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Nofsdad
Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 7090
Location: Central CA
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 5:02 pm Post subject: Another pension rant
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Executives' Pensions Are the Deal of a Lifetime
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Major corporations throughout the country are abandoning their pensions, saying the benefits are too costly and less important, with the widespread adoption of individual retirement accounts such as 401(k) plans.
But many of these same companies are retaining special pension plans for top executives, saying they would lose the top brass to rivals without them. |
It is my firm belief that NO ordinary human being could possibly be worth what it costs to hire, maintain and even fire these little tin gods.
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| "We view this type of program as a standard and necessary component in recruiting and retaining talented top executives," Kelly Dunmore, vice president of employee benefits at First American Financial, said in a statement. Others view it as a double standard. |
Especially when it's applied to people like Alan Lacy, Julian Day, Aylwin Lewis etc., who have failed and who continue to fail their companies miserably.
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| "These executives earn what an entire neighborhood of typical families make collectively," said Karen Friedman, policy director at the Pension Rights Center, a nonprofit advocacy group. "They don't need this money for retirement. These plans are just outrageous." |
And yet the shareholders, after paying these people enough to support the population of a small nation during their "working" years, are continuing to support these people, with incomes and lavish perks that used to be reserved for reigning monarchs, for life. At the same time, they are attempting to silence complaints from rank and file retirees because they no longer work for the company and therefore nothing they say can have any relevance. Go figure.
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At Sempra Energy, for example, the board approved management's proposal to convert the pension plan to a "cash-balance" system in 1998.
Cash-balance plans allow workers to build nest eggs for retirement but do not guarantee a steady monthly income like a traditional pension.
The company's board, however, retained the special executive pension. Under that plan, Chief Executive Stephen L. Baum should get nearly $2 million a year for life in retirement, according to Sempra's public filings. |
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| Just 19% of wage and salaried workers are active participants in an ongoing pension plan, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared with 35% in 1980. |
And every damned one of the companies who froze or eliminated pension plans for the rank and file did it just to be "competive" with each other. The competition being to see how much they can take from the rank and file and stick in their own pockets. You doubt that?
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| But roughly two-thirds of S&P 500 companies offer so-called supplemental executive retirement programs, or SERPs, to the top brass, according to a study by two Harvard professors. The median amount that executives in these plans can expect to reap in retirement is $15 million in today's dollars, the study found. |
Where the hell does that money come from if not at least in large part to the screwing of millions of rank and file workers out of their own pensions?
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Beverly Hills-based Hilton Hotels Corp. froze its pension for workers and executives in 1996. Then four years later, it created a special retirement plan for top officers.
The plan doesn't provide lifetime benefits like a traditional pension, but it will give Chief Executive Stephen Bollenbach more than 700,000 shares in company stock at retirement. Those shares are currently worth nearly $19 million. |
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El Segundo-based Mattel, for example, never offered employees a traditional pension program, but in 2005 it significantly boosted its retirement plan for Chief Executive Robert A. Eckert.
Until last March, Mattel's supplemental retirement plan would pay executives as much as 35% of their average pay. The new plan pays 60% or more. Eckert stands to get about $1.8 million annually for life if he stays with the company at least 10 more years. |
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Los Angeles-based KB Home also does not have a traditional pension for employees, but it makes sure its executives' retirement years are golden. Under its plan, Chief Executive Bruce Karatz is entitled to 100% of his average base pay — which contractually can't drop below $900,000 annually — for 25 years.
A second supplemental pension will provide Karatz with an additional $800,000 annually for 20 years. The company also pledged lifetime medical and dental benefits, and Karatz will have an office and staff support for as long as he wants it. |
If he no longer works for the company, why does he need an office and staff support supplied by the shareholders of his former company?
The article lists a whole raft of California companies that have shafted their employees in order to provide these lifetime or long term payouts to their execs when they choose to leave the company.
Those of you that choose to bitch and moan when some of us rank and filers no longer with the company(s) merely choose to voice our outrage over being treated in this manner need to consider the justification for coughing up millions in executive pensions and perks for the not so damned rank and file retirees and determine once and for all who has the right to bitch.
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dictators_rule
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Posts: 5007
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Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 4:45 pm Post subject: why stay?,why complain?,why wonder?
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And they wonder why many don't want to 'culitvate' their career skills or look at a job as simply that-a job-and not their life or career-actually a good thing but...
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alphaomeganomore
Joined: 08 Aug 2005
Posts: 491
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Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 1:42 am Post subject:
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We need boards of directors at these corporations with enough balls to tell the executives enough is enough.
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Nofsdad
Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 7090
Location: Central CA
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Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 2:38 am Post subject:
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The directors are only interested in getting their cuts. There's only a relatively few people who sit on the boards of these corporations, many of them multiple coporations and again they just kind of rotate and circulate among them. The boards of directors in other words, are the same greedy bunch of characters we're talking about, sitting in a circle and picking lice off of each other like a bunch of apes.
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alphaomeganomore
Joined: 08 Aug 2005
Posts: 491
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Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 2:57 am Post subject:
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This is true. They feed off of each other. There seems to be a group of privileged people who get paid for nothing. Really makes me wonder when I get a proxy statement. They list all the positions these people hold. I regard them as a bunch of pompous asses.
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USA#1
Joined: 04 Jul 2003
Posts: 1967
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Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:53 am Post subject:
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Alpha, a couple of years ago, Sears shareholders actually voted Don Carty off the Sears BOD. Well, guess what? The BOD overturned that for the best interests of the company. That was when all that flap was going on at American Airlines and Carty was lying to everybody about what was going on. What a snake.
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alphaomeganomore
Joined: 08 Aug 2005
Posts: 491
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Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 1:16 pm Post subject:
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I don't know. Maybe the country's always been corrupt, but today it's so evident and blatant. When and where did we get so many people in power who think they're above the law?
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USA#1
Joined: 04 Jul 2003
Posts: 1967
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Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 6:43 pm Post subject:
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Beats me. BUT, we little people would be thrown in prison in a heartbeat if we did the same things these people do.
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alphaomeganomore
Joined: 08 Aug 2005
Posts: 491
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Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 12:14 am Post subject:
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If you don't pay your taxes, you could lose your property or go to jail, but we have higher-ups stealing millions and it's ok.
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