1237c413129a
tech



Hello David - 

CA>> In Japan the corporations are "don't give a damn" and when
CA>> they go bankrupt the pension funds go with them leaving
CA>> people who worked a lifetime with ZERO to live on. 

CA>> Here in the USA we recently changed our bankruptcy laws to
CA>> include pension funds and will soon have the "wonderful"
CA>> work-ethic of Japan with old people praying to die (the
CA>> fastest growing religion in Japan). 

DD> In Australia, employers are obliged to pay the
DD> contributions into the pension funds (operated by other
DD> parties) quarterley, or face stiff financial penalties. If
DD> the employer goes belly up, the employee will lose 3-6
DD> months funds at most. 

I have a fatalistic attitude about governments and am not good
at keeping accurate timelines of their activities. I do know
that Dan Qyayle, the VP who spelled tomato wrong, had the
authority to give written permission to companies that were
behind in their payments into pension funds up to 5 years with
no need of any further approval from any government official.
General Motors was 5 years behind and received an extension
beyond even that. 

Not long ago the US government changed the laws governing
bankruptcy to include pension funds to pay off creditors. This
explains one part of the phenomenal jump in the Dow Jones
averages of the stock market. With the pension fund available
in the event of a bankruptcy many major corporations credit
ratings went sky high.

Chrysler Corp's pension fund was, at one time, worth more than
the entire auto company. After ridding themselves of enough
employees the new actuarial report allowed Chrysler to
_withdraw_ millions of dollars from their pension fund. Others
did likewise. 

Recent news articles tell me that many large corporations are
behind in the billions of dollars never put into their pension
funds and that this administration has _again_ allowed them a
'grace period' to get the money in there. 

These news tidbits are usually on page 15 of any newspaper and
never discussed on TV or radio news programs. Most Americans I
know today do not know that if the corporation they worked for
long enough to draw a pension goes bankrupt they could lose
_all_ of it. 

Australia may be doing similar changes and just not
broadcasting it? You may want to verify that what has happened
here has not also happened there?  English speaking countries
with similar laws also follow similar accounting practices.
Once a thing like this is proven to 'float' past the voters
attention spans it spreads to other countries.

What has happened here is a horrible trick to play on people
who will remain unaware of it until they have little time
left to do anything about it (what could a person do?).

Which leads me back to the unions.  They are the only force
with enough manpower, youth, and money to even attempt to
correct these injustices and they _are_ filing lawsuits
in an attempt to get the pensions funded properly.

I am 8 years from 'legal' retirement age knowing they will
increase that before I get there.  They discuss it every
year.  Increasing the retirement age would drastically
alter the actuarial tables and the companies would be
exonerated of any and all wrongdoing.

>
>        ,                          ,
>      o/      Charles.Angelich      \o       ,
>       __o/
>     / >          USA, MI           < \   __\__
 

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