1. Pension sponsors from airlines to textile manufacturers to steel mills have gone belly and hundreds more are deeply in the red.

2. More than 60 million Americans are receiving a pension or promised to receive a pension.

3. One third of the workforce does not have 401k retirement or savings or pension.

4. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is responsible for the pensions of 1.3 million people whose plans failed. In 2006 pension in the private sector were $350 billion in the deficit. In 2006, PBGC was $19 billion in the red.

5. Who owns General Motors? GM’s retired workers and future retirees.

6. Over a fifteen year ending in 2006, GM poured $55 billion in the pension, compared to $13 billion in dividend payouts. GM was reward employees more than shareholders. Companies usually feel it a keener responsibility to pay shareholders for their investment.

7. Pensions are future wages to be paid to employees.

8. GM has become a enterprise with more retirees than active workers

9. Most people don’t save. 30 million Americans and families are counting on supplementing Social Security with a private pension.

10. In 1979, GM agreed to raise pensions to $555 a month and whopping $925 for early retirees. In 1979, Japanese carmakers could manufacture a car for $1,650 less than the Big three. The pensions were paid for not by the companies but by car buyers. Retiree benefits were a future cost.

11. GM acts more like a nation than a business. In 1977, Wagoner took the helm as CEO of GM. GM held 45 percent of the market share and by 1987 market share had fallen to 35 percent. Much of the slippage occurred in Canada, Brazil, and Europe. Global competition was oriented towards profit and stock price, not stability and security.

12. For nonunionized workers, the 401k eased the pain of labor relationships. Fewer companies had to submit to union demands for a pension, and therefore fewer companies offered one.

13. In 1990, GM hiked the thirty-and-out pension to $1,600 a month. GM added new coverage for mental health and substance abuse, and committed $4 billion to job banks. GM cut dividends from seventy five cents to forty cents suggesting employee entitlements being paid from the pocket of shareholders.

14. GM made two potent assumptions. One that the pension fund would product 11 percent a year and the retiree would die two years earlier. Both of these assumptions lowered GM apparent pension obligation.

15. In the early 90s, GM pension was under funded by about $23 billion.

16. Health care costs were rising caused from new costs associated with new pharmaceutical drugs. Autoworkers were filling fifteen prescriptions on average a year.

17. Wagoner pushed the UAW for productivity improvements and the right to outsource. UAW was infuriated. Wagoner endured thirteen work stoppages.

18. In 2003, GM sold $13.5 billion in bonds - the biggest corporate bond sale in US history.

19. Every GM car represented $1,525 of health cost.

20. In 2003, early retirees were hiked to just over $3,000 a month. A worker who retired in his early fifties was assured a $36,000 a year salary. UAW paid less than 7% of the health care costs.

21. In 2005, GM was paying for 1.1 million retirees, of whom 140,000 workers were still on the job. By 2005, GM was paying $5.3 billion a year in health care costs. It was filling a prescription every two seconds.

22. In 2005, Wagoner announce a $1 billion loss in the first quarter, GM stock plunged 14 percent, trading at $29 a share.

23. The Delphi Chapter 11 filing was the largest in US manufacturing history. Delphi was the GM spin-off and its internal parts component. Delphi pension was $4 billion in the hole. Delphi had accumulate an unfunded liability of $8 billion. GM market value dropped to $15 billion compared with $195 billion pledged to retirees. The unfunded portion of GM’s health care obligation was $60 billion.

24. UAW offered plan B. GM could give the UAW a lump sum of money and be out of the health care business.

25. In 2005, GM losses totaled $10.6 billion.

26. In 2006, Wagoner froze the pension of Gm’s salaried employees but most of the GM employees were union and immune. Average compensation reached $81 a hour.