Originally Posted by
JB130
the horror of having to retire with the market down like it is now and with all of my retirement fund "shares" tied to this market as it would be in a VB. It can be almost intoxicating dreaming of big VB projections in a bull market but the bear is always lurking. This market should be a lesson to the bedazzled dreamers out there and kill any notion of a VB plan on our property.
Ask any of our retirees if they're getting smaller A Plan checks now....or if their A Plan checks have stopped. The answer to both is NO! Those retirees are still cashing the same checks...business as usual for them, they earned it.
Quite simply, there is no better retirement package than the combination of an A Plan for guaranteed money immune from market fluctuations and a B-Plan that allows each individual full control of investment options/risk which suits them as they move through life and toward retirement. There is no better case to be made for our current package than what we're witnessing right now. Our efforts should be focused solely on improving the A Plan and continued enhancements to the B Plan.
Do you understand that the union's negotiating entering line in the sand was a floor benefit of 2%*5 FAE*YOS (so that no one would be left with less than what they would have under the current A plan) and that at the point you retire, you could have locked in a fixed amount to keep the check constant or continue to let it flex with the market? Without the baseline, I agree, the VB would have gone absolutely no where with our group.