What the Fu** is wrong with this Gov't? The cocksuckers are Fu**ing everyone they can in the name of Profits and Politics. Everyone of them should be taken out back and shot the Fu**ing Traitors.
*********************************************************************************************David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau
Washington -- More than 500 of auto supplier Delphi's salaried retirees will start receiving reduced pension checks starting Monday, after a federal judge in Detroit this week refused to block the move.
Delphi's 21,000 salaried retirees and plan participants filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to block the company's decision to abandon its pension plans and hand them to the government's insurer, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. They also sued the Treasury Department and members of President Barack Obama's auto task force.
But a judge this week declined to stop the move.
That decision, which also applied to hourly pension plans, will cost some younger retirees up to 70 percent of their pensions and saddles the pension agency with a $6.7 billion in debt. In 2009, the maximum payment to a retiree who is 65 was $54,000; the maximum payment to a retiree who is 55 was $24,300.
PBGC spokesman Jeffrey Speicher said the benefits of at least 3,481 retirees will be cut, but 4,100 will see no reduction. PBGC is still reviewing the status of 700 complicated pension cases.
On Feb. 1, reductions ranging from $6.72 to $3,700 a month will be imposed on 581 retirees above age 62, Speicher said. Another 2,900 will begin seeing cuts from $10.25 to $2,200 in their pensions March 1.
The average retiree losing pension benefits will see about $850 a month cut, he said.
Many of the affected retirees and their dependents are in Michigan.
The first group of Delphi salaried retirees that will be affected is 62 and older. The PBGC will start paying revised benefits to another group of salaried retirees on March 1, while some complex pension issues -- primarily divorced retirees -- will begin affecting revised pension benefits later this year.
PBGC's lower benefits calculations start from the date of the plans' termination last August. The PBGC insures pensions on a sliding scale -- with the lowest benefits guaranteed the youngest retirees.
General Motors Co. agreed to "top up" the pensions of Delphi's hourly retirees represented by United Auto Workers and most other unions. But Delphi said it couldn't exit bankruptcy without cutting benefits to salaried retirees, including their life and health insurance.
This week, U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Tarnow in Detroit gave PBGC the option of placing in escrow the amount that Delphi salaried retirees are estimated to lose, or they can file a stipulation agreeing to pay if a court orders that the PBGC improperly assumed Delphi's pension plans that salaried retirees will be entitled to their current benefit levels.
Lawyers for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and top auto adviser Ron Bloom asked the court Wednesday for an extension of time to respond to the lawsuit.
The administration contends it had no role in Delphi's decision to terminate its pension plans, but it has refused to turn over e-mails and other records on the issue sought by members of Congress.
The attorneys general of Ohio and Mississippi have filed briefs in support of the salaried retirees; Congress has held several hearings on the matter.
Separately, air bag and safety equipment supplier Autoliv Inc. said it has agreed to acquire substantially all of Delphi's occupant protection systems operations in Korea and China. Those total $250 million of annualized sales in 2010. Last year, Autoliv bought Delphi's OPS operations in Europe and North America.
dshepardson@detnews.com (202) 662-8735
From The Detroit News:
http://detnews.com/article/20100128/AUTO01/1280457/1148/auto01/Pensions-to-drop-Monday-for-Delphi-salaried-retirees#ixzz0dxD5KE4l
