Pensions for Executives on Rise

Source: WSJ

Pensions for top executives rose an average of 19% in 2008, with more than 200 executives seeing pensions increase more than 50%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The executive-pension growth stemmed partly from generous pension formulas, which are based on executive pay, according to the filings. Also adding to the pension jumps are arcane techniques that have received little scrutiny, including increases triggered when an executive reaches a certain age or when companies change interest rates used to calculate the pensions.

Executive pensions rose even as the share prices at the companies declined an average of 37% in 2008 and many firms froze employee pensions and suspended retirement-plan contributions. he growth of such supplemental executive retirement plans, or SERPs -- which can be worth tens of millions of dollars to executives -- largely has been overlooked amid a backlash against executive pay, particularly at banks and other companies receiving taxpayer bailouts.

Rules that became effective in 2007 have made more information available by requiring companies to report the estimated total value of each top executive's pension and the pension's growth over the prior year. Using two years of improved disclosures compiled by research firm Capital IQ, the Journal examined 340 companies with pension plans in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index and calculated the annual change of the value of the named officers" pensions. The analysis excluded executives who didn't participate in the plans in both 2007 and 2008.

Surging pay fueled much of the growth of executive pensions, which generally are calculated by multiplying pay by years on the job, a formula that can produce steep increases in pension values when either the pay or years of service increases.





Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125719963066023835.html

We have no value and are expendable. The big change is that, now, they are not afraid to let us know it.

a society wherein the majority are serfs bowing to their masters.

no inflation, the economy is recovering nicely and you really didn't work that hard anyway, so you probably don't deserve it.