Pension funds plan their eventual default.

Today's news is that congress is starting to kick around legislation making it legal to begin cutting pension benefits for existing retirees. Perhaps it is too early in the collapse for this to pass but the eventual outcome is a foregone conclusion.  The fact is that Ponzi Pension Promises were made and they cannot be kept.  George Carlin called it "the vanishing retirement".

All this is happening while the DJIA is still above 17k and consumer optimism is at a peak from the 2009 lows.  What happens when the great recession redux occurs with the stock market in free fall?  We have to understand that the final collapse of the global debt Ponzi was not eliminated by central bank intervention.  It was only kicked down the road and made far worse. 



What cannot be paid will not be paid.  Today's workers will always get priority over yesterday's retired workers because it is easier to break promises to what have become "useless eaters" in the minds of the elite than to piss off the current workers.  All new value comes from today's workers so yesterday's workers will get the shaft.  The elite need production today lest there be little for them to parasitically steal.

Of course, the current workers will fight for themselves as well.  From the article: "The congressional proposal allows trustees of those plans to slash benefits sharply for retirees to give the plans a longer lease on life. It requires a vote of approval by active workers and retirees before that could be done -- but some pension advocates say that would only pit workers against retirees, with the latter coming out poorer.".

This shows the folly of accepting future promises to pay in retirement for work done today.  Promises can be forgotten and corrupt politicians can, with the flick of a pen, make it all nice and legal. 

Welcome to your retirement, Mark and Patsy.