Sears cutting life insurance benefits for up to 90,000 retirees

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Source: The Hill

Sears notified up to 90,000 of its retirees this month that it would be ending their life insurance benefits, CBS News reports.

Ron Olbrysh, the chairman of the National Association of Retired Sears Employees (NARSE), told the news agency this week that the company sent letters to eligible retirees notifying them that they would be losing their life insurance benefits on March 15.

But Olbrysh said he didn’t receive the notice until March 20.

The notice reportedly offers retirees the option to convert all or a portion of their group coverage into an individual whole life policy and cover the costs of premiums.



Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/finance/436593-sears-cuts-life-insurance-benefits-for-up-to-90000-retirees

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[Sherman A1]

1. Chraming....

Just Charming.

[sakabatou]

2. Meanwhile, more golden parachutes for executives

[TheBlackAdder]

3. Meanwhile the USPS is forced to pre-fund around $65 Billion so Bain Capital can position to raid it.

.

The result will be the same.

The billions will be effectively stolen, and the taxpayers will be on the hook to provide health care funding.

.

[Initech]

4. Isn't vulture capitalism great?

[Yavin4]

5. There's no such thing as "vulture" capitalism

it's simply capitalism.

[Initech]

6. It's a term that I coined many years ago.

The CEOs are vultures circling their prey, and our pocketbooks are the prey. They're the ones who are really coming to take our jobs, but let's all blame illegal immigrants, because it's easier for them to do so.

[Yavin4]

7. It's important to not use modifiers when referring to capitalism

Capitalism is simply an economic system where the means of production are controlled by private interests for the purposes of profit. Cutting off these people life insurance increases the profit of the owners.

When we use modifiers, that gives the impression that what these owners are doing is wrong or illegal or even unethical. When it's simply something that increases profit.

[orleans]

8. pulling shit like this IS unethical

and SHOULD be illegal

[Yavin4]

10. Our big problem is that we constantly mis-use terms

We want to pretend that there's "good" / "bad" capitalism. When, in reality, there's only capitalism.

If we as a nation don't want this to happen, then what we really need is more Social Democracy, not "good" capitalism.

[watoos]

14. Dylan Ratigan taught me what we have,

crony capitalism.

[Initech]

9. They're robbing us blind and getting away with it.

It's not increasing profits, it's screwing their employees who break their backs so their bosses can enjoy a few extra zeroes on their paychecks while the employees get treated like shit and paid peanuts. Where do you draw the line?

[Yavin4]

11. We need to educate people on what capitalism is and why we need social democracy to protect us

from it. This is what capitalism does. It's screws over employees.

[3Hotdogs]

21. But we ain't got capitalism. We got economic fascism.

That is where gub'mint is run by business.

Yeah, our voices get heard when it comes to vote on whether to have a state insect or national fried dough month. Anything dealing with business regulation? Fuck us.

[Sherman A1]

22. I like the term

Vulture works for me.

[Freethinker65]

12. Who didn't see this coming from a mile away?

There was never going to be a restructuring of Sears to make it viable after the last bankruptcy...only a chance to strip away any money that was left.

I was surprised a smaller footprint Sears reopened in our local mall, until I entered it. A half stocked shell of a store with bargain basement displays, lighting, and selections. The lifetime employees are the ones that will lose everything.

[ancianita]

13. More proof the private sector ISN'T better than the public sector, in spite of "contract law."

Reneging on retirement plans is what the private sector does best.

THEN the private sector is the first in the lobbying door to "privatize" that Social Security, isn't it.

[watoos]

15. I like to look at it in another way also,

Tax dollars that go to the rich is called capitalism.
Tax dollars that go to the poor is called Socialism.

[OhNo-Really]

17. Tax dollars that go to the rich peoples' employees because they don't pay them a LIVING WAGE

Corporate Welfare Kings

The Walton Dynasty comes to mind.


