Download Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers AudioBook Free
It's no key that hundreds of companies have been slashing pensions and coverage of health earned by an incredible number of retirees. Employers blame an maturing workforce, stock market losses, and spiraling costs - a perfect surprise of external forces that has required these to take drastic actions. But this so-called retirement crisis is not a automobile accident. Award-winning investigative reporter Ellen E. Schultz shows how large companies and the retirement industry - benefits consultants, insurance companies, and banking companies - have all played a huge, hidden role in the loss of life spiral of North american pensions and benefits. Just a little over a decade ago, most companies had more than enough reserve to pay the huge benefits received by two generations of staff, no matter just how long they lived. But by exploiting loopholes, ambiguous laws, and new accounting guidelines, companies essentially converted their pension programs into piggy banking companies, duty shelters, and earnings centers. Attracting on original analysis of company data, federal filings, confidential memos, plus more, Schultz uncovers years of deception where employers have exaggerated their retiree burdens while lobbying for federal handouts, secretly lowering pensions, tricking employees, and misleading shareholders. She shows how companies siphon vast amounts of dollars from other pension programs to fund downsizings and sell the property in merger offers; overstate the responsibility of rank-and-file retiree commitments to justify benefits reductions with all the savings to inflate professional pay and pensions; cover their growing professional pension liabilities, which at some companies now go beyond the liabilities for the standard pension programs; purchase vast amounts of dollars of life insurance coverage on staff and use the regulations as informal professional pension funds; preemptively sue retirees after lowering retiree health benefits and use other legal strategies to erode their legal protections. This is a scathing exposé of 1 of the most critical and least recognized crises in our time. Ellen E. Schultz is an investigative reporter who have covered the so-called retirement crisis for more than a 10 years. Her reporting has resulted in congressional hearings, new legislation, and investigations by the Treasury and the Government Accountability Office. A previous personnel reporter for the Wall structure Street Journal, she has won a large number of journalism honours for economics, financial, and investigative reporting, including three Polk Honors, two Loeb honours, and a Country wide Press Club award. In 2003, she was part of your team of Wall structure Block Journal reporters honored the Pulitzer Reward for articles on commercial scandals. She lives in NEW YORK.
