[quote=harvey]sdr is spot on: Extrapolating statistics from the Fortune 100 across all public companies is ridiculous.
And I don’t really care if somebody fumbled their words a little, intentionally or unintentionally. It doesn’t matter that the numbers don’t quite jibe, because we still get the point. And the point is valid, I agree – there are still a few DB plans around.
Which brings us back to my argument, the one relevant to the topic, the one somebody tried to derail with minutia:
– DB plans are going away quickly in the private sector. They are mostly gone today.
– The reason for this decline is the same reason for any major change in the corporate world: shareholders/investors demanded the change.
– Shareholders demanded the change because it was just too difficult to determine the risk associated with DB plan liabilities on the balance sheets.
– Those risks are inherent in DB plans, and always will be. Investors will always have an unfavorable view of the risks associated with DB plans, and this will influence the stock price.
Think of it this way: If a company were to announce that it is abandoning it’s 401K program and replacing it with a DB plan, would their stock price be more likely to go up or down as a result of the announcement?
– There is no incentive for companies to offer DB plans. They can attract employees simply by paying them a fair salary.
A few private DB plans will linger on for a while, but they are, and will become, more rare. Regardless of the outcome in the public pension debate, nothing is going to reverse the trend in private DB plans.
Even though DB plans have mostly gone away in the private sector, millions of people still enjoy rewarding careers with fair compensation. It’s how most of the population lives.
What is wrong with applying the same system to the public sector? Why must their system of compensation be so different?
Anybody got an argument?
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Looks like you’ve just answered your own question:
The reason for the growing disparity between public and private-sector compensation (and the existence/magnitude of the disparity is debatable) is…greedy investors. It’s not “greedy union workers,” and never has been.
There you go.
Unions, public and private, have always fought for labor, period. It is the corporations/executives/investors who have decimated the middle class in the U.S. The apathetic and naive private-sector workers bought into the lies that unions were bad and globalization would somehow benefit them. They bought into the lie that lower taxes on “the rich/investors” would somehow translate into jobs for them, irrespective of all the evidence to the contrary. They are now suffering the consequences of their own inaction and unwillingness to fight for their rights. I sincerely hope they learn a lesson from the economic trends of the past ~30 years, in spite of all the propaganda being heaped on them (yet again) from the MSM — the mouthpiece of those who rule them.
Now, you say that public and private sector workers have to suck it up so that these “investors” can pillage the middle class even more. Some of us vehemently disagree. A growing number of people are beginning to understand the reality of our kind of “capitalism.” It is the theft of money/value created by workers. More and more people are catching on…finally. The tide is turning.
