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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JonFrum" data-source="post: 230304">Below are the Net Assets of the Central States Pension Fund. The figures are as of Dec. 31 of each year. "Net Assets," are the monies actually available to pay present and future benefits. Liabilities (such as investment losses,) and current expenses (such as administrative costs, and retirement benefit payments,) have already been subtracted.  As a result of market losses in 2000-2002, the fund's Net Assets were reduced to $15.4 Billion. It has grown every year since, and is now probably about $21 billion. The Second Quarter Financial Report (thru June 30th, 2007) should be posted soon on the Central States website to make it official. How can anyone look at these figures and say they are going down, down, down, when, in fact, they are clearly going up, up, up? I've never claimed the fund is in great shape, despite what Tieguy keeps saying. But I do say you should use the latest information available, and from the most accurate sources. And you must acknowledge True Facts when they are presented to you. Facts are facts. Central States Pension Fund Net Assets (in Billions):2007: $21 (estimate)2006: $20.72005: $19.32004: $18.72003: $17.72002: $15.4-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -Consolidated Freightways went bankrupt a while ago and owed the Central States Pension Fund $318.7 million in Withdrawal Liability.  They also owed $27 million in unpaid hourly contributions. Since this is a big company, its bankruptcy should hurt the Central States Fund and stick UPS with the burden of having 60% of its contributions redirected away from the UPSers for whom it was intended, and into the retirement checks of Consolidated Freightways retirees. Right?Well, not so fast. The $27 million represents unpaid contributions. I don't know if Central States will succeed in collecting the $27 million in Bankruptcy Court, but if they do CFers will be credited with those contributions and will thus earn a few more months of pension credit. Then they will earn no more credits, unless they go out and get a job with another employer who also contributes to Central States. If the $27 million is not collected, the CFers will not receive any credit for that money. Period. In other words, the potential loss of this money is a CF employees' problem, not a Central States Pension Fund problem.As to the $318.7 million, Central States has already recovered $45 million and says substantial additional recovery is anticipated. Tieguy may not think recovering money from bankrupt companies amounts to much, but I say, $45 million here, $45 million there, pretty soon you're talkin' real money. We need to wait until the full recovery process has run its course. Only then can we see how much money CF owed CS and didn't pay. We also need to count the money recovered by CS as the result of other types of lawsuits. For example, $5.3 million was recovered from the AOL-TimeWarner merger because of securities fraud . Money has also been recovered from HealthSouth, with more expected.  These, and other recoveries, reduce the overall level of the original stock market losses.Bear in mind that CF has been contributing money into the fund for many years on behalf of its employees who thus earn pension credits, just like UPS contributes on behalf of UPSers. The lion's share of CF retirees' benefits will be paid out of the billions and billions CF has contributed for just that purpose, over all those years. Those billions are part of the $21 billion in assets in the trust fund.  It's only the ultimately unpaid portion of the Withdrawal Liability payments that is a worry. Normally, all unpaid portions of Withdrawal Liability of all bankrupt employers are distributed fairly amongst all surviving employers in the fund. This is how Multi-employer plans self-insure. This is the basis of all insurance arangements throught our economy. Contributions are pooled, and risk is spread amongst all participants. (They also have supplemental insurance thru the PBGC.) To keep things simple, let's assume UPS must pay the entire unpaid portion of CF's Withdrawal Liability singlehandedly.  Well, we have seen that number has already been reduced $45 million to $273.7 million. And that further reductions are anticipated. So how can CF retirees, no matter how greedy they are, possibly be consuming 60% of all the contributions UPS makes, year after year? Like I've been saying for about a year now, I don't want yet another poster to tell me yet again that "60% of UPS contributions go to fund the retirement of other bankrupt employers," I want someone to PROVE it to me. SHOW me. EXPLAIN it to me. I just don't believe it. The numbers don't add up. UPS' contributions are so huge, and the unpaid Withdrawal Liability of CF, whatever it ultimately is determined to be, is so (relatively) small. It's nowhere near 60%.</blockquote>

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