Pension Plan to Cut Retiree Benefits Thanks to Congress

Last year Congress pulled a fast one on pension plans. They hid a new rule inside a massive $1.01 trillion spending bill as was reported by the Washington Post December 9, 2014. This rule upended 40 years of federal law about retirement pensions, and could affect millions of workers. This rule applies to about 1,400 multi-employer pensions, which cover some 10 million workers. Many of these retirement plans are still in good fiscal health and would be untouched by this new rule, but several are staggering toward insolvency because of bad management, bad investments, stock market loses, and even organized crime. These plans are paying out 3 times the money to retirees as they bring in from current employees and business contributions. These plans could seek pension reductions for retirees in the near future.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.) led efforts to create this new rule, which has outraged retirement security advocates. It has also stirred strong opposition from retirees who could face deep pension cuts. Retirees have always been told that their pensions were secure, or they would be grandfathered in.

The Teamster’s Central States Plan is the first pension plan to file with the U.S. Treasury under this new law to reduce their pension payments to retirees. About 407,000 participants would see cuts in their pension checks of as much as 23 to 30 percent. Wow! I sure wouldn’t want to lose a one-quarter to one-third of my retirement income.

One retired trucker from Ohio is 70 years old, and retired after 33 years in 2000 as a long haul trucker with a pension of $3,300 a month is facing a 30% reduction or more if the pension plan is allowed to slash benefits. The Teamster’s Central States Plan has stated that it is currently paying out $3.46 for every dollar it takes in. As a result, they are paying out $2 billion in benefits more than they take in through employee contributions each year.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the federal insurance program that backs private-sector pensions has warned that the problems facing multi-employer pensions could cause the federal insurance net that secures them to collapse within the next decade. If that happens, retirees would receive nothing if their pension plan fails. (A separate Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. covering single-employer private pensions is in much better financial shape.) Even if the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. for multi-employer survives, the maximum coverage is about $13,000 a year for each retiree. Again, WOW! So you either lose an average of $10,000 a year, or you face the federal government only covering about one-third of your entire pension.

What is Congress doing? Approving new laws that will make all this legal. And if this applies to one group of pensions, how long before it applies to all of them? Even if your pension plan is financially sound today, what about tomorrow? Managers of these troubled pension plans say that absent a federal bailout, which they say is political anathema, cutting benefits is the only way to salvage these pension plans. They also claim that the longer they wait, the more severe the impact will be on retirees and current workers. The Teamster’s Central States Plan in the 1980’s had 4 active participants for every retiree. Now there are 5 retirees for every active participant. Some of this is from many unionized trucking firms going out of business since deregulation.

Again as an example, The Teamster’s Central States Plan has about $18 billion in assets and pays out annual benefits to retirees of $2.8 billion. The problem is they only take in about $700 million a year from employers. This means they will run out of money within 10 to 15 years. This is even after United Parcel Service (UPS) paid $6 billion to drop out of the fund. Of course UPS was one of the largest firms in Central States Plan. And that money was mostly lost when the stock market tanked in 2008.

Under this new rule, retirees over 75 or those who are disabled would be shielded from reductions in their pensions, but that still leaves a lot of people who will lose big time. These reductions would also be subject to a vote by the plan participants. Nonetheless, how many retirees will feel betrayed? I know I would. As one retired shipping clerk stated, he retired after 42 years on the job with a $3,000 a month retirement because he thought he would be grandfathered in with protections. And that’s not happening.

Before becoming one of history’s most infamous disappearance cases, James P. Hoffa, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters wrote in a letter to Central States Plan, “Pension fund participants and beneficiaries did not cause the problem of under funding. They worked day in and day out to earn their pension credits. It is monstrously unfair that they will end up holding the short end of the stick.” Central States Plan was in trouble in the 1960’s and 1970’s from organized crime, mismanagement and fraud.

Some union leaders and their supporters, including Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders say that the government should step in to shore up or bail out the pension plans. Senator Sanders has even introduced a bill that would repeal the rule allowing pensions to be cut. The U.S. treasury has 225 days to evaluate Central States Plan to trim pension payments. If approved, the cuts would then be voted on by plan participants.

