General Motors Pensioners

[oldjones]

So where do I apply to get my money back for the goods that were stolen from me

Aw c'mon, the Crime Victims Compensation fund can't be that hard to find. Just Google. BTW your personal insurance company's another example of the group supporting the unfortunate. Before entrepreneurial CEOs took them public, most were owned by policyholders. How unfair! I've never collected! And now, taxpayers like me are bailing out those 'profiteers' who emptied the reserves for personal greed. 'Cause, resentful or not, we need insurance for all sorts of things. Pension funds for example. But I digress.

taxpayers are committing to step up and fund every unfairness in life then I certainly want to be in the queue!

Fine. Currently the biggest queue is on the downstream end of the Red River, somewhere around Winnipeg. Whaich has many times been the recipient of federal and provincial bailouts [cheap pun intended] after an unfair Providence flooded them yet again. Do you think they shouldn't get a cent until they move off that floodplain? Who paid for the floodway that let's them imagine they're now safe? Where's my floodway? Nobody here but us taxpayers babe.

I also think it's unfair to me that my RRSP has declined, which I gather is the same issue that these pensions face--they are underfunded partly because of the market losses they suffered. I too suffered market losses, and I want to be made whole by the taxpayer too.

So's everyone's RRSP shrunk. And you know full well this particular issue is NOT declining stock prices but GM—with the collusion of governments of every party—not making sufficient payments into the fund over the years. Payments they'd contracted to make, which the union let them forgo on the government's assurances they'd be there, if Hell froze and GM tanked. You usually do better than that. And besides, now you're right back at the beginning of the topic as if it never happened. Must we now repeat all four pages?

Remember the seven fat cattle and the seven lean in the Bible? That's what governments have done since time immemorial—planned, provisioned and been there for victims to turn to. I'm really kinda surprised that a guy so happy to pronounce on parliamentary pettiness seems to have forgotten what government power is really for.

Power's for the people. Unless democracy's just a definition for PoliSci 101.

 

[fuji]

Aw c'mon, the Crime Victims Compensation fund can't be that hard to find. Just Google.

I did, but it does not look like it offers me any money back for the goods that were stolen from me.

BTW your personal insurance company's another example of the group supporting the unfortunate.

Note, not funded by the taxpayer. Funded by me.

So's everyone's RRSP shrunk. And you know full well this particular issue is NOT declining stock prices but GM--with the collusion of governments of every party--not making sufficient payments into the fund over the years.

My understanding is that it is a combination of underfunding and market declines, not just one or the other. Had the market gone up as they had projected they would not have had this problem.

Philosophically and practically I simply do no think the taxpayer should or can step up and fix every unfairness in life. The taxpayer is not there to refund what was stolen for me, or top up my losses in my RRSP, return money to defrauded old ladies, or bail out screwed up private pension plans.

Maybe all of those things are unfair, but life is unfair, and it's not the taxpayer's fault that it's unfair, nor the taxpayers responsibility to fix every unfairness.

Taxpayers should step up only when there is an over-riding public interest. The taxpayer has already stepped up to guarantee every Canadian a minimum standard of living in retirement, with free healthcare when they're old, and free education when they're young.

Maybe we can discuss whether OAS and CPP pensions are an adequate minimum standard of living--for EVERYBODY--but I think the taxpayer has already done his and her share by funding those programmes.

Payments they'd contracted to make, which the union let them forgo on the government's assurances they'd be there, if Hell froze and GM tanked.

I am still waiting for a citation from you for that government insurance because I can't find it, I don't remember it from the time, and it's not in the act you quoted.

 

[benstt]

The underfunding of the pensions is entirly on the backs of the employer and the union. The employer for not properly funding it and the union for not protecting the interests of its members. The CAw could have made the underfunding a contract issue at any one of the contract negotiaions over the last 20 years. They decided to get MORE form te employer because hey they don't have to fund it fully there must be more money there.

On a related note, Ken Lewenza was on CBC this morning arguing that many of the pensioners put in their time when GM was profitable, so shouldn't be punished by the current troubles.

My thoughts were that if their pension obligations were truly being accounted for, they may not have been profitable in those years. Hmm.

 

[Malibook]

On a related note, Ken Lewenza was on CBC this morning arguing that many of the pensioners put in their time when GM was profitable, so shouldn't be punished by the current troubles.

Their CPP contributions will be honoured.