The problem runs far deeper than that.
Insurance companies have been in business for decades. How? Actuarial tables.
They know, NOW, what their future liabilities are.
What U, and US Steel, and UA knew, when they 'promised' a pension, was their future liability.
Moreover, so did the PBGC. In order to offer a defined benefit plan, companies had to meet PBGC criteria.
Those criteria are woefully inadequate (see U, UA and US Steel's pension quandries as prime facie evidence).
'Employee' pension plans have always been little more than a corporate piggy bank, with 'Break in case of emergency' stenciled on it.
And the company gets to define or create the 'emergency'.
Now, corporate apologists will point to the post 9/11 stock market decline as the reason for the pension problems.
Conservative investment planning takes such downfalls into account - they have happened before, and will do so again.
The simple truth is, the companies did not want to sufficiently fund pension accounts, and the government aided and abetted in it.
Insurance companies have been in business for decades. How? Actuarial tables.
They know, NOW, what their future liabilities are.
What U, and US Steel, and UA knew, when they 'promised' a pension, was their future liability.
Moreover, so did the PBGC. In order to offer a defined benefit plan, companies had to meet PBGC criteria.
Those criteria are woefully inadequate (see U, UA and US Steel's pension quandries as prime facie evidence).
'Employee' pension plans have always been little more than a corporate piggy bank, with 'Break in case of emergency' stenciled on it.
And the company gets to define or create the 'emergency'.
Now, corporate apologists will point to the post 9/11 stock market decline as the reason for the pension problems.
Conservative investment planning takes such downfalls into account - they have happened before, and will do so again.
The simple truth is, the companies did not want to sufficiently fund pension accounts, and the government aided and abetted in it.
