The Pension Lie?

[Pangloss]

This week's Frontline on PBS began with the following premise: That everyone who worked used to get a pension, and now corporations are trying to reneg on that promise.

 

The whole episode is available for viewing online at this URL:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement/view/

 

Here's a quote from the beginning of the story:

 

For many Americans, it used to be that your employer took care of your retirement.

 

Wow, wasn't that awfully sweet of them?

 

Here's another one:

 

People are going to retire basically with 401k plans, and that's all.

 

Okay, I think you get the general idea. The statements are reasonably accurate, perhaps -- I'm not questioning that. What I'm suggesting is that this is a bit of a ruse. A snow job. A lie.

 

The lie is this: All Americans used to have access to free and easy retirement, and now they no longer have that. And the reason they no longer have that is because corporations are greedy.

 

Pensions have never covered more than 50% of Americans! I'll even give a source on that: Employee Benefit Research Institute. EBRI Databook on Employee Benefits. Washington, D. C.: EBRI, 1997. I found it in this article here.

 

In contrast, defined contribution plans, such as IRAs and 401(k)s are more prevalent than pension plans could ever have hoped to be, because it takes the vast income of a major corporation to produce that sweeping of a benefit. And DCPs are better -- you can carry them with you from one company to the next, without losing your contribution!

 

Don't get me wrong, I think that people who worked for decades for pension-providing companies that are no longer able to provide those benefits are getting seriously screwed -- no question about it. Under certain circumstances -- depending on the kinds of documents that were signed by the various parties -- they may even have legal recourse.

 

Often those benefits were supposed to be protected by investments and lockboxes, not be tied to the price of the cars people are buying today (has anyone noticed the way GM has been trotting out that $1600-per-vehicle figure, while ignoring the fact that that figure indicates a failure in their ability to invest and protect those pensions outside of the company?).

 

So I'm not saying there isn't something to that point, and I'm not saying that there isn't also a larger issue about people not preparing for retirement -- absolutely, that's a valid point.

 

What I'm saying is that when the story is played according to THIS script, it's about SOCIALISM, not about "planning for retirement". This is about getting everyone onto the Animal Farm.

 

I think that stinks. It's yet another example of how the fourth estate fails to steer us towards a better society because they're blinded by their own agenda.

[scicop]

That's why i'm doing a G-job!

Ye ole NYPD motto...20 and out!

[Phi for All]

This is getting to be so typical of the media. They should be getting Pulitzer's for fiction. And so many of these little lies and generalizations go completely unnoticed.

 

I hate it when selling the script is more important than reporting the facts.

[Pangloss]

Just to tack on a little more info, I noticed that the piece was produced by the same person who did Frontline's recent report on Wal-Mart, which I thought was pretty interesting but which did seem pretty one-sided in its analysis.

 

I find myself pining for the days of Peter Boyer and Lowell Bergman. Both are still employed by Frontline, as I understand it, but I haven't seen shows produced by them in a while now. I should look into that further, it might produce some interesting info.

[Jim]

This is getting to be so typical of the media. They should be getting Pulitzer's for fiction. And so many of these little lies and generalizations go completely unnoticed.

 

I hate it when selling the script is more important than reporting the facts.

 

This comes as no surprise if you've ever had personal experience with the press on a story which they think validates the overwhelmingly dominant MSM world view. I had a case which got 15 minutes of national infamy (yes, I was perceived as representing the bad guys who had the audacity to win) and 9/10th of the journalists who contacted me were pretty clueless. They wanted to pitch the case from a certain angle and nothing, certainly not facts or law, would deflect them.

 

At first I would just refer them to the briefing in the case, naively thinking that the hundreds of hours we had spent writing those documents might be helpful to anyone seriously interested in understanding the opposing point of view. Without exception, this material was ignored and, finally, after story after inaccurate story, I tried to engage them with direct email and phone conversations but it was just another day's work for them and they weren't exceptionally interested in getting an opposing perspective. I still wasn't prepared for the absolute fabrications in some reports.