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This BLOG is for LLNL present and past employees, friends of LLNL and anyone impacted by the privatization of the Lab to express their opinions and expose the waste, wrongdoing and any kind of injustice against employees and taxpayers by LLNS/DOE/NNSA. The opinions stated are personal opinions. Therefore, The BLOG author may or may not agree with them before making the decision to post them. Comments not conforming to BLOG rules are deleted. Blog author serves as a moderator. For new topics or suggestions, email jlscoob5@gmail.com

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Thursday, January 31, 2013

Adios PBGC?

Not only are pensions quickly going bankrupt. The government agency that backs up these pensions is, likewise, quickly going bankrupt!

Be sure you have a solid backup plan if you're in TCP1 and don't count on the PBGC to be there to help!

...............................................................
Financial Times - January 30, 2013

US pension insurer warns of rising deficit

By Norma Cohen, Demography Correspondent

The finances of the US’s multi-employer pension schemes have deteriorated so quickly over the past year that the body that insures them will almost certainly run out of cash in 20 years, according to a new report.

The chances of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation – the publicly created but privately funded body that insures the nation’s occupational pension schemes – going bust went from 1 in 3 at the end of 2011 to more than 9 in 10 by the end of 2012, a report prepared for the PBGC and released on Tuesday said.

The woes of the PBGC are common to pension schemes– and their insurers – in industrialised economies where defined benefit pension schemes form a significant portion of retirement benefit. Weak returns on assets after the 2008 financial crisis meant schemes did not earn as much as they expected, while low bond yields gave rise to much larger calculations of deficits. However, the PBGC noted that the deterioration in the funding status for pension schemes financed by groups of employers was down to a range of factors, one of which was limits on the insurer’s ability to force employers to pay their fair share of premiums.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another doomsday caller.
We are not even able to predict what the loonies in congress will do over a time span of two month and you are concerned with 20 years. Get a grip, if you want to worry, worry about March 1st.

Anonymous said...

Please queue up the TCP-1 vs. TCP-2 rhetoric. It's been so long it has almost faded to silence.

Anonymous said...

You asked for it.

Oh what the hell. Lets just raise the employees contributions to 15% and increase that by 5% a year for the next four years. I wonder if TCP-1 is going to hell because Parney did not fund the $80M + he was supposed to gambling the economy was going to get better until Obama's reign. NOT! and it will not as long as you have santa clause funding those who don't work or say, "you owes me". Regardless, it was a bad gamble Parney and now you're all going to suffer for it. You should have put the money in the retirement plan instead of using it for experiments.

Anonymous said...

I'll bet Parney never releases the TCP-1 pension status for 2012. The market was near an all time high, and TCP-1 should have been back up to 120% funded by my back of the envelope metric.

Need a employee on the pension committee. Somethink is rotten.

Anonymous said...

We have no representation on or visibility into our *own* pension.

Which we're paying into!

What is it invested in? We don't know.

I don't understand how this is legal???

Anonymous said...

Anyone see the emails that recently came to lab employees who are still in 403B and DCP from UC?

Appears the UC is going to dump most of the Fidelity funds and force you into a UC Pathways "plain vanilla" fund by June unless you quickly get your money out of UC and into a Fidelity Brokerage link (which will greatly increase your mutual fund fees, of course).

Wonderful. What's next from UC? They appear eager to dump off their long-term employees in multiple ways.

Anonymous said...

February 4, 2013 at 9:46 AM

How about posting the actual e-mail you got with an e-mail and ph contact information for all to read

Anonymous said...

"UC is going to dump most of the Fidelity funds and force you into a UC Pathways"

I'm in UC 403b and DCP and received no such emails! Please post text!

thanks

Anonymous said...

Dated January 29th, it starts:

Important Changes to the University of California 403(b), 457(b), and DC Plans Fund Menu

At UC, we’re committed to providing opportunities that make it easier to choose and monitor your retirement investments. That’s why we’re simplifying the investment choices offered through the UC Retirement Savings Program—the UC 403(b), 457(b) and DC Plans.

What’s Changing
The fund menu for the UC Retirement Savings Program currently offers over 200 investment options. With so many choices, selecting the right investment funds for your future can be time-consuming and confusing. To make it easier for you to choose and manage your investments, beginning in March 2013, the fund menu will be streamlined to include only UC Core Funds and a selected list of institutionally priced mutual funds.

Anonymous said...

UC's "wonderful simplifying" equals "dumbing down" and less choice.

