# Money As Expert Warns "Pension Tsunami" Is Coming



## Melensdad

Looks like the pension funds are starting to go bust.

I recall when I was a kid in school and the LTV Steel pension fund calamity hit.  Looks like, if this story is true, it will get pretty bad for a lot of people.  

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-...out-money-expert-warns-pension-tsunami-coming



> The New York Teamsters Road Carriers Local 707 Pension Fund has won the unfortunate award for "First Pension to Officially Run Out of Money."  According to the New York Daily News, and a host of angry former truck drivers who've had their pension benefits slashed, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) has officially been forced to step in and take over payments to retirees of the Local 707, albeit at a much lower rate.
> 
> Teamsters Local 707’s pension fund is the first to officially bottom out financially — which happened this month.
> 
> _“I had a union job for 30 years,” Chmil said. “We had collectively bargained contracts that promised us a pension. I paid into it with every paycheck. Everyone told us, ‘Don’t worry, you have a union job, your pension is guaranteed.’ Well, so much for that.”
> 
> “It’s a nightmare, it has just devastated all of our lives. I’ve gone from having $48,000 a year to less than half that,” said Chmil, one of five Local 707 retirees who agreed to share their stories with the Daily News last week.
> 
> “I don’t want other people to have to go through this. We need everyone to wake up and do something; that’s why we’re talking,” said Ray Narvaez._​
> Of course, the Teamsters 707 and other Teamster pension boards attempted to submit plans that would have cut benefits in order to prolong payments to retirees but those plans were universally rejected by the Obama administration...better that the pensions just run out of cash completely.  Per Pensions & Investments:
> 
> _The Obama administration is in denial about the necessity of cutting pension benefits under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 to try to put distressed multiemployer plans on sounder financial footings and make them more sustainable. It must face reality and order the Treasury Department to stop blocking action.
> 
> So far the department, required under the act to approve proposed reductions, has rejected proposals by the Teamsters Central States, Southeast & Southwest Areas Pension Plan and the Road Carriers Local 707 Pension Fund.
> 
> Ten plans total have applied for cuts, including the New York State Teamsters Conference Pension and Retirement Fund, Syracuse, whose Aug. 31 application is too new to be listed on the Treasury's website.
> 
> The Road Carriers 707 application stated that the plan projects it will become insolvent in February — only about five months away — absent suspension of benefits.
> 
> As desperate as the plan's financial situation appears to be, the Treasury denied the application.​_
> And while the Local 707 pension was the first to dry up, it certainly won't be the last...
> 
> _Also on the brink of drying up are the pensions for two Teamster locals — 641 and 560 — in New Jersey, union officials said. Plus 35,000 Teamster members upstate who are part of the money-hemorrhaging New York State Teamsters Pension Fund.
> 
> Bigger than all of New York’s Teamster locals combined is the Central States Pension Fund — another looming financial disaster that could leave 407,000 retirees without pensions across the Midwest and South.​_
> Meanwhile, under the maximum benefits provided by the PBGC, many former Teamsters, like Ray Narvaez, said their monthly retirement checks have been slashed by two-thirds.
> 
> _Then Narvaez, like 4,000 other retired Teamster truckers, got a letter from Local 707 in February of last year.
> 
> It said monthly pensions had to be slashed by more than a third. It was an emergency move to try to keep the dying fund solvent. That dropped Narvaez from nearly $3,500 to about $2,000.
> 
> “They said they were running out of money, that there could be no more in the pension fund, so we had to take the cut,” said Narvaez, whose wife was recently diagnosed with cancer.
> 
> The stopgap measure didn’t work — and after years of dangling over the precipice, Local 707’s pension fund fell off the financial cliff this month. With no money left, it turned to Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., a government insurance company that covers pension.
> 
> Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. picked up Local 707’s retiree payouts — but the maximum benefit it gives a year is roughly $12,000, for workers who racked up at least 30 years. For those with less time on the job, the payouts are smaller.
> 
> Narvaez now gets $1,170 a month — before taxes.
> _​Of course, as the Central States Pension General Counsel notes, the real "pension tsunami" will come when the massive "municipal and state plans go down next."
> 
> _The same crisis now hitting Local 707 has been stewing among numerous Teamster locals around the country for the past decade, he said, and that includes in upstate New York.
> 
> The trucking industry — almost uniformly organized by Teamsters — has suffered enormous financial losses in its pension and welfare funds due to a crippling combination of deregulation and stock market crashes, Nyhan said.
> 
> “This is a quiet crisis, but it’s very real. There are currently 200 other plans on track for insolvency — that’s going to affect anywhere from 1.5 to 2 million people,” said Nyhan. “The prognosis is bleak minus some new legislative help.”
> 
> And it’s not just private-sector industries that are suffering, he added.
> 
> “Municipal and state plans are the next to go down — that’s a pension tsunami that’s coming,” he said. “In many states, those defined benefit plans are seriously underfunded — and at the end of the day, math trumps the statutes.”_​


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## XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Let 'em fail. F'in ponzi schemes.


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## waybomb

Whoda thunk the mob would steal people's money?
Go Unions! Long Live Jimmy Hoffa!

Idjuts.


