The federal insurer of pensions could find itself responsible for another $11 billion in obligations to workers at Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, now that the two carriers have filed for bankruptcy. Although neither carrier has said it plans to terminate pensions and turn them over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., both have indicated they will no longer contribute to their plans - a tactic United Airlines used successfully in July 2004. The future, however, looks grim. The agency may face a shortfall of $86.7 billion during the next 10 years, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released yesterday. This figure estimates the agency will assume $63.4 billion in additional obligations from terminations that will occur over the next decade. The PBGC declined to comment on the report.
So someone should start doing the math on these sorts of public pronouncements. In just the last two weeks alone the fiscal news hasn't been particularly positive. I suspect the MSM is quite content in not making a point of aligning the dollar numbers needed in a spreadsheet that would show just how out of balance our thinking and our economy has become. The CPA in Iraq suspended all reconstruction in that country because they had exhausted the more than $22 billion set aside for 2005. The vast majority of that money went to... private security contractors(who just happen to be lining up in the Gulf region for more of the handouts).. as well as being lost and/or unaccountable in the audits. We are spending around a billion a day on Iraq just to maintain our military presence(again most of that goes to private corporations). Then the nation decides it needs to spend an additional $200 billion on the Gulf Coast this year, and several billions more in the next five years. Now the various financial mismanagements of major corporations are forcing the PBGC to seek nearly a $100 billion to cover the bankrupt insured pensions of a surprisingly large number of citizens who, without this insurance, would further bankrupt the banks and financial institutions. All the while we are in the process, as a nation, of cutting the taxes for the wealthiest financiers (those raking in the dough from the government contracts and from mismanaging funds to their benefits); these tax cuts alone will amount to more than $260 billion a year for at least the next decade and possibly more as the wealth is consolidated between fewer and fewer individuals who take these assets out of the country for safer keeping.
If we think the poor african americans were a bit pissy and testy as they were deprived of access to basic human needs, start envisioning millions upon millions of citizens in the US discovering that they are being marginalized into destitution and impoverishment for the benefit of so few. What these Norquist freaks fail to realize is that the US is populated by the largest private ownership of weapons of any population in the world. We don't have sufficient troops, law enforcement personnel, nor private security forces to stop the eruption of overt violence that will precipitate from the collapse of basic needs support for the mass of the population. The world has seen nothing yet in comparison, and that includes the famines in Africa and subcontinental Asia.
