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Sunday, January 14, 2018
Texas A&M
Texas A&M nonexclusive partnership with multiple companies is one version of why they refuse to go public on LANL bid teams. If this is correct, that is some messed up situation.
7 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Have no idea what nonexclusive might mean to the contract change but it sounds like a promiscuous situation.
Sounds like they are playing with different bidding teams at the same time. Might explain why there were reports they they had partnered with UC and other reports that they were with Bechtel and Battelle. All might be true.
A bit off subject but.... What happens to the LANS pension with this upcoming change in lab contract? Are the promises that NNSA once made to protect it from future losses still relevant? The reason I'm asking is because we seem to have a bubble growing in the markets and the final euphoric stage is starting to take hold. This will most likely end in a big market crash and a financial panic sometime in the next 2 or 3 years given comparison with previous bubbles. When/if the markets crash hard, say by 60%, will there be any government backups to help protect and refund the lab pension loses beyond the minimal protections offered by the PBGC (which pays out only pennies on the dollar)? Anyone heard anything concrete about how the new contract will effect the pension?
Nothing concrete. Which is not unusual, tho. But, 1) a freeze in any increases e.g., cost of living or years of service, 2) even if non profit- no cash out option, 3) retirees in the LANS pension will remain and all working full time will have a new identical pension, 4) will not, as in 2006, be able to retire from LANS and start a TCP2-like, 5) maybe, considering NNSA's problems with contractor pensions, will just zero out the pension and lump it out. Any other worthless rumors?
"I heard a rumor about staff being allowed to take cuddly pets to work, to ease anxiety."
This is bunk, my request to bring in my support pet porcupine was denied...than again maybe it did not qualify as cuddly animal so you may be right after all.
Seem to be a lot of corporations that are off-loading their future pension investment liabilities by simply exchanging pensions for an annuity they buy from the big insurance firms using the pension cash. That puts any future dangers of a market crash, etc. in the hands of the insurance firm. If the insurance firm goes bankrupt due to poor investments (buying high, selling low) then so does the pension they took over. However, since it is an annuity (no longer a company pension) I don't think there is any recourse to recover money from a "bankrupt" annuity using the PBGC. In that case, you lose everything. If the insurance firm makes great investments and makes more than needed to fund the annuity by taking on greater market risks, then they simply get to keep the extra cash as their reward. I could see that path being followed by the NNSA for lab pensions. However, it would not be a good deal for retirees.
7 comments:
Have no idea what nonexclusive might mean to the contract change but it sounds like a promiscuous situation.
Sounds like they are playing with different bidding teams at the same time. Might explain why there were reports they they had partnered with UC and other reports that they were with Bechtel and Battelle. All might be true.
A bit off subject but.... What happens to the LANS pension with this upcoming change in lab contract? Are the promises that NNSA once made to protect it from future losses still relevant? The reason I'm asking is because we seem to have a bubble growing in the markets and the final euphoric stage is starting to take hold. This will most likely end in a big market crash and a financial panic sometime in the next 2 or 3 years given comparison with previous bubbles. When/if the markets crash hard, say by 60%, will there be any government backups to help protect and refund the lab pension loses beyond the minimal protections offered by the PBGC (which pays out only pennies on the dollar)? Anyone heard anything concrete about how the new contract will effect the pension?
Nothing concrete. Which is not unusual, tho. But, 1) a freeze in any increases e.g., cost of living or years of service, 2) even if non profit- no cash out option, 3) retirees in the LANS pension will remain and all working full time will have a new identical pension, 4) will not, as in 2006, be able to retire from LANS and start a TCP2-like, 5) maybe, considering NNSA's problems with contractor pensions, will just zero out the pension and lump it out. Any other worthless rumors?
I heard a rumor about staff being allowed to take cuddly pets to work, to ease anxiety.
"I heard a rumor about staff being allowed to take cuddly pets to work, to ease anxiety."
This is bunk, my request to bring in my support pet porcupine was denied...than again maybe it did not qualify as cuddly animal so you may be right after all.
Seem to be a lot of corporations that are off-loading their future pension investment liabilities by simply exchanging pensions for an annuity they buy from the big insurance firms using the pension cash. That puts any future dangers of a market crash, etc. in the hands of the insurance firm. If the insurance firm goes bankrupt due to poor investments (buying high, selling low) then so does the pension they took over. However, since it is an annuity (no longer a company pension) I don't think there is any recourse to recover money from a "bankrupt" annuity using the PBGC. In that case, you lose everything. If the insurance firm makes great investments and makes more than needed to fund the annuity by taking on greater market risks, then they simply get to keep the extra cash as their reward. I could see that path being followed by the NNSA for lab pensions. However, it would not be a good deal for retirees.
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