Now I may hasten to add that the retirement funds of the rest of the companies in the USA and Britain along with those of the rest of the Industrialized World are equally under funded. The loss in equity values over the last three years has guaranteed that these funds will not have the resources to meet their pension obligations. "Under funded", "pension obligations", "Inadequate Resources", what do these high sounding phrases mean to the average worker in our corporate world? They mean that you will rue the day when you took a promise of a hamburger tomorrow for your life's work today. They mean that these companies are looking at bankruptcy in some cases to get out from under pension obligations that they incurred over your lifetime of work. They mean that the deck has been stacked, your best hand has been played and come up short and the cards are being reshuffled to stack them again for the next generation of workers. Not that anyone in the world of "Corporate Leadership" ever wanted this to happen to you, but now that it has profit can't be sacrificed for a mere obligation to workers, can it?

Now I have been the CEO of a small company and worked long hours to try and build a future for my self and the people who worked alongside me. I have struggled and watched my dream and theirs vanish in the world of competitive business that we all live in, in this nation. I have continued to try to repay my investors and creditors and fought with huge corporations to survive in that world. I know how hard it is to build value and watch it vanish as the speed of change and the difficulty of building a sound funding base under a small company overwhelms your combined efforts. I never expect to retire; I never really have thought retirement was anything more than the period just before death when you can't work any more. Work is as much a part of my life as that of anyone else who believes in the Great Dream of this nation. You can grow a family here, and through work, constant effort and a little luck raise your children above the level that you attained in life. You can also work a lifetime for a good salary and the promise of a retirement fund and health care and just when you need it most have that promise snatched from your hands. It is when you are most vulnerable, after your ability to work has diminished, that such a loss is most devastating.

Will everyone who is currently at risk lose their pension fund? Of course not! Just a few million workers in this nation and a few million more in Europe will lose what they have worked a lifetime to attain, economic security in old age. Those workers benefits that are under funded in the S&P top 100 are equal to 3.6% of our current annual GNP. That doesn't sound like much, but it is twice the amount of growth that we can expect this year in our economy. If you assume that the under funding on a national basis is equal to ten times that amount, you come up with a figure in cost terms that could absorb economic growth in this nation for the next ten to twenty years! 3.6 trillion dollars is the number that I estimate may be needed to make up the shortfall.

We cannot afford to fund those pensions out of current revenues unless the economy expands substantially more rapidly than expected. We also need expansion in order to create new jobs. So maybe those workers who have produced their little hearts out for thirty five to forty years will just have to shrink their expectations. At least that is the tone of what I am reading in the business press some of the time these days. "Throw Momma Off The Train" has just acquired a new meaning and we all need to pay attention to that meaning. It is going to impact our families for many years to come regardless of the outcome of this process. Watch this issue, it will affect a lot of the families in America who are sacrificing in order to create a better government in Iraq. The President's tax plan will not cause nearly the expansion that he expects and we need twice what he expects to just make up for this one "under funded" need. God bless and keep you, our troops, our protestors and our retirees safe in this under funded world.