What does that mean for the rest of us? How secure is your current retirement benefits? So if some Wall Street investor makes a bad investment and your money goes bye-bye tomorrow, how fast will your pension plan be filing under this new rule? It’s rather scary.

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Charon, the New Land Of Mystery

A new mystery has begun on Charon, the moon of Pluto.  The newest photos released by NASA show an amazing feature of Charon. Something they didn’t expect. So what is it? How about a 1,000 mile long canyon, that’s 4 times as long as the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

The photo shows this gigantic canyon system that makes it look like the crust of Charon is splitting open. These canyons and rift walls are much like the vast canyon system on Mars called Valles Marineris which is 2,500 miles long and 120 miles deep. This system on Mars is beaten out in length only by the Rift Valleys on Earth, which is 3,700 miles long and covers several countries, but are a mile or less in depth.

What caused this massive canyon system is up for debate. Scientists are coming up with all kinds of scenarios. One of these theories involves an ancient ocean that after freezing caused the surface to crack. Or from lava reaching the surface and causing the crust to crack. This will be a topic for years to come, or until man actually stands on the surface of Charon, which isn’t likely to happen any time soon.

One thing they do agree on is that Charon is more diverse than our moon. With canyons, mountains, landslides and various surface colors indicating a wide range of minerals, it has more interesting features than our moon. Another thing we can all agree on is the more photos we see of Charon, the more questions we have.

Perhaps there is still water on Charon. They’ve just confirmed that there is still water on Mars. Who knows, maybe there’s a source of Omega3 out there without all the pollution of being “farmed” raised fish. Some day you might hear your child yell, “I’m going fishing on Mars! I’ll be home for supper”.

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Missing in Alaska

I’ve watched a few episodes of Missing in Alaska, and while some of their theories are a bit far-fetched, one thing is rather scary. They state that 738,000 people live in Alaska. And over the past 20 years more than 60,000 people have gone missing. The show states 5 out of every 1,000 people go missing, but the 60,000 missing over 20 years means 3,000 people go missing every year.  That’s 8.2 people go missing every day.

Now the show chases folk tales, government conspiracy and even aliens. So far they haven’t proven why anyone went missing, but it’s mildly entertaining. With more than 3 decades of being a police officer, what scares me is the number of people that actually go missing. With only 738,000 people for the state’s population, and they’re losing 3,000 people a year, the whole state would disappear in 246 years.

I highly doubt the state will lose its population, but where are these people going? Is there a portal to another dimension? Or just some really dangerous predatory humans kidnapping and killing people? And if so, where are the bodies? I mean, 60,000 bodies is a lot of bones to hide. Personally, I think it’s a combination of things. You know, the regular dangers of living in a wilderness or sparsely populated area. Things like murder and kidnapping, getting lost in the wilderness, or being eaten by wolves or bears. I mean, the list goes on.

I like the unusual, and I get a kick out of the ancient alien shows, but I don’t believe these people disappear because of zombies, demon wolves, gnomes or mutated monkeys. Granted, you can hide a lot of things in the Alaskan wilderness, but come on, mutated monkeys? How about zombies? With all the interest in killing zombies, if they existed Alaska would be flooded with loonies hunting zombies. That would be way too cool to pass up.

And yes, zombies and mutated monkeys are both episodes of Missing in Alaska on the History Channel. So were the gnomes and demon wolves. I’m not sure who’s funding the show, but these 3 grown men go roaming around the state with cameras acting like they’re doing scientific investigations. They have yet to find a body, alive or dead, of these missing people, or of the demons and monsters they’re looking for. I’ve yet to see any actual police involved in these investigations. They do claim that one of the team is a former police officer… And the experts they consult are as nutty as the cast of the show.

Well upcoming episodes include vicious artic mermaids lurking under the ice, an ancient warrior tribe still hiding in the wilderness that decapitates their enemies and shape-shifters in the river. I’m not sure how long this show will last before it too goes missing, but people in Alaska need to be careful. I’m not sure about you, but I’d hate to be remembered as fodder for one of these episodes.

