Is trucking a dying industry ?
Charles
Yoshie Furuhashi : The irony is that, when corrupt gangsters who employed hooligans to maim and even kill dissidents were in charge of US unions, US workers had it better than today, as the gangsters stole less from US workers than nice neoliberal fund managers who are bankrupting their pensions:
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At the end of 2002, the pension fund had 60 cents for every dollar owed to present and future retirees - a dangerous level. In a rough comparison, the pension fund for US Airways' pilots had 74 cents for every dollar it owed in December 2002, just before it defaulted. During the bear market after the technology bubble burst, Central States' assets lost value as its obligations to retirees ballooned, causing a mismatch so severe that the fund had to reduce benefits last winter for the first time in its 49-year history.
-clip- The unfolding situation holds a hard lesson for others with responsibility for retirement money. What may appear as a sensible, conventional approach to investing - seeking a diversified mix of growth and income investments for the long term - can wreak havoc when applied to a pension fund, especially one in a dying industry with older members who are about to make demands of it.
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