They pop up periodically, but then the makers either don't show or lots and lots of pilots show up to shout them down. They never go anywhere.
Personally, I think the biggest deal these days is new guys and gals have NO idea what was lost. To replicate a pension like what
@DE727UPS has in today's market on a personal basis is an insane amount of money, and to think that a 15% 401k contribution in any way replicates that is just silly.
Lots of kids these days "grew up" with a market that returned 10% and interest rates at 2%. They think that's the way things are and will go on forever. In reality, those numbers are a historical aberration, and when they swap, and they inevitably will, there's going to be a lot of caterwauling, especially when inflation hits 10%.
To put numbers to it, a $400k earnings average at 60% (a typical major pension in the past) is $240k. Lets say the actuarials think you're going to live 25 years past retirement, and that the current long term interest rate is 3% (VERY high assumption, at the moment). In today dollars, that pension needs 3.1 million in funding.
The other thing people underestimate is the power of the long term interest rate on pensions. Everyone seems to think that pension funding is figured by market returns, which is absolutely not true. ERISA rules drive pension funding calculations, and the only returns that are permitted for the fund are plain old long term interest. Like what you'd get in a CD or savings account. It is actually irrelevant how the fund actually performs, except the balance at the funding calculation. Your fund may have actually returned 10% the year before, but the only way that is figured into the calculation is the balance. But toss in a 3% interest rate over the actuarial period of the beneficiary, and you wind up with an absurd funding requirement.
The interesting thing is lets say interest rates go back up to their long term historical average of about 7%. First off, lots of people who have their entire portfolio revolving around cheap money are going to lose their ass, and the entire housing market, as it exists today, will collapse, but that's going to be a story for another time. That same pension above that needed 3.1 in funding now only requires 2.1 million. What's more interesting is that the remaining pensions out there, have been driven to be funded under the current circumstances will, overnight, be massively overfunded under the new interest rates. With relatively modest interest rates, pensions actually can fund themselves, requiring NO contributions.
It will be very interesting to see what employers do at that point.