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Barsoom

Edgar Rice Burroughs was a legendary writer who lived from 1875 to 1950. He created Tarzan, the Land of Pellucidar, novels of the Moon and Venus and Barsoom. The arid landscape of Barsoom was filled with dead cities and towering green warriors, not to mention a princess or two. We of earth call this world Mars.

A planet of extreme mystery called Mars. You would think that with all the rovers and orbiting probes there would be less mystery today about what is on this red planet that has so fascinated humans for thousands of years. Not so. The alien hunters are out in full force. More speculation and more stories exist now than ever before about Barsoom.

Now without actually having put explorers on Mars, it is very difficult to believe the main stream scientists who are positive about what does and does not exist on Mars. There exist hundreds of photos of Mars taken from the rovers sent there or probes that have orbited the planet. And for most of these photos, there are those who see shapes that should not be there.

The experts debunk these “sightings” of statutes, buildings and other evidence of aliens. They say it is caused by pareidolia, a psychological response that sees everyday items in random photographs or random occurrences.

The latest case involves a rock formation on Mars that bears a striking resemblance to Stonehenge. The alien hunters believe this extraterrestrial arrangement of rocks on Mars is so similar to Stonehenge in England that they’re calling it Marshenge.

The shape hunters of Mars see circles and a square in this arrangement of stones that sits on top of a cone shape mound. This stone circle was highlighted on the Facebook page called Journey to the Surface of Mars along with many more photographs showing unusual or alien features. Some of these shapes when colorized for enhancement show very clearly shapes that do not occur naturally.

Is the Ankh cross real or a figment of over eager imaginations?

 

What about what looks like a building of some sort that when colorized looks metallic?

Or a pair of pyramids on Mars?

Then there are shapes that look carved or man-made, or should we say alien-made?

How about what looks like a machine part laying on the surface of Mars?

And this is just a small sample of controversial photos from Mars. Is there any truth to Edgar Rice Burroughs tales of Barsoom? Over the years, I have learned you can “never say never”. In other words, keep an open mind about the mysteries that still exist. After all, isn’t that what science is all about? To learn new things and re-write the history and science books.

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Arsenic and Old lace

Just home from a quick trip to Minnesota. Had to help celebrate as my parents reached that milestone of married life known as their 60^th wedding anniversary. Of course my dad said, “I was going to put up a sign that said ‘We’re not together anymore, sorry for the inconvenience’”.  At least they had a good time.

Then the 10 hour drive home to an air conditioner that went kaput about 2 hours after I walked in. Along with being mobbed by Mama Mia and her puppy squad, I was able to catch the last half of a horrible football game between the Vikings and 49 er’s. I don’t think either team wanted to win.

After taking my father-in-law to the doctor, and dealing with the air conditioner repairman, I read an article from Reuters, written by Richard Weizel. The Connecticut Supreme Court voted 5 to 2 to keep the medical records of Amy Archer Gilligan sealed forever, rejecting the idea that they are historical records. Amy Archer Gilligan, who died in 1962, was a serial killer who inspired the play and movie “Arsenic and Old Lace”.

I recently watched Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant. It was really a good movie. Yes it’s old. Older than I am. Yes it’s black and white. Young people today would poo poo it, but it proved you could have a good movie involving a serial killer, murder and mayhem without sex, violence and gore.  

So who was the original Arsenic and Old Lace killer? “Sister” Amy Duggan Archer Gilligan was born just after the Civil War in October 1868. She was suspected  of killing at least 48 people. Some put the number as high as 60, which included her second husband, Michael Gilligan.

Amy married James Archer in 1897. A daughter was born that same year. Amy and James Archer got a job as caretakers in 1901 when they were hired to care for an elderly widower, John Seymour. They moved into the Seymour house in Newington, Connecticut and made themselves at home. John Seymour died in 1904, at which time his heirs turned the residence into a boarding house for the elderly. The Archer’s were allowed to stay and run the boarding house under the name of “Sister Amy’s Nursing Home for the Elderly”.

In 1907, the Seymour heirs decided to sell the house. The Archer’s moved to Windsor, Connecticut and used their savings to buy a house and soon they were in business as the Archer Home for the Elderly and Infirm.

