Human Toll of a Pension Default

[BR_Parkway]

Ellen Saracini lost her husband, United Airlines Capt. Victor J. Saracini, when his Flight 175 crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Now she stands to lose more than half of her widow's pension in a very different kind of crash -- United's default of its $9 billion pension obligations.

The scale of the default, the largest in U.S. history, has received more attention than the toll on the lives of the bankrupt airline's 120,000 employees and pensioners. Saracini discussed its impact on her and her two daughters in an interview yesterday, saying she hopes her story will help shift the focus to the laws and policies that allow such defaults.

"My own situation is not a crisis -- I have my husband's life insurance to keep us secure in our house," she said from her home in Yardley, Pa. "But a lot of other people have real hardship -- medical costs they won't be able to afford, houses they won't be able to keep. If I can help draw attention to them, I'll do it in a heartbeat."

Saracini was among about 2,000 United pensioners and employees who e-mailed their stories to Rep. George Miller (news, bio, voting record) (D-Calif.) in recent days for what he called an online hearing on the human impact of the default. "We have been overwhelmed -- both numerically and emotionally -- by the response," said Miller, one of several politicians in both parties warning that a wider crisis will loom if the nation's pension security laws are not revised.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/washpost/human_toll_of_a_pension_default&printer=1

[jojo54]

1. These widows & widowers keep getting are still getting shat on.

First, CCB went after the wrong person responsible for 9/11 (we all know the truth about that), then he wasn't demanded to testify under oath and in front of the cameras during the 9/11 commission investigation, and now this. You don't suppose Bushco would care to ante up that 9 B with the money they stole from the Iraqi oil now, do you?.......

Yeah, that's what I thought too.