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Originally Posted by njbchbum
The article cited by the OP refers to "multi-employer pension plans " rather than individual employer pension plans.
Does 'multi-employer' refer to plans that cover employees in plans provided by the likes of Teamsters and Auto Workers? If so, it would seem that potential legislation re cutting those pensions would not be applicable to employees who were not in such pension plans.
Those of us in a pension plan provided by our sole, public/private employer only have to fear the actions of our employers rather than legislation! And that has been happening for years!
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I have not read the legislation. But the article and other things I have read do say the provision was related to Multi-Employer plans which are Unions, but also can be smaller companies that joined a pool because they are too small for their own pension fund... and need to spread the risk (mortality/longevity).
There actually is more to that legislation that is loosely connect to the pension part... these other things are a bit disconcerting too!
1) There is a measure to remove or relax rules that limit investment banks from holding and trading to many derivatives (i.e., too big to fail/systematic impact).
2) A bit of irony on the investment banks measure. The Investement banks are the ones that created those toxic CDOs (Derivatives) that were labeled at AAA grade. Guess who the investment banks sold scads of those Junk CDOs to??? You guessed it; Pension Plans! As those CDOs collapsed along with the general markets, it caused many pensions to have financial problems... many have not recovered from it!
Here is the one that takes the cake...
3) So the lobbyist show up and influence both Bank and Pension legislation (probably other provisions in the bill too). So what else ended up in the Omnibus spending bill... a provision to allow larger political donations.
Something about those three issues being jammed in a bill which.... "Has to be passed by midnight"... that stinks.
Many, probably most voters, consider those 3 items to be fairly important. Why wouldn't those be separate bills and debated on each of their merits.... IOW in the LIGHT OF DAY!
I find the investment bank legislation to be outside of the pail... we aren't totally out of the woods yet from the financial crisis.... much less the country's financial overhang from it!