Some considered this business to be a pioneer in the health care field in Connecticut. John Archer died in 1910 of apparently natural causes. The official cause was listed as “Bright’s Disease”, a generic term for kidney diseases. Amy of course had taken out an insurance policy on John a few weeks before his death. I wonder how many poisons have symptoms that look like kidney disease. Especially in 1910. Anyway, Amy got the money, and it was business as usual.

In 1913, Amy married a wealthy husband, Michael Gilligan. Michael died February 20, 1914. The cause was officially listed as “Acute bilious attack”, or severe indigestion. Again, think of how many poisons would cause indigestion. Especially in large amounts. Amy was once again financially secure as Michael had drawn up a new will leaving his entire estate to his new wife.

Between 1907 and 1917, there were 60 deaths in the Archer Home. Relatives of Amy’s clients grew suspicious at the large number of deaths occurring to residents under her care. Between 1907 and 1910, only 12 residents died, but 48 residents died from 1911 to 1916.

Among the deaths was Franklin R. Andrews, and apparently healthy man. On the morning of May 29, 1914 he collapsed after doing some gardening, and was dead by evening. Officially, his death was caused by a gastric ulcer. His sister, Nellie Pierce inherited his personal papers. She noted occasions where Amy Archer-Gilligan was pressing Andrews for money. Nellie also noted a pattern that many residents died soon after giving her large sums of money.

As the deaths continued, Nellie made a report to the local district attorney, who basically ignored her. Nellie next went to The Hartford Courant, a newspaper. The paper, on May 9, 1916 came out with the first of several articles on “The Murder Factory”. A few months later the police began to seriously investigate the case. It took police almost a year to complete their investigation, which included exhuming Gilligan, Andrews and three other boarders. All 5 died of poisoning. Either arsenic or strychnine had been used. Local merchants testified that Amy Archer-Gilligan had purchased large amounts of arsenic to kill rats. A look into Gilligan’s will easily showed it was a forgery, written in Amy’s own hand. Evidence even showed that Amy sent some of her victims to the store to but arsenic for her.

They originally arrested and tried Amy on 5 counts of murder, but her lawyer got that dropped to one count. Amy was found guilty and sentenced to death. On appeal, Amy got a new trial and plead insanity. Amy’s daughter testified that her mother was addicted to morphine.. The 2^nd trial found Amy guilty of 2^nd degree murder and she was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1924 Amy was declared temporarily insane and transferred to the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane in Middletown. There she remained until her death on April 23, 1962.

That was some long temporary insanity. But story writers had luck creating a Broadway play and a movie based on this tale of murder. It shows how sad criminal events can be made into a dark comedy by Hollywood.

They have a reasonably normal family member dealing with a homicidal family. The main culprits are 2 maiden aunts who murder lonely old men using elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine and a pinch of cyanide. There is a brother of the 2 maiden aunts who thinks he’s Theodore Roosevelt and digs canals in the cellar. Of course this makes a great place to bury the victims. There is another brother who is an escaped murderer who has had plastic surgery and is on the run from police.

In the movie, Cary Grant plays the normal family member. As if Cary Grant could be normal. As he tries to get married to the girl next door, his aunts are murdering men left and right, and poor Cary is left trying to fix everything before someone finds out.

No one will probably ever know for sure how many people were killed by Amy Archer-Gilligan. Did she lace the elderberry wine with poison as the movie shows, or did she add it to their stew? Or maybe their coffee? As in the case of Mr. Andrews, did Amy find a way to turn organic vegetables poisonous?

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Space Whiskey or Earth Whiskey

Sitting, or rather collapsing after a day of errands and puppies. After starting the day with puppies, then running errands, I now end the day with puppies. Mia’s Five are still growing and would make the Energizer Bunny tired. And they’re just over the 3 month mark. To top it off, Chas has drill this weekend, so we get to babysit Syrus, the daddy also. Talk about a zoo. To add to the 7 dogs, we have George the cat. Not sure about the cat, he’s either hiding or snuck out when I wasn’t looking, but the dogs, Mama Mia, Daddy Syrus and the 5 monsters, errr I mean cute puppies, have finally collapsed. Mama Mia of course chose to fall asleep on my feet.

