| While America Aged: How Pension Debts Ruined General Motors, Stopped the NYC Subways, Bankrupted San Diego, and Loom as the Next Financial Crisis | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 9 reviews)
Sales Rank: 4021
Category: Book
Author: Roger Lowenstein
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Studio: Penguin Press HC, The
Manufacturer: Penguin Press HC, The
Label: Penguin Press HC, The
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1594201676
Dewey Decimal Number: 331.25240973
EAN: 9781594201677
ASIN: 1594201676
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
From the bestselling author of Buffett, When Genius Failed, and Origins of the Crash, a wake-up call to the pension and retirement crisis facing America and the road map for a way out
In While America Aged, bestselling author Roger Lowenstein explains how corporations and governments ran up ruinous pension and health-care promises to workerspromises that are now coming due and that will hit America like a tsunami if nothing is done.
Negotiating high benefits means gambling with future financesand when the farm gets sold out from underneath major corporations or public institutions, it affects all of us, and in ways we might not imagine. With his trademark narrative panache, Lowenstein unravels the truth about how pensions work in America and illuminates the impending crisis. While America Aged is comprised of three fascinating case studies each an object lesson and a compelling historical saga. The first goes back to the early days of the United Auto Workers and its crusading leader, Walter Reuther, to tell the story of how pensions and health-care obligations destroyed the American auto industry, in particular General Motors.
Lowenstein then shifts the scene to New York City to tell the story of the rise of public pensions and public sector unions through the vehicle of the Communist-led Transport Workers Union. Once again, justifiable benefits were followed by outrageous ones, such as the right to retire at age fifty. The saga reached a dramatic climax in 2005, when workers responded to proposed pension cutbacks with a massive strike that brought New Yorks subways and buses to a screeching halt days before Christmas.
In the concluding episode, Lowenstein visits a metropolis even more reckless in doling out benefitsSan Diego. Desperate not to impose higher taxes, city officials in this highly conservative enclave cut a series of deals with unions to short-change the retirement system and use pension funds to run the city. A massive scandal ensuedtwo mayors resigned, officials were indicted, and San Diego lost its bond rating. Lowenstein warns that the pension wars that erupted in Detroit, New York City, and San Diego are only the first. But he also recognizes that workers are entitled to decent security in their retirementa critical problem as the country ages. While America Aged explains how we came to this crisis, and it also proposes a way out. Arming readers with knowledge of the consequences of doing nothing, While America Aged, first and foremost, a call to action.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Worthy Praise July 6, 2008
Almost every review here begins with how exceptional Roger Lowenstein is. This review does also. In fact, it's hard to describe how interesting this book really is, considering that the issue at hand is a considered a boring one at that - pensions.
Lowenstein brings an extremely in-depth amount of research to demonstrate truly that happens. The fact that most of the public is still unaware of this shows how what appears to be such a small issue has really undertaken our companies.
The facts and the characters in each example deserve praise. Although we would hope that many of our top executives would not be so short-sighted as to giving unions constant pension raises, Lowenstein is able to demonstrate how unions effectively strong-armed executives into doing so. As I write this, I stare at the analyst reports that declare there is a possibility, although small, of General Motor declaring bankruptcy. Unbelievable.
I would sincerely recommend anyone that has an interest in pensions, or in just any business interest to take a crack at this book. It isn't famous, not like Lowenstein's others, but it certainly is well-written and deserves much praise in keeping what could be a boring topic exceptionally interesting. I don't want to give it all away, but the intricate research that Roger Lowenstein has done shows through with almost every page.
I can't exactly narrow down what it is about his style, but there's an eloquence to it that makes reading his books almost .. as if the book is reading to you.
reasonable fear June 17, 2008
Roger Lowenstein is one of the most accomplished financial writers around. Pensions are a boring subject. Who would ever have drinks, on purpose, with an actuary? Maybe if you were stuck on a plane next to one, and the liquor were free...
Lowenstein is able to make them seem both dramatic and important. Something has escaped our attention. Pension benefits have been piled on by labor unions and politicos without regard to their ultimate cost. Lowenstein makes it pretty clear through several recent and important examples that this is nothing short of a disaster. But why should it matter to us? Because we face a huge pension shortfall as Social Security becomes underfunded, and many states are verging on bankruptcy...
The negotiations Lowenstein depicts are as dramatic as those of The Smartest Guys in the Room - and equally rife with chicanery. Though he's deft with analysis, rendering the complex simple, he's got a knack for characterization and drama that belies what might be considered remote and dull subject matter. Once you read the book though, you won't feel the same way about pensions or even unions - though of course unions have greatly benefited the US at other moments in our history.
So read it and weep! Or get mad and do something about it.
Pension plans are not the problem, but the underfunding is June 17, 2008
I am glad to see the inadequacy of public pension plan funding getting more attention. The book is extremely well written and easy to read. It provides valuable insight into the pension plan decision-making process, and shows the danger in trading benefit improvements for inadequate contributions. As Roger Lowenstein points out, public pension plans themselves are not the problem, the problem is that they are so often underfunded. Contributions to public defined benefit plans calculated under traditional actuarial methods are not necessarily sufficient to make a plan actuarially sound. There is a need to establish rules for funding contribution calculations to strengthen the actuarial soundness of public plans. The current rules allow payments to be made on the unfunded liabilities that are less than the interest on the liability. At least for mature plans that are poorly funded, the payments made on the unfunded pension liabilities should be accelerated. Consideration should be given to requiring minimum contributions to public pension plans.
 Three Good Anecdotes Don't Tell a Complete Story June 16, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Although Lowenstein is a talented writer and the topic of retirement in America is an important one, the narrow focus of this book makes it hard to recommend. Lowenstein skillfully recounts in detail the pension plan difficulties faced by General Motors, the New York City subway system and San Diego.
However, these three stories seem to exist in isolation. He doesn't spend enough time putting them in the context of other government and private pension and 401(k) plans. Lowenstein seems to have focused on making sure the three stories are easy to read and in this he has succeeded. But in doing so, he has not provided the hard data that a reader needs to really understand the issue. There is not a single chart of table in the book. There are virtually no benchmarks in the book - it's hard to judge the appropriateness of the pay and pensions described in the book without details of the payroll and benefit costs of other American workers.
Although the stories were good, after reading 230 pages I didn't feel that I had learned anything significant that I did not know before.
 Not a balanced book , June 10, 2008
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
The main message from this book is that unions demanded outrageous pensions which caused all these crises. In the three cases the author presents, the common denominator was negligent management. GM purposely underfunded it's pension system to inflate the value of GM stock which made their stock options much more lucrative to their executives. In the case of New York and San Diego, it was again bad management by government officials who were allowed to willfully underfund their pensions. The fact is that almost every fire and police department in America has a defined pension system and most are working fine. The author also gives scant mention to the looming 401k crisis which is going to be much more of a disaster for middle-class America than the present pension system problem, as most corporations ditched their pensions for the 401k a long time ago. See Jeff Madrick's book review of this book in the New York Times for an in depth review of this book's faults. The author missed on this one by quite a bit.
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