DETROIT — The pension plans at General Motors and Chrysler are underfunded by a total of $17 billion and could fail if the automakers do not return to profitability, according to a government report released Tuesday.
Both companies need to make large payments into the plans within the next five years — $12.3 billion by G.M. and $2.6 billion by Chrysler — to reach minimum funding levels, according to the report, prepared by the Government Accountability Office. Whether the companies will be able to make the payments is uncertain, the report concluded, though Treasury officials expect the automakers will become profitable enough to do so.
If either company’s plan must be terminated, the government would become liable for paying benefits to hundreds of thousands of retirees. The effect on the government’s pension insurer, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, would be “unprecedented,” the report said. The agency manages plans with assets totaling $68.7 billion, less than the $84.5 billion in G.M.’s plan alone.
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What is neede here is another Union in conjunction with the UAW
ReplyDeleteBetween them and all the new business taxes coming down the pike; that will put the big three
right where Toyota wants them
On their backs
Why should i bail out the union pensioners! where the f--- is my bail out! My pay went down 60% last year my retirement is gone Why dont i get any help this country is screwed, I just hope all the greeded people go down with it
ReplyDeleteSo GM and Chrysler cut a deal to pay retirement pensions to their former employees, they go belly up and now tax payers must pay these former employees. Just makin' sure I understand this stuff.
ReplyDeleteVery soon I'll be homeless. I wonder who's gonna bail me out? I didn't cause this current mess, but my life is ruined and the people who caused it are getting fatter and richer every day. We as common, nothing special, ordinary, working class, BBQ and beer, middle class Americans are being pushed into that proverbial corner and just like a cornered and confused dog, we'll come out fighting. It's not gonna be a very pretty picture.
I dont think the govt insures the defined pensions of bankrupt companies past 50k a year and health insurance susbsidies are not insured at all.
ReplyDelete50 k sounds pretty good to me
ReplyDeleteThere is no profit to be made in high waged US manufacturing industry.
ReplyDeleteUS capital was patriotically making its profits in industry in the third world.
The US workers deliver up no profits they are a bribed labour aristocracy the Industry is subsidised and bailed out by government.
The cost of these open direct and hidden subsidies such as in cost plus guaranteed profit contracts for military related production and balance sheet bailouts is huge.
The purpose it to keep at least some experienced industrial workers in a job manned by patriotic corporate state unions in industries of strategic importance for a war industry.