Originally Posted by OldFlyGuy

OK, now we are "discussing" something. No food fights. I think when the plan was terminated it was 40 something percent funded and would have required an infusion of over a billion$ plus the ongoing $$ to save it.

I asked a lot of questions of a lot of people at the time. Of course DAL saved $$ with the termination--how much? I dunno. We got reamed, roger that. For a newbie starting out 15% DC with a reasonable return could add up to pretty big money. Obviously, there are a ton of problems with 401k vs DB plans.

Companies give employees less $ in DC plans than they would have spent on DB plans (how many times have you read articles about "conversions" and "savings" to the corporation?-100% of the time). Throw in market risk, longevity risk, no company $ to back you up in a decline, probably higher fees vs what "the plan" would pay, and how many of us are professional money managers in the first place? Knowing I was making a ton of assumptions I tried to ballpark what it would take to replace a 60% DB plan--reasonable rate of return--no black swans in the intake.

30yr career--age 60--IMO 15% won't do it. 35yr career--age 65--16%--maybe: but the individual is still shouldering all the aforementioned risks, ie you'ld still need some pad. Again, these are my rough calculations and I don't play an accountant on TV. I'm guessing 16% DC is low hanging fruit. More is better IMO.

But, not everyone agrees with me. A bunch of us would prefer more $ in their own names as they would rather own rental houses or their own side business. How many want to go back to a DB plan even if we could negotiate it? I'm guessing not many. To each their own. OFG