Quit, now.
I have not written in this post for many months, and I assume that no one reads it. But in the odd case that someone does, here is some food for thought.
The Washington Post interviewed Steve Miller, the CEO of Delphi Corporation and posted the interview on October 29, 2005. The website is:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/29/AR2005102900700.html
Here is an excerpt.
"In Bethlehem's case we had $4 billion of underfunding of the pension plans. That's a fact. You could say "Well, why did you keep carrying it?" In bankruptcy court we had an auction of the assets. Wilbur was the winning bidder. He bid a little over $1 billion. There is no way on God's green earth you could create enough value there. If we had said, "Wilbur, you can come here but you'll have to carry the pension plan for $4 billion and acquire plants that are worth only $1 billion." If you were to rewrite the bankruptcy law and say whatever happens in bankruptcy the assets are still stuck with the pension liability. All I can say is that the six steel mills that are still operating providing good jobs would instead would be down cold. That is not an economic choice we have in dealing with bankruptcy."
Bethlehem was $4 billion underfunded on their pension plan. Delphi is over $10 billion underfunded. Steve Miller said that the only way to make Bethlehem Steel worth more than zero to potential buyers was to jettison the pension plan. The same argument will be made about Delphi, including any public offering of new shares for investors in the New Delphi. Steve will say his hands were tied, he had no other choice, despite his previous promises.
Why quit now?
I spoke with a person who survived 4 rounds of firings at the GE jet engine facility in Cincinnati, before the entire operation got shut down. He was very proud of being a survivor, but when he went to look for a job, he was told "You are more qualified than the people we hired earlier. But we hired them and we aren't going to fire them. There are no more jobs available." Ironically, the people fired first were the lucky ones, because there were more jobs available during the early firings.
The only person you have looking out for you is you. Keeping your head down and faithfully performing your work prevents you from raising your eyes and seeing the future. Start looking for another job, feverishly, now. If you need some help getting started, see the first post in the series, "My pension lump sum hit my IRA today."
The Washington Post interviewed Steve Miller, the CEO of Delphi Corporation and posted the interview on October 29, 2005. The website is:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/29/AR2005102900700.html
Here is an excerpt.
"In Bethlehem's case we had $4 billion of underfunding of the pension plans. That's a fact. You could say "Well, why did you keep carrying it?" In bankruptcy court we had an auction of the assets. Wilbur was the winning bidder. He bid a little over $1 billion. There is no way on God's green earth you could create enough value there. If we had said, "Wilbur, you can come here but you'll have to carry the pension plan for $4 billion and acquire plants that are worth only $1 billion." If you were to rewrite the bankruptcy law and say whatever happens in bankruptcy the assets are still stuck with the pension liability. All I can say is that the six steel mills that are still operating providing good jobs would instead would be down cold. That is not an economic choice we have in dealing with bankruptcy."
Bethlehem was $4 billion underfunded on their pension plan. Delphi is over $10 billion underfunded. Steve Miller said that the only way to make Bethlehem Steel worth more than zero to potential buyers was to jettison the pension plan. The same argument will be made about Delphi, including any public offering of new shares for investors in the New Delphi. Steve will say his hands were tied, he had no other choice, despite his previous promises.
Why quit now?
I spoke with a person who survived 4 rounds of firings at the GE jet engine facility in Cincinnati, before the entire operation got shut down. He was very proud of being a survivor, but when he went to look for a job, he was told "You are more qualified than the people we hired earlier. But we hired them and we aren't going to fire them. There are no more jobs available." Ironically, the people fired first were the lucky ones, because there were more jobs available during the early firings.
The only person you have looking out for you is you. Keeping your head down and faithfully performing your work prevents you from raising your eyes and seeing the future. Start looking for another job, feverishly, now. If you need some help getting started, see the first post in the series, "My pension lump sum hit my IRA today."
posted by jobchange @ 9:09 PM
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