Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp

Lasest company to be bailed out:
United Airlines.


Financial health of PBGC, $23 billion deficit.


PBGC is designed to pay benefits using the premiums paid by member
companies. The problem is that the number of failures are growing and
payouts are exceeding the amount of money being collected in premiums.
General tax revenue is not used to fund these pension payments, yet.

My feeling on this is that taxpayers should NEVER have to pay for the broken
promises of failed companies. Premiums should be increased to cover costs.
If the premiums become too high for some companies then those companies can
opt out of the program.

Trusteed plans:
a.. Anchor Glass
a.. Arrow Automotive
a.. Bethlehem Steel
a.. Bradlees
a.. Cone Mills
a.. Consolidated Freightways
a.. Durango Apparel
a.. Fleming
a.. Grand Union
a.. Harvard Industries
a.. J.A. Jones
a.. Jacobson Stores
a.. Kaiser Aluminum
a.. Kemper
a.. LTV Steel
a.. McCulloch
a.. National Steel
a.. Northwestern Steel and Wire
a.. Outboard Marine
a.. Payless Cashways
a.. Penn Traffic
a.. Petrie
a.. Piccadilly Cafeterias
a.. Pillowtex
a.. Polaroid
a.. Reliance Insurance
a.. RTI
a.. Thorn Apple Valley Grand Rapids
a.. Thorn Apple Valley Local 26
a.. Thorn Apple Valley Smoked Meats
a.. Thorn Apple Valley Carolina Hourly Employees
a.. TWA
a.. US Airways
a.. Weirton Steel

now add United Airlines. Delta could be next.

Unions!!! Destroying companies and now trying to squeeze the taxpayers. It
seems employees at UA are upset and feel as if they have been "sold out". I
feel bad for them but they must be willing to accept some of the
responsibility. They negotiated pay and benefit packages that were
impossible to maintain. In order to pay everything agreed to the cost of
flying would be so high that no one would buy an airline ticket.

Speaking of unions, if the PBGC seeks taxpayer bailout then taxpayers should
unite and just say no. There is no justification for taxpayers who will
never see a dollar paid to them from a defined benefit plan to fund the
DBP's of others. No such promise was made by the PBGC and it should never
happen. Write your rep and tell them how you feel.

The $23 billion deficit is big but nothing when compared to the potential
red ink as other companies fail.

Re: Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp

I agree with you but I don't think these kinds of employees are getting
rich. Let the company fail, pay off creditors (including pension) with
what you can get. The retirees can have what there is. The employees
can get new jobs at better airlines what will have to take up the slack
due to the disappearance of UAL. These pensions remind me of Wimpy
saying "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." So Wimpy
enjoys a hamburger right now. But Wimpy also knows that when Tuesday
comes he'll be too broke to pay and will offer some reduced payment.

Part of the problem is the pensions aren't making what they'd expected
because of the low interest rates, and this is forcing the companies to
have to kick in more bux to make up the short-fall. Funny thing is the
low rates were meant to help the economy, instead, its mostly
encouraged people to borrow more money based on the perception of
wealth in the real estate bubble.

Masochistic

Re: Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp

On Wed, 11 May 2005 05:12:34 -0400, "Ed" <> wrote:

>My feeling on this is that taxpayers should NEVER have to pay for the broken
>promises of failed companies. Premiums should be increased to cover costs.
>If the premiums become too high for


Write ON!