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Sunday, October 23, 2005

Pulling the curtain aside
Posted by Jill | 9:42 AM

I dare not hope that the MSM has finally been deprogrammed from its worship of the Cult of Bush, but when Time Magazine runs an exposé of how Congress has allowed corporations to bail out of providing health insurance and pensions, I can only wonder if a sea change away from the Republican culture of greed and avarice may actually be coming:

Businesses in one industry after another are revoking long-standing commitments to their workers. It's the equivalent of your bank telling you that it needs the money you put into your savings account more than you do--and then keeping it. Result: a wholesale downsizing of the American Dream.[...]

Congress's role has been pivotal. Lawmakers wrote bankruptcy regulations to allow corporations to scrap the health insurance they promised employees who retired early--sometimes voluntarily, quite often not. They wrote pension rules that encouraged corporations to underfund their retirement plans or switch to plans less favorable to employees. They denied workers the right to sue to enforce retirement promises[...]

One by one, lawmakers have undermined or destroyed policies that once afforded at least the possibility of a livable existence to many seniors, while at the same time encouraging corporations to repudiate lifetime-benefit agreements. All this under the guise of ensuring workers that they are in charge of their own destiny--such as it is.

[snip]

Truth to tell, the 401(k) was never intended as a retirement plan. It evolved out of a tax break that Congress awarded to corporate executives in 1978, allowing them to defer part of their salaries and cut their tax bills[...]

Noticeably absent from many accounts was any reference to the median value, a more accurate indicator of the health of America's retirement system. That number was $17,909, meaning half held less, half more. Nearly 1 in 4 accounts had a balance of less than $5,000.


(Excerpts via "tiberius" at Daily Kos, because Time makes you subscribe to their print edition in order to read online.)
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