Crystal:
I can tell you what. I get that you people don't want to allow any other viewpoint out there except yours. Silence dissenters. Union yes. Class warfare. Social justice. Racial tension. Equal pay. Blah blah blah. You are obviously pro-union. Why are you even muddling up the FedEx driver forum post anyway? You're probably just jealous because the plan we have will help us retire more comfortably, and in our own time frame, than the union plan you got. What did your union contract offer you when you signed up??? $50/month? Probably sounded good back in the 60's didn't it? Inflation sure blew that up. Oh, and insolvency too but I'll get to that...
First: I did the research by reading your posts. I didn't just make up my mind. I did the research by reading your posts and developed my opinion based on facts. Rather than cite them here with quotations, I will let anyone who is interested make up their minds on their own by doing their own research. The thing I learned about arguing with leftists is that you won't let facts interfere with your ideology. I stated facts and you go right to rules 5, 8, 11, and 12 from Rules for Radicals. Your tactics are very amateur. I would think that someone as seasoned as you wouldn't have been so obvious. Subtlety works better. See... I used to be an ideological leftist myself. Then I started to educate myself and came to understand that every solution you people offer creates more problems than existed before you people came along with your solution. If you are still a leftist at your advanced age either you haven't taken the time to educate yourself or you are most likely just a paid union agitator... You're entrenched in your thinking. Good. I'm glad you stand for something. You think a union style defined benefit pension plan is the right idea. You're not a FedEx driver so what do you care what the FedEx drivers discuss in our forum? You're not looking for a discussion, you're looking to press your point and what you have not done is show how the very conservative numbers that I ran are not more beneficial to me and my co-workers than the one that suits your ideology.
Second: My wife and I were on vacation at Mackinac Island and i didn't have the time nor the give-a-dam to do the research for you. You could have done it yourself. You probably can't believe that we can afford to vacation because we're not union. Weird huh??? If I was union I would have been able to buy that lobster instead of steak but I made it work. While I was on vacation I did take the time to respond to some other people but once I'd read some of your posts, I knew all you were looking for was a dead-end and circular argument. There is nothing that I can say that will be something that won't end up back at the point of you continuing on with your social justice pro-union argument. I'm not anti-union either. I just think we (not you, but me and my fellow FedEx drivers) need to consider the negative effects of unionizing. Clearly you've already made up your mind for us and not all of us are going to just buy it. Some of us are going to learn a little bit before commitment and I'm trying to have a discussion with FedEx drivers... not you.
Third: You and I agree on certain things such as the fact that the working class is falling further behind a comfortable standard of living while the richest keep getting richer. You want FedEx unionized and I think that the union will create more problems than it will resolve. However, we agree in principle. Wages are stagnant and not keeping up with inflation for the working class. Which goes back to my original post where I clarified that the defined benefit pension plan will leave us worse off than the plan we have now---particularly because there is no allowance for growth to keep up with inflation. I used very conservative numbers but my personal financial plan, where I control my retirement, is extremely more generous than with a UPS Freight style retirement package which would end up deeply reducing my ability to retire when and how I want to retire. If you think I'm all about just opinions I would encourage you to type in these three words in your google: Union Pension Insolvency. I'm not going to cite anything that is my opinion but if you'd like to you can run through pages of pages of facts that won't have any effect on your thought process which is evidently not founded on logic and facts but on ideology. You're not going to read that anyway. You're an Obama voter.
Fourth: The word "Insolvency" was not intended to confuse you. It means you have a negative net worth or your liabilities exceed your assets. At some future point unless you stop paying all of your bills in full, or you begin bringing in more than you currently pay, you will be bankrupted. It's just a matter of time but it's too late because you're all in. That's where FedEx comes in. Since we don't negotiate our retirements, but are giving that up to a union negotiator, we won't have any say where that money goes or what it looks like. I think that's important information to discuss with my fellow drivers as we mull over the pros and cons of organizing in a union. Because the union pension funds are generally insolvent (Google: Union Pension Insolvency), I do not want me or my co-workers getting caught up in a situation like that. If anyone wants to do the research themselves they can. I did. I do. And I will.
Now do the research yourself:
a: (Google union, pension, insolvency),
b: explore the differences between a cash-basis pension and a defined benefits pension including if and how they pass on to your spouse or children or, in your case, your cats
c: explore how inflation devalues a defined benefits pension plan
Explain these things to me in a cost benefits analysis. Or I'll call you an ignorant liar like you called me.
