It really is possible to run a pension fund without taxpayer bailout.
Lots of pension funds run without a bailout.
Competent professionals do it all the time and if one’s forte is in another field all he has to do is hire one, and stop looking at polling data and stop grooming for tv cameras long enough to listen to what that professional says.
Honestly.
People who are not running unions do it all they time. Running one is not rocket science. There are thousands of pension funds that have never been bailed out. They never fail by accident, they never fail by random happenstance. They fail only by long patterns of neglect.
How is having investigations a condition of getting more money holding workers hostage. I didn’t say the outcome of the investigation prior to the money. Otherwise they can just get their money and rely on Dems to give them more and refuse investigations.
Yea keeping the status quo is working so well now🙄
There should always be accountability conditions on government money. They didn’t earn the government money they earned money and their union leaders lost it. The government should hand them a check in one hand as the union hands them their books in the other hand.
I see you didn’t answer why having an investigation is holding them hostage. Are you a union leader or something?
The recent bail out wasn’t a bailout of the PBGC. It was a government bailout of specific union pensions so they wouldn’t end up being taken over by the PBGC.
That’s the main goal after all. It’s not about hunting crime, fraud, or negligence, which the justice department is well equipped to do with real lawyers and forensics and everything.
It’s about withholding relief so Jim Jordan can hunt for soundbytes on TV. Republicans just want to play stupid games while working-class pensions wither.
If there’s crime, use the crime fighting tool. None of it has anything to do with whether or not pensioners should get their money.
The purpose of the PBGC is to prevent the total collapse of a pension and the loss of all income to those dependent on the pension. But the PBGC doesn’t guarantee that the beneficiaries of a failed pension will receive the same benefits promised under the failed pension. When a pension fails, the PBGC takes over the remaining assets of the pension, then assumes the payments to the beneficiaries. But there are caps on the amount that a beneficiary can receive under a PBGC assumed pension. These recent bailouts were a re capitalization of specific union run pensions so that they would not fail and have to be assumed by the PBGC. Had the PBGC taken them over, the union would no longer be running the pension and have access to the funds in the pension, and there would be significant cuts to beneficiary’s pension amount in accordance with the caps under the PBGC.
No one was talking about congressional investigations except you. They don’t do criminal investigations. I am talking about justice or IRS investigations. It has to be mandatory or it is just the status quo moving forward.
I like the intent of the PBGC. But don’t agree with the reduced amount. But understand the realities of it. Hopefully they have the authority to conduct an investigation.
I don’t see how this went through the PBGC. The whole idea here was to bailout mismanagement by the union leadership of the pension funds. The PBGC isn’t a piggy bank for failing pension plans, any more than FDIC is a piggy bank for failed banks. These pensions were getting to the point where the PBGC was going to be required, under the law covering the PBGC, to stop operations of the pensions and move their assets under PBGC control. It’s just like when the FDIC steps in and takes over a bank. The lowest paid beneficiaries are fine and don’t see a change, but above a point benefits are capped, just like small accounts are fine at a bank, but the protection for large accounts are capped.
Interesting observation considering the apparent biased application of the law in just the last decade. The Justice Department is at at a crossroads now applying the law they enforced (again) using FBI armed Schutzstaffel storm troopers to descend on the Secret Service protected Mar A Lago home of former President Trump to rifle through the undergarments of the former FLOTUS looking for nuclear codes or letters from Kim Jong Un.
But the Delaware residences of J’Biden’s? Where reported “Top Secret” documents were stored for crack addicted Hunter Biden and auto mechanics to peruse at their leisure? Maybe to entertain the hookers and drug dealers young Biden consorted with?
“There’s no there there”
Justice Department indeed is staffed by probably incredibly talented people. Except their leadership and top decision makers are politicized making them inefficient and less effective.
The maximum rate for benefits under the PBGC for terminated plans is published for all to see. The max benefit for 2023 is $81,000. Most folks on a pension don’t draw near that. But the fat cats (union leadership) often draw significantly more. Like I said, this wasn’t through the PBGC and it wasn’t to protect the rank and file. It was to protect Union leadership and allow them to retain access to the assets of the pension plan.
To be honest, in all my years with the union, I had never heard any leader or rep discuss politics, let alone try to sway MY vote. Not once. Perhaps in their publications, which I never had the time nor interest to read. But once, when a heavily insured package disappeared from my truck and I was suspended and put on notice of dismissal for an extended time, it was my union that investigated the theft. My UNION found the thief and put in a claim for me, I returned to work and UPS was forced to pay 3x my missed wages. I didn’t always agree with my Local but without them, I would have lost my job, since it was only my union that investigated, UPS was happy to get rid of a senior employee.
On balance
I was grateful enough for what the union did for me and my family that after I quit the job and moved onward (and upward) with my life I continued paying dues out of my checking account an entire year before filling out my drop card.
