Pension bombs starting to go off

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annarborgator
Posts: 8886
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:48 pm

Pension bombs starting to go off

Post by annarborgator »

From Chicago Business...if it's going on with Chicago's biggest businesses, it's going on with everyone else to a certain extent:
Exploding pension fund shortfalls are blowing billion-dollar holes in the balance sheets of some of the Chicago area's biggest companies, forcing them to make huge contributions to retirement plans at a time when cash flow and credit are already under stress.

Boeing Co.'s shareholder equity is now $1.2 billion in the hole thanks to an $8.4-billion gap between its pension assets and the projected cost of its obligations for 2008. At the end of 2007, Boeing had a $4.7-billion pension surplus. If its investments don't turn around, the Chicago-based aerospace giant will have to quadruple annual contributions to its plan to about $2 billion by 2011.

Stock market losses also pounded pension funds at Abbott Laboratories Inc., Caterpillar Inc. and Exelon Corp., with others sure to emerge as companies file their annual financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission in coming weeks.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/article.pl?articleId=31402
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annarborgator
Posts: 8886
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:48 pm

Pension bombs starting to go off

Post by annarborgator »

The misleading numbers posted by retirement fund administrators help mask this reality: Public pensions in the U.S. had total liabilities of $2.9 trillion as of Dec. 16, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Their total assets are about 30 percent less than that, at $2 trillion.

With stock market losses this year, public pensions in the U.S. are now underfunded by more than $1 trillion.
http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=alwTE0Z5.1EA&refer=home
I've never met a retarded person who wasn't smiling.
annarborgator
Posts: 8886
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:48 pm

Pension bombs starting to go off

Post by annarborgator »

Can't wait for the $1,000,000,000,000 pension bailout.
I've never met a retarded person who wasn't smiling.
MinGator
Posts: 7774
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2007 10:01 pm

Pension bombs starting to go off

Post by MinGator »

At least that would actually put money in someone's pocket that deserves it.
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