take
a mulligan on it." Delta et. al. now have a very legitimate claim that
UAL is being given a very unfair advantage against them, and will over
the next few years likely end up weaseling out of their pensions too.

This is why I ultimately come down against it. Liquidating UAL would
really be in the best interests of the broader market (partly by
getting rid of UAL's inventory, thereby allowing prices to rise a
little) but in the short term this is like chemotherapy. Sure, maybe it
kills the cancer, but in the meantime you wonder whether you weren't
better off dead.

I've read btw that GM's cost of providing benefits to retirees comes
out to something like $15k per current employee annually. If that isn't
a drag on wages I don't know what is. If any of you are WSJ subscribers
there's a good article on it he
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1...Business+World.
The whole concept of society paying for individuals' retirement turns
out to be a bust. It worked as long as it did in the US and Europe
becuase of strong post-WWII economic growth. The US baby boom gave us a
demographic bubble that could sustain the concept for one generation
more than in Europe but it is just as doomed here. It's a nice idea in
principle but in practice it wrecks both companies and economies
leaving everyone but a lucky older generation that got there first
worse off.

-cwk.

wrote in message
ups.com...
It's the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and it is still
technically not taxpayer-funded. All employers with defined benefit
plans pay insurance premiums that in theory will cover the cost of
bailouts, assuming that not too many are needed. UAL does not yet break
the bank but it comes close. Then, as with the S&L crisis, Congress
will end up authorizing a payout from the General Fund.


A real problem with insurance like PBGC (and FDIC) is that the prudent
companies (or banks) end up paying the cost of those who don't contribute to
their employees pensions The real solution is enforcement of contributions
by not allowing deferments.

Mike
MU-2

On 13 May 2005 05:48:16 -0700, wrote:

It's the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and it is still
technically not taxpayer-funded.

Neither were the savings & loan associations until the bailout came
due.

The PBGC overhang is nearly double what it cost us to straighten out
the S&Ls.


-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
the blog: www.danford.net
In Search of Lost Time: www.readingproust.com

"Cub Driver" wrote in message
news
On 13 May 2005 05:48:16 -0700, wrote:

It's the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and it is still
technically not taxpayer-funded.

Neither were the savings & loan associations until the bailout came
due.

The PBGC overhang is nearly double what it cost us to straighten out
the S&Ls.

And about 1/4th what it's going to cost to fund the Federal Employee
retirements.

If you think UAL has a flaky employment/retirement arrangement, just wait
for the Civil Service fiasco to hit the wall.

"Cub Driver" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 12 May 2005 19:04:40 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

Not to diminish what has happened at United, but it was reported on NPR
that
United pensioners are guaranteed their pensions, up to $45K annually.

The guarantee of course is by the American taxpayer. (Speaking of the
nation, not the airline.)

I have little sympathy for airline employees, who in the good days set
the airlines up for future bankruptcy much as the United Auto Workers
did. (To be sure, the airlines and the auto mfgrs were enablers.)


I remember the media crowing about how good it was going to be for United
when the union became the primary stockholder (IOW, the OWNER of the
COMPANY).

UAL was going to become the Workers Paradise®.