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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Posted by David McCann | March 23, 2012
When ex-Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith famously excoriated the firm for
caring more about money than client service, and in fact whenever the
redundant term “corporate greed” has been uttered in my presence, I’ve
felt embarrassment on behalf of the poor, confused perpetrator.
Haven’t we known for a long time what makes (most) companies tick? I don’t
mean anything negative by that. Companies should not be embarrassed by
their greed, for subjugating everything (aside from adherence to laws and
ethical standards) to the bottom line. They were created to make money, and
even their good works, from providing comfortable work accommodations to
sponsoring charity events to offering retirement plans, are and even should
be driven by that motivation.
It’s the same way with human beings, whose own good works are (I believe)
usually motivated by a self-interest, like feeling good about oneself or
going to heaven. Again, that’s not negative: Achieving self-interest,
whether individual or corporate, makes much else possible.
Choosing from the above examples of corporate “good works,” let’s look at
retirement plans. More specifically, since I was chatting the other day
with an expert on pension (defined-benefit) plans, I’ll zero in on them.
Many corporations have taken considerable heat in recent years for freezing
their pension plans (putting an end to benefit accruals) or closing them (
not allowing new participants). They pad their bottom lines while employees
don’t save enough money to retire well; what could be greedier than that?
But companies generally have never pretended that the plans’ primary
purpose is to help people retire. That is just an ancillary effect of the
primary purpose, which is to attract and retain employees. And when plan
liabilities get too high – which most are these days because of low
interest rates – that purpose may not seem as important as it used to.
The ever-spreading globalization of business affords a pointed perspective
on the matter. Most multinational companies want to globally standardize as
many policies and programs as they can, and they typically are able to do so
with, for example, direct-compensation practices and employee-safety
procedures, notes Stewart Lawrence, the national retirement practice leader
at Sibson Consulting. A pension plan defies worldwide standardization,
though. Laws create roadblocks in some countries, but in others the culprit
is local customs (or the opportunity for financial gain, depending on how
you look at it).
“In certain countries, like Greece, where social security programs are very
rich, why waste money on a pension plan when you’re already paying taxes
that are paying for an adequate retirement benefit?” says Lawrence. “In
fact, retirement plans are not common in Eastern Europe generally. If you
can only afford a certain amount of total compensation, why would you devote
a slice to a pension plan when the employees aren’t even expecting it?”
In today’s world, a company offers a pension only if it absolutely must.
Among the Fortune 1000 companies, 584 are still managing defined-benefit-
plan assets and liabilities, but a large percentage of those plans are
frozen or closed. There is no one who thinks pensions will one day stage a
comeback, as unhappy as that thought may be to workers.
If that makes companies greedy, so be it, but the fact that millions of
Americans will not be able to afford retirement is a social failure, not a
corporate one. It’s like blaming the high price of gas on the president:
convenient but unjustified. |
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