So as I try to finally relax in the brief quiet that has descended upon the house I’m reading an odd-ball article about aging whiskey in space. Ardbeg Distillery on the Isle of Islay in Scotland sent a vial of un-matured malt whiskey to the International Space Station back in 2011. They kept a second, identical vial of un-matured malt whiskey on Earth for comparison. Their idea was to investigate how micro-gravity, or near zero gravity would affect the behavior of Terpenes. What kind of word is that.

They say that Terpenes are the building blocks  of flavor for many foods, wines and whiskey spirits. Anyway, the experts said there was a difference to whiskey aged in space versus on Earth. Dr Bill Lumsden, Ardbeg’s director of distilling and whiskey creation stated, “When I nosed and tasted the space sample, it became clear that much more of Ardbeg’s smoky, phenolic character shone through and revealed a different set of smoky flavors which I have not encountered here on Earth before.”

Ardbeg was invited to take part in the space experiment in 2011 by Texas based space research company called NanoRacks. The vial was launched by Soyuz rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan and spent nearly 3 years in space.

NanoRacks CEO Jeffrey Manber said, “It’s hard to find companies willing to be pioneers. To have a partner like Ardbeg that is willing to make this sort of commitment augurs well for the future of commercial space research into flavorings and what it changes for consumer products in general.”

Pioneer company? Future research? Sounds like a distillery in space in the near future. Now if you expect to buy this Scotch Whiskey at your local liquor store be careful. They claim it costs about $10,000 to send 1 pound of material into space. They didn’t say how much to bring it back, but this could be some very expensive Scotch. On the bright side, Suntory, a whiskey maker from Japan has its own plans to send whiskey into space.

They do say that competition can keep the price down. My question is, what do you call it? I mean, there’s Scotch Whiskey, and Irish Whiskey and Tennessee Whiskey and Canadian Whiskey….. Get my point? We need a new name for the new space juice to be. It should be something spacey or retro Science Fiction to keep the image going.  Something else to ponder, a good name for space whiskey. They should have a name competition or contest to come up with suggestions.

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Mysterious Wooden Shigir Idol with Encrypted Message is 11,000 old.

Yanked from a bog in eastern Russia more than 100 years ago, a wooden statue was revealed to be more than 11,000 years old, that's twice as old as Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza, three times older than the ancient city of Babylon, and five times as old as Al Khazneh, the most famous of the ruins in the ancient city of Petra. The carbon dating carried out by scientists in Mannheim, Germany is likely to redefine history.

Called the Shigir Idol, the statue was found in the Urals in western Siberia in the late nineteenth century, with the bog preserving the carving. The artifact was originally thought to stand seventeen feet high, but currently is nine feet in length. Scientists have determined that the idol was carved from a larch tree that was 157 years old when felled by stone tools.

The statue is currently on display at the Sverdlovsk History Museum in Yekateringburg, Russia. An expert for the museum said: "The first attempt to date the idol was made in 1997, which was 107 years after it was found. This first attempt dated the idol at 9,500 calendar years old, which led to many disputes among mainstream scientists who did not believe it could be that old.

To confirm the statues age, seven minuscule samples of wood were sent to Germany for analysis by accelerated mass spectrometry, which revealed that the Shigir Idol is 1,500 years older than previously thought, or 11,000 years old, making it the oldest known wooden sculpture in the world.  The idol depicts a face on top and a series of strange inscriptions, possibly ancient coding about the universe, according to experts. The inscription is a series of lines, squiggles and other marks along the nine foot length that no one can decipher. There are several other faces carved along its length. The following photos is of sketches made by archaeologist Vladimir Tolmachev more than a century ago.

Some theories are that straight lines represent land, horizontal lines are the boundary between heaven and earth, while wavy lines could mean water, snake or even a lizard, and a zigzag could indicate danger.  While scientists have never been to crack the mysterious patterns, some believe it could be the oldest form or writing or code on the planet. 

The Encyclopedia of Stone Age Art called the idol one of the greatest sculptures of the late Stone Age. The Encyclopedia states that the pattern may be a map, or that it might be an early prototype of a totem pole, popularized by North American Indians who are also thought to have originated in Siberia. Whatever it is or says, it's still a mystery to modern man.

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