| BenefitsLink Retirement Plans Newsletter |   |
January 2, 2004 - 13,655 subscribers
Today's sponsor: Securities Industry Association
(Click on company name or banner to learn more.)
Register now for the SIA 2004 Savings & Retirement Symposium, January 22-23, in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. This SIA event brings together key brokerage executives and managers with a focus on retirement products. This event is designed for professionals with an interest in product development, marketing, and operations. Sessions include new rollover technology for marketing enhancements, measuring retirement readiness, managed accounts, and an update on how to address concerns over market-timing and late-trading. Participant-driven roundtable discussions on new trends in the marketplace and health savings accounts will also be covered.
(Please visit our sponsors. We try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor)
Proposed 401(k) Regulations Include Interesting ESOP Change (PDF)
At pp. 3-4 of 5-page document. (Trucker Huss Benefits Report)
401(k) Plan Participation, Deferral Rates Drop
Excerpt: "Although a resurgent stock market is helping to boost 401(k) account balances, many young investors are missing out on these returns as participation rates among employees under age 35 have dropped dramatically in recent years." (BenefitNews.com)
Pension Change Sent Her On Workers' Rights Mission
Excerpt: "When IBM Corp. changed her pension plan, Janet Krueger walked away from a $120,000-a-year job in Rochester, where she had worked for more than 20 years, and began fighting for workers' rights." (AP via FortWayne.com)
Cash Balance Plans Still in Flux
Excerpt: "Marry a traditional 'defined-benefit' pension plan with a 401(k) plan and what do you get? A hybrid called a 'cash balance' plan and, as it turns out, a boatload of controversy." ([St. Paul Minn.] Pioneer Press)
Pass or Fail? What Consumers Don't Know About Retirement Income and What the Media Is Telling Them
Click on 'MetLife Webcast' on target page to view. (MetLife Mature Market Institute and the American Savings Education Council via BenefitNews.com)
How To Increase Retirement Saving
Excerpt: "In the coming year, look for more companies to experiment with innovative ways to help investors help themselves -- by 'pre-committing' to investment strategies that tie their own hands. The idea behind pre-commitment devices is that we all could use a little help avoiding short-term temptations like spending money we should be saving." (Los Angeles Daily News)
Accounting Rules Let Companies Take More Risk with Pensions
Excerpt: "In the past decade, many employers have quietly taken on more risk in pension plans - loading up on stocks, their own securities and nontraditional and illiquid investments - thanks to accounting rules for pensions that enable employers to capture all of the investment upside, while postponing losses and shifting the consequences of poor investment results to their workers and retirees." (Wall Street Journal via the [Chicago] Daily Herald)
Appalled by Betrayal of Fund Investors
Excerpt: "The American mutual fund industry will have its 80th birthday in a few months, but no one is much inclined to celebrate. And no wonder: the $7 trillion business, born with the formation of the Massachusetts Investment Trust in Boston in March 1924, is slogging through the worst scandal in its long history." (New York Times; one-time registration required)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Administering Restricted Stock and other Equity Compensation Awards: the Software Options
Excerpt: "What follows is information on several software products that serve this underserved, small company market." (Beyster Institute)
Middlemen in the Low-Wage Economy
Excerpt: "Like Wal-Mart, thousands of American enterprises rely on labor contractors to help hold down costs, and those industries - from New York apparel makers to California's vegetable growers - have given similar 'I had no idea' responses when their contractors have been accused of cutting corners." (New York Times; one-time registration required)
Opinion: Stock Options Stealth
Excerpt: "[Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.)], the one with the accounting degree, ... has introduced legislation to short-circuit FASB and any new expensing rules. It would require expensing of options -- but only those granted to the chief executive officer and the next four most highly paid executives." (Washington Post)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Client Services Team Manager
for BISYS Retirement Services
in PA
FSA Manager
for Oxford Associates
in MD
Retirement Services District Manager - Sales
for ADP Retirement Services
in IL
Handy Links:
- View Today's Active Message Threads
- Search BenefitsLink
- Using the Web for Employee Benefits Research
- Employee Benefits Library
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