Originally posted by Viss1:
Originally posted by sigma:
Part of that exhorbitant sum of money from the company is so that you'll have a "decent way of living when they're done."


I agree with most of your post except this part. Workers get paid according to what their job is currently worth.



Workers don't get paid according to "what it's worth", if they did they wouldn't be making $32/hr to tighten a bolt. They get paid according to what is negotiated and agreed upon. And it takes two to tango, I realize that. I'm not blaming the UAW here.

Quote:

No part of a current salary is legally intended to be earmarked by the recipient for retirement. Salary and retirement benefits are two separate negotiation areas.



I know it's not legally intended to be earmarked. But I'm paid a salary with the assumption that a percentage of that is to be saved. The company figures it in to your offer package because they'll likely be matching a percentage of your 401(k) contributions.

Your money is yours to do with as you please. But if you don't personally save for your own retirement and instead bet on a company taking care of you, it's no one's fault but your own. I don't have to contribute to my 401(k), but I'd be living on Railroad Retirement (basically Social Security) if I didn't.

I can see people making $6/hr at McDonald's not being able to save, but if you're making $32+/hr there's no excuse for not saving enough to live "decently" on after 30+ years. You shouldn't need GM to pay you 60-90% of your wage in perpetuity.

When GM goes belly-up, and it will almost assuredly happen, we'll see how things come up. The government will have to step in and pay these people's pensions, we're talking about a half million people with GM alone. And Ford, Visteon, and Delphi would soon follow. That's a million citizens without their pensions. But you can be virtually assured that they won't be getting their UAW-negotiated pension payments. The government's just not likely to pay that much. That's why you should save for your own retirement. Not because it's "legally required" because of course it's not. But because [censored] happens. Betting on a pension payout that you expect to get in a few years so you can take that extra vacation is just fiscally irresponsible.

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