It appears there has been some movement on saving defined benefit
pensions and improving personal responsibility in the sense of
making corporations live up to their promises and written
contracts just like the average person must.

see
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051116/..._pensions_dc_1
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051117/...s_shortfall_31
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051116/...sions_glance_1

However please note that this is NOT the [or even a] solution,
just a bill passed by the Senate. It still must be passed by the
House, go through the reconciliation process [in a smoke-filled
room behind closed doors] and then signed into law by the
president.

For those of you with long memories, this is a skit from the same
script that was used to stage the 'dumb show' for the 'masses of
asses' [i.e. you and me] when the natives began to become
restless about the impending savings-and-loan debacal. Anyone for
L. Danny Wall for Treasury Secretary or Fed Chairman?

The acid test will be what the final law looks like, or if the
corporations are only required to promise they will try to do
better if the can.

The U.S. government has established a unit in the Department of
the Treasury called "Financial Crimes Enforcement Network." This
unit tracks transfers of large amounts of money, for example
resulting from drug sales and the black-market arms trade.

Because of governmental pressure the expertese of this unit was
never used to track the billions of dollars skimmed from the S&Ls
that the taxpayers are still making good. Even if recover of
this money was not possible, tracking would have identified the
methodology and financial institutions that enabled the process,
which possibly could have put a crimp in the pension fund
looting.

I suggest that you contact your Senators and Representatives in
Congress to demand that the FinCEN track the enormous amounts of
money that have been apparently skimmed from the pension funds.
Not enough people remember when the corporations were *REMOVING*
money from their pension funds under the "recapture of excess
funding" provisions during the stock market bubble when their
watered stock soared in value. Again, it may not be possible to
recover any of this money, but the enabeling/abetting individuals
and organizations, and the techniques/methodology should be
established in the public record.

FinCen information can be found at
http://www.fincen.gov/
http://www.fincen.gov/pub_main.html

Uncle George