Current funding of pension obligations seems like a no brainer; surely unions negotiate this? But what is a contractual claim against a bankrupt company worth? There has to be recourse to the private equity turds somehow.

What I don't understand is that in cases like these the original owners know fully well that the PE firm is going to chop up their business and profit off of it. So, why don't the original owners just do the same thing themselves?

Obviously they don't really care about the employees, or they wouldn't sell to the PE firm in the first place. And they'll make even more money if they just stripped the assets and filed for bankruptcy themselves.

Thinking about it more, maybe a simple "pensions must be funded before any distributions/dividends/management fees" law would help. But really, these pieces of **** will always find ways to siphon off money with related party contracts, real estate deals, etc.

I think the answer is usually, as here, very stupid second or third generation ownership that gets bribed by the PE firm (note how Junior's perks remained).

It's Mason, who is clearly intelligent.

I spent NYE watching CART, a Korean film based on a true story about a strike on a grocery store chain. The company laid off temporary workers, mostly women, and replaced them with cheaper, outsourced, contract workers. The temporary employees had been promised eventual permanent status (higher wages+security) but that rarely happened even though many had been there years. They start a union, try to negotiate, and eventually strike. The strike goes on a long time (irl, 512 days), heartstrings are pulled, thugs beat up the workers, there are betrayals. In real life, there wasn't really a happy ending and there isn't really one in the movie.

Some good replies.


https://twitter.com/nytopinion/statu...22878744506369

401(k)?

How does a 401(k) prevent companies from raiding the pensions of retirees who paid into the pension for their entire working lives?

Writing in Mulvaney.

That NYT article about the time/money spent on smart phones is way off in the estimate of retirement savings. They say $14,000/decade, which is $116.67/month. That adds up to $1.3M if you get 9% returns, not 4%, as claimed. Even if you plunk the whole $70k in at the beginning of the 50-year (lol) career, you need a 6% return. Those figures don't account for inflation, so if you want $1.3M in today's dollars, the returns need to be after inflation.

Some combination of pension + 401k would be good. The defined benefit and required contributions of the pension plus the fiduciary rules of 401ks, so the *******s would at least go to jail after ****ing over the pensioners.

lol @ 9% return assumption, thats some Illinois level nonsense

especially infuriating is the public pensions like CALPERS paying obscene fees to the very private equity funds that are bankrupting the government pension insurance fund, god damn late stage capitalism is a helluva ride

Re: CALPERS

Warning - you will be #triggered

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/...ess-model.html

For those who thought Feinstein was facing a legitimate challenge.


https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/sta...47904030343169

Legitimate how? Like she won by a fair margin and he did carry the red areas of CA, but he's been an important part of the CA legislature for a long time and I didn't see him doing anything to court Republican voters. KDL is perfectly legit and at some point in the future he probably will be your Senator or Governor.

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/sta...203437056?s=19

After a week touring our Nation's semi-closed national parks in AZ/Utah - I'm at the Aria for one night. Major culture shock. They have a poker tourney that starts at 7:30.

Also apparently the Big Game is Ivey's Room now. I guess Doyle really retired. I'm gonna peek in and see if any of my old STTF super-ballers are there.

rip doyle

WAT - google says he's still alive I think

FWIW Ivey's room was empty all night. I busted fairly early in the tourney, then played 5/10 with a bunch of boring wannabe pros.

Two were covering their necks the whole time. Half were playing other video games on their phone the whole time - yeah that will really entice the fish to want to play! The other half never said a word and it was clear two pairs of dudes were buddies and acting as a team basically.

I think I was the only person in the entire Aria poker room drinking alcohol.

I was up about $1500 at one point, then lost a few hands. Then shoved an open-ender + backdoor FD into $600 pot or so and lost vs. a set running it twice. I was probably the second biggest fish at the table in my inebriated state. Glad to contribute to the poker economy!

i meant it like rip doyle's poker career. sorry, i was responding to your post with a twitter and nvg meme whereupon any conversation of doyle somebody says rip doyle. i have no information on his health but the meme's been around forever so he's probably immortal

Thank you for your service!

To be fair (to me) it was probably about 2% difference between me and the other 7 vs. the guy next to me who called every bet until the river, and only raised when he had a monster.

The only tricky part was trying to figure out what he thought was a monster.

One of the things we do at Two Plus Two is to think about how poker is doing. The better it’s doing, the more books we should print, the more new titles we can take on, the more investment we can put into our website, and so on. Also, from a player’s perspective, the better poker does, the better the games will be, and the better the games are the more money the people we cater to will make. So what’s our current prediction? And why do we feel this way?

Well, our prediction is simple. We think the games over the next two or three years will get better and better, and if you’re a good poker player today, it’ll seem like you’re an even better poker player tomorrow because your expectation should rise. So why is this?

The answer is simple. Life in America is barely tolerable, and I subscribe to the idea that it’s only going to get worse. Of course, this creates much desire for heavy drinking.

This brings us to the heart of the matter. On our website, we have many posters who literally hate President Donald Trump. But from a poker perspective, his demeanour, his policies, such as they are, and that includes the tax cut, plus just the sheer knowledge that he is POTUS, will, in my opinion, mean that we should see a growth in reckless drinking like we haven't seen since the Great Depression.

So for all you poker playing Trump haters out there, my advice is to think again.

Best Wishes,
ChrisV

In the context of the article, the issue is it that companies can walk away from underfunded defined benefit pensions by declaring bankruptcy. 401(k) plans are by definition never underfunded, so companies generally can't get away from their obligation. Once their contributions are in the plan, they stay in the plan.