Page 26 - Contribution Plans News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Dollar? and that will determine how other cities will renegotiate their pension plans. >> that is exactly right. bill: do i have it right? >> i i you nailed it. and i would add this. one of the things that has to happen in major cities around the country they have to move away from what are called defined benefit programs that define what the benefit will be to more like 401(k) plans where you actually own them. traditionally a lot of unions said we don't want the defined contribution plans because we want, you know, 100% guaranteed benefits that are promised by defined benefit programs. guess...

The participant i would get per month, $1,471 and my spouse, who would get 50%, would get $736. so again, when you kind of look at those numbers, it sounds like a lot of money, but maybe it's not a lot of money, right, ed? >> right. and here is the key to this. this is not an annuity. all they're doing in this situation is saying, your life expectancy, whatever that number might be, this is if you took equal distributions. this is how much money you would get per month based on that life expectancy. again, not a great calculator, but a good framework to work with. because 401(k) plans and othe...

People predicted four years ago the economy would be still in this much trouble? none of them. you can't anticipate the future. if you're going to make promises on pensions you have to have enough money in the kitty or you have to scale back the benefits. several states have done that utah recently put all of their state employees on defined contribution plans. these are like 401(k)s. look, only 15% of private sector workers today have a traditional pension, a defined benefit pension. over 80% of public employees have a defined benefit pension which is much richer and much better. we have to e...

And i do like it have much. and i think newt is right on line with this one. if you look at the s & p500. those companies have been moving directly in this way. they have defined contribution plans. and it makes perfect sense that people be in control of their own finances if they want to be. bill: why does it make per expect sense. when you think of the lehman collapse. you don't know how people would have reacted if they saw their retirement savings decline by the great percent and we saw three years ago. this was looked at in the late 90s when the stock market was flying. people said there ...

At it? we continue the conversation now with our panel, robert zimmerman, lady linda rothschild and larry gaiflin. you get the first whack. >> thank you very much. there is a big problem when we as a country cannot accept that both sides have something to contribute. and when nancy pelosi and barack obama pretend that people who want to cut reckless spending, that we cannot afford is somehow unfair or ruthless, that is -- >> on the table, we're talking about "the wall street journal" said ending medicare as we know it. that was "the wall street journal." that wasn't the left wing organization....