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Yellow | The Trillion, that is 1,000 Billion Obama Stimulus Plan

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sirduckjr

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Congress is already hard at work putting together a Government Spending Plan that could end up spending in excess of a trillion dollars. Their point is that if we do not act swiftly to both keep and generate new jobs, the economy will continue to fall. read the link for the details. Obama Has No Timetable for Stimulus Package - Economy * US * News * Story - CNBC.com
How about a Grassroots Teamsters Effort to contact certain Senators and Representatives to make our case that some of this stimulus package should address the funding shortfalls in Multiemployer Pensions?
Understand that the remaining companies in NMFA (YRC, ABF and white papers) will all be bankrupt if something isn't done to lesson the pension liability each company has. That these companies compete against non-union companies that have taken lots of business from companies that used to pay into NMFA but have long since gone under and have a substantial advantage not having to pay the retirement burdens of such plans.
So the union companies are at extreme risk of going out of business and having what I estimate at least another 100,000 well paid jobs dying while the unemployment rate goes higher and higher.
I would not have a clue to the dollar amount necessary to solve the pension problems but would assume it is at least 20 billion. Although that is a tremendously large number, please keep the prospective that the government is about to spend 1000 billion to stimulate the economy by creating new jobs. Maybe we can spend some money to maintain the existing ones?
If anyone doubts the seriousness of the pension issues and how they would put out of business every union company in NMFA, please listen to the Teamsters General Council at a meeting in December. Pay particular attention to the 2:00 minute mark through the 3:30 mark! Speaker: Brad Raymond, Teamsters General Counsel (Reviews Tentative Agreement.) | International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)

Talking points can be given to every teamster to call their most significant Senator or Representative. If we are going to do this, we need help from every rank and file teamster. It has come down to us because the international is underground not taking anyone's call. My BA in Kansas City told me he left a message for Gordon Sweeton over a week ago and no return call as of yesterday. The pension trustees do not have phone numbers to contact them. We have to be our own lobbist and take our case directly to D.C. And time is very important considering Obama wants this put into action the day he takes office January 20.

Is there anyone interested in helping start this campaign? If so, leave your ideas or talking points so we can spread the word to every teamster we know. Take copies to the terminals, what ever is necessary.
 
Central States F'd up the fund all on their own. Proof is the incompetent handling of the UPS 6 billion that was mismanaged.
Why a bailout?
Was it the average US taxpayer responsible for the incompetence of the CS Board of Directors?
Think not
 
rockford files said:
Central States F'd up the fund all on their own. Proof is the incompetent handling of the UPS 6 billion that was mismanaged.
Why a bailout?
Was it the average US taxpayer responsible for the incompetence of the CS Board of Directors?
Think not
Click to expand...


Give specifics as to what they screwed up with the UPS pullout.
 
UPS had every right to pull out of the pension if they paid the pension withdrawl liability assuming their members approved such withdrawl. Which they did and YRC and ABF would have done the same thing had they had the money. Which they do not.
Yes, we are many times weaker now that UPS is out and failure is immenent of the CS pension.
But to your point, has the central states pension fund been mismanaged?
The answer is a very difficult one. Their has been corruption and bad decisions made for years. But the fundamental issue with the pending failure of CS is not the above listed reasons but the business model it was left to operate in.
After deregulation in the early 80's, the LTL union monoply started a 30 year slide where union companies would go out of business and be replaced by non-union LTL companies that would hire some of the old union LTL drivers but would not have to pay into the multiemployer pension. In fact, the surviving unionized LTL would have to carry the additional burden or portion of the out of business union LTL companies.
Think about this for a moment. Consider the LTL market one big pie, and in its heyday say around 1978, the unions controlled well over 95% of that pie. (The other 5% or less was non-union) After 12 years or so, (1990)they still controlled the majority of LTL market share, but the non-unions were starting to figure how to break some of the hold the unions had. American Freightways was a good example. The unionized share had dropped from around 95% to probably somewhere around 80%-85%.
Then, 12 years later,(2001) now the union companies have really started to disappear. CF, NW are some of the major companies that have recently disappeared. The LTL pie is pretty close to 50% union, 50% non-union. However, the remaining companies in the NMFA, Yellow, Roadway, ABF, Holland and a few others are now paying for the pension obligations for all the retirees of the companies that have gone out of business in the last 20 years yet only getting a small percentage of the business they had. The smaller, more efficient non-union companies are coming into the LTL pie and making money competing against the more burdened unionized LTL's. From this time period on, the union companies have lost marketshare year over year to the non-unions. So we wake in in early 2009 and look into the LTL pie and see the unions don't even have 30% of the pie while the non-union, now controlled by super large corporations like FEDEX and UPS now control the better part of 70% of the LTL pie.
The absolute biggest failure of our union/pension trustees was not to adapt to the changing business environment.
For the last five years or so we have not been able to organize anyone into the NMFA because of the overwhelming weight of the pension liability. The company trying to be organized would be in a better position to close his doors a day before getting organized and be able to recognize some assets versus signing into the NMFA and almost immediately be upside down in the valuation of his company.
I have been told by intelligent, whiskered teamsters they new this could be a problem back in the 80's but enjoyed the ease in organizing over making changes that would not have been popular with the rank and file to avoid how it has played out.
If we want to survive, every single teamster will have to get personally involved. We can no longer take the "easy road" and rely on others to do the heavy lifting. Study the Teamster history, whether it be under Hoffa Sr. in the 50's or when we used horses to pull our trailers a hundred years ago, the Teamsters must get personally involved to solve our problems!
 