We are sitting ducks


This vid is adorable. Newly hatched ducklings won't follow mom into the water. Failure to launch. I turned sound off, not relaxing music.

https://m.

[turbinetree]

16. GO to Lowe's and see the health insurance sittings on a .....lawnmower................outsourced....

[NBachers]

18. I don't understand the meaning of what you said.

[Sherman A1]

23. Same here

Don't get that one.

[Rollo]

19. I once worked for a small business where there was a great pension plan...

And that plan helped to attract a top-notch staff.

But when people were on the verge of retirement, the family that ran the company decided to convert everybody over to a lump sum settlement of their contributions - but not before the family members grabbed the lion's share for themselves. It was all legal, apparently, too.

[watoos]

24. How would Hillary have stopped them?

Democrats aren't purists by any stretch of the imagination. I think back to when Republicans threatened to not raise the debt ceiling and called for massive cuts to the budget. It was president Obama who proposed the Sequester, it was supposed to be so bad that lawmakers would work together to make sensible cuts to the budget, because that was back when the debt mattered. The Sequester was massive across the board budget cuts. Democrats also controlled the Senate at this time, by the way.
Remember when president Obama offered up chained CPI which would have started the downfall of SS?

Remember who the Democrats were who were on a supercommittee to cut our budget; Patty Murray, John Kerry, Chris Van Hollen, Jim Clyburn and others. So what happened? Remember? That supercommittee never did come up with a plan, the Sequester happened in 2013 and it continues on until I think 2022. Want to know what else is in the Sequester? A 2% cut, every year, in reimbursements to Medicare doctors.

One of the reasons that Donald Trump became president was because he appealed to working class Americans who felt abandoned by both parties. Don't get me wrong, there is no comparison between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to fighting for the poor and working class, but just maybe Democrats didn't fight hard enough. President Obama deserves a ton of credit for Obamacare, but Obamacare would have been so much better had it contained the public option. We can thank a Democrat turned Independent, Joe Lieberman for the loss of the public option.

I am off topic, I apologize, and I do have hopes for Democrats because we came back to our core principles in 2018 and we won a blue tsunami. We need to always fight for the little guy, it's one reason we have government, it's one reason I have always voted Democratic.

[MRDAWG]

25. Allstate canceled retired agents life insurance..........

several years ago. They could continue at extremely high rates with another company.

[DirtEdonE]

26. Vulture capitalist Eddie Lampert is to blame

I know I sound like a broken record but this is another example of capitalism at its finest.

Eddie Lampert, the hedge fund executive who pillaged Sears, depressing store sales with his insane ideas of applying Wall St. tactics to retail, the selling off Sears' most profitable product lines like Kenmore appliances and Craftsman tools when his idiotic ideas failed, is now reorganizing in bankruptcy to recoup his original investment at the expense of all the retirees who made Sears the nation's largest retailer - before until Eddie Lampert came along and destroyed Sears.

Hey, after A&P closed there are really few surprises anymore. We're becoming a hollowed-out shell of a nation full of hollowed-out shell people staring at their devices like zombies. IMO.

[watoos]

27. Wasn't Eddie a Libertarian?

Republicans like to demonize the word Socialism and brag up the word Libertarian. Eddie had K-Mart compete with Sears, he even had departments in the same company compete with one another. Competition would bring greatness to K-Mart and Sears. If you didn't make the numbers you got shut down. One can imagine what that did for morale.

When people stick out their chest and brag to me that they are Libertarians I just laugh at them. I ask them to name 1 country that's economy is run by Libertarianism?

[stevesinpa]

29. i worked for this company

and i have to say, you are 100% correct. when all of this "competition" started we even tried to explain to our managers and on up the chain why it was such a bad idea. if i'm doing my job and my job affects the next department, but I am in competitioin with that department, why would I do my job to make the next guy's (my competition) job easier? it made no sense.

[HelenWheels]

28. Seems you can't count on any one any more