[Rhodes22-list] The Grey Lady

[Brad Haslett]

John,

It is a mixed bag.  My employer dumped their defined benefit plan a couple
of years ago (didn't apply to me because we have a collective bargaining
agreement) and offered a buyout to employees.  Fan was caught right in the
middle.  Some of our friends that had 25 years plus jumped at the "package"
and are enjoying their new life.  A few younger ones took what they had
accumulated and went to another employer that paid more but didn't offer any
type of retirement.  I spent hours and hours analyzing Fan's options (she
could take a lump-sum and "roll it" or keep her accumulated defined benefit)
and came to the conclusion that a 401K was the loser to a defined benefit
retirement with the only improvement being that you control the money.  That
can be a good or bad thing depending on how you invest.  For the youngster
entering the job market, I can't over-emphasize the importance of investing
early in a diversified portfolio.  Try and explain to a 25 year old the
value of fully funding a 401K versus buying that new car.  Pointless!

Brad

On Feb 16, 2008 12:53 AM, john Belanger <jhnblngr at yahoo.com> wrote:

> buying off older employees with health and retirement
> obligations.....replacing them with younger employeees whose health is
> better and whose retirement is decades away. duh!
>
> Joe Babb <joe.babb at comcast.net> wrote:  In yesterday's business section of
> the Knoxville News Sentinel it was
> reported that Eastman Chemical in Kingsport was worried that it could
> not find enough young employees to fill the vacancies left by retiring
> employees. I was beginning to feel sorry for Eastman until I got to
> the last paragraph which said that Eastman had offered early retirement
> incentives in 2006 to about 250 employees. Uh, .... ??? it's just
> business.
> Joe
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