this is why you have a 401K and they have a pension…
IBM sales, net rise less than expected Services shortfall, pension costs hurt Big Blue
IBM, with hundreds of thousands of former workers, also was hurt by rising pension costs. Excluding the impact of pension expenses, the firm’s earnings would have been up 20 percent from a year ago.
UAW, GM to Work to Cut Costs
GM’s health care costs, which it expects to rise to $5.6 billion this year from $5.2 billion last year, and a surprising warning last month of its worst quarterly loss since 1992 led to some speculation that the automaker could ask the union to renegotiate parts of its current contract.
Ford falls after 2005 earnings warning
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Ford Motor Co. shares shed as much as 9% Monday after the automaker blamed soaring steel, energy and health-care costs for an earnings miss in 2005 that will undermine its $7 billion profit target for 2006.
Ford’s stock (F: news, chart, profile) finished down 59 cents, or 5.4%, at $10.44, after notching nearly a two-year low of $10.09 earlier in the session. In the fixed income market, Ford’s corporate bonds fell sharply in the wake of a negative shift in the outlooks from leading ratings agencies.