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## Melensdad

Just an update... this article relies heavily on the above article so some of it is a duplicate but read down to the bottom and you'll see Bernie Sanders was throwing his his socialist 2 cents into the problem too.

http://www.independentsentinel.com/first-union-go-belly-ny-teamsters-707-71-brink/



> *First Union to Go Belly Up Is NY Teamsters 707 With 70 More on the Brink*
> By S. Noble - March 2, 20170
> 
> The underfunded pension for a NY Teamsters union has just gone belly up. It’s the first of many that will go under and it’s depleting the funds of the insurance company that backs the pension plans for multi-employers.
> 
> The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), which insures private pensions of multi-employer plans, is dealing with a decades-long problem. A fund that was only to be used in emergencies has become the pension fund for these pension plans. PBGC is going bankrupt because too many multi-employer pension plans are going rely on them to pay their pensions.
> 
> The first union fund to go down is a New York Teamsters union, Local 707.
> 
> As a sidenote, all of New York state’s pension funds are underfunded. That is a reality being played out throughout the country. Read about it on this link.
> 
> If the union funds and the PBGC go down, it will rob 10 million people of their pensions.
> 
> The media will tell you its’ because of stock market crashes and companies going out of business which has been a part of the problem, however, these plans have been underfunded for decades and the workers were lied to about their solvency.
> 
> Some say unions shouldn’t be relying on gambling on the stock market.
> 
> Now the funds want the federal taxpayers to fund them or they want to increase premiums, which they needed to do decades ago.
> 
> The promises made by union leaders and supported by Democrat politicians with whom they are in bed have been vapid and the funds are insolvent. No one cared but they might care now as promises made are abandoned and these workers who operated in good faith lose their pensions.
> 
> There are 71 penniless union pension funds that rely on a federal insurance company to support their retirees. The agency is running out of cash, its director said Wednesday.
> 
> The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s limited liquidity is part of the spiraling U.S. pension crisis that threatens to wipe out the retirement savings of more than a million Americans with the potential of 10 million.
> 
> Local 707 is out of cash. The payout to them alone is $1.7 million monthly. The New York union’s pension fund covers 4,000 retired truckers across the city and Long Island. The end hit in February and was reported by Zerohedge.
> 
> The PBGC reported the distressing facts Wednesday. They stepped in with this union and 70 others. It only has ten years of cash left.
> 
> “This is a big issue for us. It’s a big issue for Local 707 and it’s a big issue for others in the same situation across the country,” director Tom Reeder warned.
> 
> “We’re projected to run out of money in eight to 10 years. Many union pension plans are projected to run out in 20 years,” he explained.
> 
> “There are going to be people in plans who run out of money after we do, and there will be no water in the well.”
> 
> Right now, PBGC has $2 billion in assets built up over 42 years, Reeder said.
> 
> The money comes from premiums to workers in these funds.
> 
> The PBGC keeps afloat by cutting pensions to about one-third of what the worker is due..
> 
> Ray Narvaez, 77, retired in 2003 told the New York Daily News that after more than 30 years as a Teamster with a $3,400 monthly pension.
> 
> Now his monthly take home is $1,100 before taxes.
> 
> He’s actually lucky. Since the fund is broke and dependent on PBGC’s insurance payouts, the average monthly take home is $570, agency officials said.
> 
> If the PBGC goes under, the pensions will be cut by 80%, less than one-eighth of the $570 average check the PBGC gives out to Local 707 now.
> 
> Larger Teamster pension funds are ready to hit rock bottom.
> 
> The Ponzi scheme doesn’t work. Unions and politicians have been lying to these workers.
> 
> The downfall from underfunded unions will hit construction, mining and retail and service industries.
> 
> The economy has hit them hard but these funds have been underfunded and that fact has been glossed over by Democrat politicians and unions.
> 
> The Central States Pension Fund and the New York State Teamsters Pension Fund in the Albany region that cover Teamsters are about to go under.
> 
> It’s a minority of unions in trouble for now but they could swamp PBGC and put them under.
> 
> The PBGC wants Congress to allow them to increase in premiums it can charge union funds. That would be the best way to go.
> 
> *Some also suggest the taxpayers pay for this folly.*
> 
> PBGC has $2 billion in assets and The Central States union fund alone pays about $2.8 billion in benefits each year. It’s the largest of the multi-employer funds about to go under.
> 
> *“At this time, only government funding, either directly to our Pension Fund or through the PBGC, will prevent Central States participants from losing their benefits entirely,”* wrote Thomas Nyhan, the executive director of the fund, in a letter on why he thinks the fund cannot come up with another rescue plan.
> 
> They should have fixed this decades ago but spineless politicians and union leaders wouldn’t do it and they wouldn’t admit they couldn’t pay for the promises they made. They left it for future generations to deal with, kicking the can down the road. The promises got them support and helped them win elections.
> 
> On June 18, 2015, *Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) introduced the Keep Our Pension Promises Act (KOPPA) of 2015 into the U.S. Congress to stop benefit cutbacks* for retirees in certain underfunded multiemployer plans. These cuts were authorized by the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014.
> 
> They do need to stop cutting pensions but they need to get the money from the unions who made the promises.



Uh, just curious, but rather than asking for a government bailout why not just increase the amount deducted from the current union employees paychecks to pay for their own pension?  The government didn't create this problem, there is no reason that taxpayers money, extorted through force from the taxpayers, should pay for it


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## Bamby

In a since when government and the banking industry consented to drive interest rates to nothing they also made a major contribution to the retirement crisis train-wreck we're facing. Unfortunately I feel we will all unfortunately shoulder some of the consequences in some shape or form.


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## Catavenger

True and if one does have money where do you put it? With inflation what it is why bother? I was going to make another thread but I will post a bit here may as well spend it. Tomorrow  you might die anyway.


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## Ironman

Catavenger said:


> True and if one does have money where do you put it? With inflation what it is why bother? I was going to make another thread but I will post a bit here *may as well spend it. Tomorrow  you might die anyway.*



And if you don't? Gotta try, at least.

Trump got my 401 bangin! I have a Roth, too. But I'm not selling, so.... maybe you're  right Cat. I should just keep pissing my money away on trips to Mexico each winter and buying some good mota.


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