PolicyWonk

No work All play

Don't you dare accuse DLAX of being a troll!

What rot!

abides

False claims, untruths, lies, half truths, have no business in these discussions with the pilots.

here’s a fact: The union communications are HEAVILY edited. These aren’t even the persons (reps) own complete words. They have be extensively, and poorly, edited to protect the associations hide. ALPA has to be very careful how they represent these plans and how they forecast their performance. It is going to be a very tough argument to make when you’re arguing against a DB plan, because at some point you need to make assumptions of earnings and those assumptions come with caveats.

Noworkallplay

Of course some assumptions have to be made. The assumptions made have been on the very conservative side as far as I have seen. Not only that in the modeler you could run no pay raises scenarios. You could adjust the earnings. They have used modeling with numerous data sets from numerous market conditions. What else are they to do? It’s a plan that’s based on numbers and those have to be negotiated. I give them credit for looking at alternatives while many sit on the sidelines and throw arrows. Many of them have backgrounds in investment management and the outside consultants do this for a living. Are they all just a bunch of snake oil salesmen? They are all in one big cahoots together? Let’s get real.

News flash every big organization tries to protect its hide and tries to not over promise. Nothing in this material has over promised.

abides

You have yet to present one productive or cogent thought. You ramble incoherently. You continue to redirect the topic without thoughtfully addressing or even attempt to address any direct questioning.

By the way, don’t mistake this response directly to you as an interest in your opinion. I am in fact not interested. How’s that for getting real?

DLax85

Research Broadly, Think Critically, Demand Transparency

...and please - bring value (and politeness) to the discussion

In Unity,
DLax

Noworkallplay

I have produced numerous “facts” about this topic including hyperlinks to the material in discussion. I have also countered numerous false statements made about the material. The problem is it doesn't fit the narrative of you are in favor of or some others. Thats called a difference of opinion. Once again you are trolling.

DLax85

An interesting article that speaks to many of the issues we’ve been discussing.

(Two links to same article - at least one should work for you)

https://www.morningstar.com/articles...-getting-worse

https://apple.news/AovETqLFORCiYquEMyLAuCQ

A true Defined Benefit Plan is proving more and more valuable.

Research Broadly, Think Critically and Demand Transparency

In Unity,
DLax

Noworkallplay

Interesting article. My favorite paragraph was this

“As I hope you have gathered, these exercises aren't remotely realistic. They involve assumptions that will certainly prove to be false, perhaps grossly so. However, they do indicate what has changed since I first addressed this subject in July 2013. Then, I wrote, "Even if the acceptable rate per [Bengen's] approach has subsided to something close to 3%, it doesn't follow that a retiree must accept such a low figure." I am considerably less certain of that counsel today.”

I remember some not to long ago on this webpage upset about similar type statements made by financial analysts. All we can do is look at data and try to make educated guesses.

The biggest thing the article makes clear is that our current frozen A plan, with no increases in over 20 years, is devaluing very quickly and may devalue quicker in the future with increasing inflation.

DLax85

I challenge everyone to read the actual article. The biggest take away is not the affects of inflation. Rather it's the forward projected return on a balanced 50 stock/50 bond portfolio, largely due to ultra low interest rates, and a reduced forecast on equity returns. If one understands the author's main points: that it's far more difficult to derive a steady income stream in retirement today, and the size of a portfolio needs to be much larger today to extract the same income, then one should understand the INCREASED value of a fixed, guaranteed retirement income.

Sound retirement programs are diversified against many risks - to include inflation. But inflation, is clearly not the only risk, and certainly not the focus of his analysis.

In Unity,
DLax

DR K

$130k/.03 = $4.3M required to be in a pilot's 401k/IRA/B fund at retirement to equal value of our CURRENT A plan if one uses the 3% rule as referenced in these articles (a good idea to use 3% vs 4% IMO). And that is still only allows for a 95% chance of that balance surviving your entire retirement, whereas the A plan could be argued is near 100% and would extend far beyond a normal life expectancy.

The average and median 401k balances for 55-64 year old Americans as of 2019 - avg is $171,623, median is $61,739. Use the "inflation is eroding the purchasing power of those balances" argument with those numbers!

If a 65 year old retiring pilot has a $1M B fund plus an A plan worth $4.3M on the day of his retirement, how do those sums compare to the AVG or median balances above? Why are we acting like there is an emergency and we need to scrap our relatively risk-free A plan and gamble with an unproven system instead of merely negotiating incremental increases? Because it is too expensive for the company? Because of their intransigence? DR K

Disclaimer: No ad hominems were used in the construction of this post.

https://www.personalcapital.com/blog...k-balance-age/

https://pressroom.vanguard.com/nonin...019-Report.pdf