Ouch. You have to feel bad for the pensioners.
Letters were sent to members and retirees at the end of September outlining a proposal from the central states pension fund to cut benefits by up to 65 percent. That’s to help keep it from going belly-up in the coming years.
They should just change their name to Chrysler or Citigroup. They’d be all set.
Or Bank of America or AIG.
Yeah, I do feel very sorry for these guys as they got shafted.
That said, the only way out for the City of Chicago and State of Illinois is what this pension plan did.
Central States was in bed with the Mafia back in the ’50’s and ’60’s; the Feds took over the fund for a while. In the end, the math didn’t work: the fund was a Ponzi scheme, but no one was joining up.
That’s the difference between private pension funds and Gummint pension funds; the Teamsters didn’t have enough guns to force the money out of people.
No, seriously. Why is the federal government not bailing these guys out?
Because the federal government shouldn’t have bailed any of them out if for no other reason than everyone then expects to be bailed out for poor financial decisions.
Well, I don’t feel sorry for them.
If they are only relying on their pension and social security, then they were going to have problems no matter what.
Plus, I have a hard time feeling sorry for the Teamsters, a bunch of union thugs who didn’t care about their employers, non-union workers and “scabs”.
Nope, no sympathy for them.