Coming soon to an Australian Superfund near you...?

[Roswell Crash Survivor]

Pensions may be cut to 'virtually nothing' for 407,000 people
http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/20/retirement/central-states-pension-fund/

Central States Pension Fund Drops Efforts to Create Second Bailout Plan
http://www.wsj.com/articles/central...orts-to-create-second-bailout-plan-1463689801

Fate of 400,000 Teamster Pensions Rests in Ken Feinberg's Hands
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...amster-pensions-rests-in-ken-feinberg-s-hands

Summary

Central States Pension Fund: Private retirement fund for truck drivers, transport workers and allied services. (Similar to any number of Industry Superfund.)

Going to be insolvent in ~10 years. Cause? Demographics, unable to attract new contributions. Few young workers have enough left to save for their own retirement.

(Tacit acknowledgement that, like all retirement funds, its basically a Ponzi scheme.)

Proposing 'reforms' to save fund from insolvency up to 60% cuts to existing pension payments.

Reforms unlikely to actually save fund from insolvency.

All parties involved are eyeing a government bailout.

 

[Ipv6Ready]

US pension funds doesn't directly relate Australian super does it?

I am not 100% sure but in US system current workers have to pay into the system system, so retired people can draw from it. Much like giant pyramid scheme.

(In Australia I thought only government have unfunded pension liability, the reason future fund was created.)

Basically my understanding is that in the US you have 1000 employed workers paying 10% of their wages (figures are made up for illustration purposes only) into a fund so 100 retirees can be drawing at the full rate of retirement income. Of course the fund also grows by investing in interest and dividends paying instruments so baring a catastrophe the fund should still be growing.

However in a "dying" industry coupled with retirees living longer, where less and less workers are paying in, a certain point is reached the fund is decreasing becuase investment returns can't keep up, putting the pension into a death spiral.

 

[Big A.D.]

Central States Pension Fund: Private retirement fund for truck drivers, transport workers and allied services. (Similar to any number of Industry Superfund.)

Australian super funds have pretty much all phased out defined benefit schemes. There are a few legacy ones still out there but they were pretty much all closed new members along time ago and funds now only really offer accumulation funds.

The Americans are still using defined benefits, and that's where the problem of them paying out more than they take in comes from.

 

[trew]

Central States Pension Fund: Private retirement fund for truck drivers, transport workers and allied services. (Similar to any number of Industry Superfund.)

Those sound more like the federal government's unfunded super (I think for things like public service, military etc)

Industry funds are generally accumulation funds so the balance each member has goes up and down with market returns and is made up of actual assets

The US funds might be some middle ground between the two ?
partly funded but paying out according to a set of rules that pays more than they actually have
I don't know the details - US members might have a better idea

Have seen other stories about teachers and firemen in the US maybe getting no pension because the county they worked for is broke