Don't you hate it when they cut your options and then try to sweetly sell it to you as an "improvement"?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting the info. Definitely will have to look into it.

Man, every where you look, things just keep getting worse...

Anonymous said...

- Low Rates Force Companies to Pour Cash Into Pensions -

WSJ – Mon, Feb 4, 2013 10:50 AM EST

Ford Motor Co. (F) expects to spend $5 billion this year shoring up its pension funds, almost as much as the auto maker spent last year building plants, buying equipment and developing new cars.

The nation's second-largest auto maker is one of a who's who of U.S. companies pouring cash into pension plans now being battered by record low interest rates. Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) contributed $1.7 billion to its pension plan in the fourth quarter and—highlighting companies' sensitivity to this issue—Boeing Co. (BA) now reports "core earnings" to separate out pension expenses.

"It is one of the top issues that companies are dealing with now," said Michael Moran, pension strategist at investment adviser Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

The drain on corporate cash is a side effect of the U.S. monetary policy aimed at encouraging borrowing to stimulate the economy. Companies are required to calculate the present value of the future pension liabilities by using a so-called discount rate, based on corporate bond yields. As those rates fall, the liabilities rise.

..............

Funny, but I don't remember either LANS or LLNS "pouring money" from their corporate profit fees into our pensions?

Then, again, Bechtel has no real love for the employees of the NNSA labs. They are just a means of making a quick buck while they rape the place.




Anonymous said...

Parney stuck all of us with the pension bill (7% post-tax = 10-14% true cost to you depending on your tax bracket).

While he "gambled" with not making the LLNS $80m contribution to the pension.

What's clear: he's not in our pension, could care less about our pension and us.

This furlough is lining up to be yet another pension whack on both YOS and HAPC. In addition to the whack to take home pay.

Let's face it, Parney's in it for himself (and for Bechtel to whatever extent it helps him).

Truly a disappointment from all angles...

Anonymous said...

"What's clear: he's not in our pension, could care less about our pension and us."

Nothing new ... Miller got a deal to "extend" his UCRP pension (while the rest of us went to TCP1 or TCP2).

Anonymous said...

.. and more amazing, POTUS apparently believes the annual certification letters penned by these crooks and liars!

Anonymous said...

"Nothing new ... Miller got a deal to "extend" his UCRP pension (while the rest of us went to TCP1 or TCP2)."


Any way to verify this? If so, then it is a slap in the face at the hardworking employees at LANL who work under this weasel and his associated Frankenstein, hollow-shell corporation, LANS LLC. Did he get a special pension deal?

Anonymous said...

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/2006/salaries0606_lab.pdf

"Following his service at LANS and when he retires, the purchase of an annuity (or buyback of UCRP service credit if appropriate) in the amount necessary to compensate for
the loss in pension benefits attributable to his actual period of service at LANS rather
than remaining under the UC Retirement Plan, to be calculated by appropriately offsetting the amount of employer contributions that he will have received in the LANS
market-based benefit package"

This is in addition to all the bonus & perks ...
I believe GM got the same deal ...

Anonymous said...

Did he get a special pension deal?

February 6, 2013 at 10:14 AM

Yes, it is in the LLNS contract, as it was for LANS and Mikey. See "Key Personnel."

Anonymous said...

When the LANS TCP1 pension goes bankrupt and collapses (and it will), both Mike Anastasio and Charlie McMillian will be sitting fat & happy with no worries.

The skullduggery that now goes on at the "for-profit" NNSA labs is sickening to watch.

Anonymous said...

What is sickening to watch is the way posters submit their opinions as fact. You can always tell where the motivation is coming from by the way someone posts, please keep that in mind and don't let it sway what you believe to be true.

Anonymous said...

It's a fact that the pension protection for the director was in the contract.

What are you questioning/disputing???

Anonymous said...

"When the LANS TCP1 pension goes bankrupt and collapses (and it will)"

This is an opinion, not fact.

Anonymous said...

I agree, that's an opinion (a hypothetical scenario), but the conclusion that follows is also a fact:

If the TCP1 pension were to go bankrupt Anastasio's pension would be made whole by his contract.

Anonymous said...

If the TCP1 pension were to go bankrupt Anastasio's pension would be made whole by his contract.

February 10, 2013 at 8:58 PM

Not just him. All "key personnel" of the new LLCs who were originally UC employees were protected in the same way. Just as Bechtel protected its personnel who went to the LLCs. At LANL, anyone above Division Leader who chose to side with the UC/Bechtel/LANS contract bid and throw their effort to winning that contract was so protected by the contract.

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