sirduckjr said:
Give specifics as to what they screwed up with the UPS pullout.
Click to expand...
Poor investment choices in a market that saw stocks declining at the time. Over half of this money vanished into thin air. They invested in options that were overvalued and ready to fail as they did. Desperation to pump up the value of the fund?

Your other post states what I said, CS has been mismanaged, either by crooks or incompetence.

And your first post is wanting of Gubbermint to bail out incompetence. Just where do you think this "Free Lunch" and now "Dinner" is going to come from?

You are advocating a total Socialist form of Gubbermint which trades my freedoms for the good of the collective.

As in the bank bailouts, there is no accountability.

If you were to write bad money your but would be sitting in a cell somewhere, but somehow we are to accept that for the collective good we must reward poor or crimminal business decisions, whether banks or CS.

Heads should roll but the sheep have been so distracted and in denial that it's too late.

As unpopular as it sounds but there needs to be an immediate 33% reduction in payouts and YRC should not be held responsible for all these "orphan" funds.

As for contacting your "representative" save your breath. They have been bought and sold to the highest bidder, regardless of party affiliation.

My state rep race had over 1 million spent between the two candidates. Think there isn't some "payback" coming?
 
Windfall Tax on Retirement Income
Adding a tax to your retirement is simply
another way of saying to the American people, you're so darn stupid that
we're going to keep doing this until we drain every cent from you.
That's what the Speaker of the House is saying. Read below...............

Nancy Pelosi wants a Windfall Tax on Retirement
Income. In other words tax what you have made by investing toward your
retirement. This woman is a nut case! You aren't going to believe this.

Madam speaker Nancy Pelosi wants put a Windfall
Tax on all stock market profits (including Retirement fund, 401K and
Mutual Funds! Alas , it is true - all to help the 12 Million Illegal
Immigrants and other unemployed Minorities!

This woman is frightening.
She quotes ...' We need to work toward the goal
of equalizing income, (didn't Marx say something like this), in our
country and at the same time limiting the amount the rich can invest.'
( I am not rich, are you)

When asked how these new tax dollars would be
spent, she replied:
'We need to raise the standard of living of our
poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated 12
million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with
millions of unemployed minorities. Stock market windfall profits taxes
could go a long way to guarantee these people the standard of living
they would like to have as 'Americans'.' (Read that quote again and
again and let it sink in. 'Lower your retirement, give it to others who
have not worked as you have for it'.
 
rockford files said:
Poor investment choices in a market that saw stocks declining at the time. Over half of this money vanished into thin air. They invested in options that were overvalued and ready to fail as they did. Desperation to pump up the value of the fund?.
Click to expand...

We have paid two investment banks to do our investing for a number of years. Goldman Sacks and Northern Trust are some of the very best in the business. Yet, the problem is they are mandated to try to hit a grand slam every time they come to the plate but that can be a very difficult thing to do when no one is on base. The mandate to preform versus its risk tolerance are greatly at odds and a problem mandated by unrealistic financial dictates.



rockford files said:
And your first post is wanting of Gubbermint to bail out incompetence. Just where do you think this "Free Lunch" and now "Dinner" is going to come from?
You are advocating a total Socialist form of Gubbermint which trades my freedoms for the good of the collective.

As unpopular as it sounds but there needs to be an immediate 33% reduction in payouts and YRC should not be held responsible for all these "orphan" funds.
Click to expand...

You can't get to your third paragraph without government intervention.

The government could be in a much better situation financially as long as ABF and YRC continue to operate and pay into the pension and somehow someway the pension is divided. Separating orphans from other companies that have long since gone bankrupt is one very decent option, but there are many others. All of them will involve tax payer money! Even the total failure of all the pension plans considering the PBGC was bankrupt when they created the Pension Protection Act a couple of years back.
Your Socialism rant is somewhat accurate, but remember, the free marketers who preach the same kind of mantra are the ones who:
1. wouldn't allow regulations to the derivitive market which is why the government cannot allow AIG to fail due to its counter-parter risk to our entire financial system.
2. Allowed the banks to overleverage themselves early in the W. administration by increasing the existing leverage ratios to incur risk they were not prepared to handle. Boom, that is why the banks got the $700 Billion bailout.

Our financial system is based on capitalism but we have always struggled between socialism and the totally free market.
The free markets had been winning this struggle for about 25 years, but it certainly looks like the socialism argument is primed for a comeback!
 
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