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On 2/6/2003 4:54:58 PM BottomFeeder wrote:
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On 2/6/2003 4:33:55 PM USAirBoyA330 wrote:
I am only 25 years old and I know better than to put all your eggs in one basket!.....duuuuuh. That's why I have an outside firm handle my funds separately. I certainly would have NEVER depended on USAirways for retirement.
So got no sympathy here. IF your making anywhere near 100k a year and you don't plan ahead and you put all your eggs in one basket then I am sorry but....get over it.
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Your so far off base.
First. The pension is is just like a savings account. If someone took as much as 1 million dollars out of your savings. Would you be upset? OR " Get Over It"
Second. At 25 you figured out to not "Put your eggs in one basket". Congratulations, Now why are the only one to figure this out? What makes you think that most pilots are not diversify.
Third. Life has a way of throwing you twist. With an attitude like yours, I am sure it going to be interesting. SMART GUY
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I'm sorry BottomFeeder, but the 'boy' is right. (AND, again, I say this as someone whose over-arching interest in this subject is that of an already retired pilot.) There is NO question that loosing your defined pension benefit anytime within 10 years of mandatory retirement is horrible... that's why your government created a safety net called the PBGC. But the PBGC doesn't recognize the class differences among labor that ALPA does. (please spare me the oversimplified and inaccurate use of the 'S' word) If the pension plan is like a savings account than the PBGC is like FDIC and your institution went under.
Pension plans are about streams of payments in and out and risk. It's elementary that when you are the beneficiary of a defined BENEFIT plan, that MOST of the risk of managing the streams in and out AND the risk of the accumulated value of the cash falls on the Company... except, for, VERY OBVIOUSLY, the risk that the pension beneficiary (the pilot) assumes that the Company won't go OUT OF BUSINESS.
Gee, for how many years has it been discussed that U's HIGH COSTS might do it in? In fact, those high costs and some other factors DID do U in.
All this talk of fairness is all pretty poor public relations designed to get ALPA a bigger piece of the terribly shrunken pie. The thing is ALPA doesn't care whose pie they eat.
There is no question that ALPA has some very strong arguments that their retirement group is being inadequately treated by the regs of the PBGC, because they don't deal with the mandatory retirement and there is at least a plausible argument that the state of the pilot's retirement is an indirect consequence of tragic incidents against the U.S. as a nation. However, some of the problems are ALPA's own making (namely a rediculous seniority system that rewards the lucky few at the top of airlines that don't go under at several multiples of what they make earlier in their careers.)
I think this situation needs redress, but I think it's going to come from the PBGC raising it's maximums or providing some flexibility in letting U 'up load' it's future contributions to the more senior pilots.