Pensions

Guess the truth will come out when we find Jimmy Hoffa lol

 

After 30 years though, it's not difficult to end up with a massive 401(k). That's a lot of compounding time.




Personally, I'm looking for a combination of retirement accounts and rental real estate. Don't worry about social security, it will still be there in some meaningful form.

Also, I'd much rather have a 401(k) than a pension. Pension benefits can be cut or eliminated for a variety of reasons. That's not something you control. But 401(k) money is all yours.

 

Teamsters haven't handled Central states pension fund since the early 80s.
The government took control of and overy saw the fund. The ones handled the investments were wall street institutions. One of them being Goldman Sachs. They made terrible investments and charged the fund an arm and a leg to lose the money.

We do know Goldman Sachs sold mortgage backed securities to their own clients that were packaged with garbage mortgages that were doomed to fail. They did this on purpose and payed off rating agencies to rate those securities as AAA investments. I'm sure A LOT of the central states fund went into those investments.
Goldman Sachs also took insurance policies against those investments. This is why when the economy crashed insurance companies like AIG failed too. But AIG got a bailout out of our tax dollars. Central States was left to die.

But, you talk about Central States like it's the only Teamsters pension fund. There are more funds. Central States is the largest though.
The other funds weren't handled by Goldman Sachs so they didnt get slaughtered like Central States.

 

I know there's other funds such as UPS uses and it's bankrupt also. Those guys are really griping because they felt like they are prima donna's and immune to any problems the peasant class has.
They're in for some big cuts in their monthly pension checks and also other benefits.

 

No the UPS fund is far from bankrupt. It is 90% funded and goes up every year.

And there are more funds than that. Some in some trouble but not bankrupt.
Central States on other hand is pretty much bankrupt.

 

OK, I see where you're coming from on that.
Here's a news article about it.
The problem is that some UPS retirees receive their pensions from the cash-strapped Central States Pension Fund, which covers hundreds of thousands of workers from different companies. That fund says it needs to make cuts in order to keep from running out of money.
Jim Dopp, 63, is one of the former UPS truck drivers. He retired in May of 2007 after more than 30 years on the job with a monthly pension check of $2,903. But last month, he received a letter saying his check could be slashed in half -- to $1,452 -- as soon as July, if the Treasury Department approves the plan.
The real kicker is that UPS would've covered the cuts made to his pension if Dopp had retired just eight months later.

 

Right. UPS payed $6.5 billion into the central states fund to get out. The $6.5 billion was to cover the UPS ers who had already retired. UPS agreed to pay the pensions for all of their other employees in a UPS only pension fund.

 

Multi employer pension funds should be something of the past when it comes to future pension funds.
Too much can go wrong as we learn from central states. Although there are a few more Teamsters multi employer funds that arent nearly as bad as central states.

 

Back on topic.....most if not all otr trucking companies offer 401k. But even if you do have a pension it is wise to make other investments for retirement like 401k if offered and/or an IRA.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble but reality is that unless you actually take part in investing your money, and grow it via the MF/stock market method, there is great risks you will never ever reach 50% of the projection of these 401k sellers claim.

One thing that people don't get is that the stock market isn't made for long term retirement funding, it is a speculation market where big losses can occur and it is normal. The first rule we learned about investing from old time investors - people who made big money back when it was same - never put money in the market you can not afford to lose.