When Detroit went BK a few years ago, city retirees were looking at pension cuts of some 80-90%, because the plan had been underfunded for years, and a recent mayor had really looted it. After serving time in state prison, that mayor was sentenced to 28 years in the federal jug on a long list of racketeering charges, until a recent POTUS commuted his sentence…because the rich and influential are not held accountable in Shiny-land.
Steve
Yep, been there, done that… I bailed in '02 when LU made an Offer I couldn’t refuse, either a cash bonus or an annuity that added some bucks onto my pension, I held out, may7be the only person to force the annuity option as it took a long time, I think they had to add cash to the original amount to make it happen. Later when they buyout offer came along it was folded into the pension, permanently, and continues, there was also an option to increase my spousal benefits to 75% , from the initial 50%, at that time, so we did that, reducing the pension a little, but it would leave DW in a better position if I left first… Took me most of that first year, at 62, to sort out, transfer, sell, combine all the misc telecom stock shares over into an Edward Jones account, see what we really had, DW was working, a little tight at times, but we made it… Kept T & VZ, a little LU, just in case, but it was messy, some shares were in ESOP plans some couldn’t;t be moved until a certain time, but at least we knew where we were. But getting out at 62 was good, considered local work, but telecom here really died off, so many younger folks needed it more than I did, so the next thought was a local hardware chain, they had 5 or six stores, and I came close to getting serious, and Orchard Hardware was another possibility, but in the end neither happened, we wanted to travel, wander, so we did… 20 years later, nearly, glad we did what we did, while we were more able… I see a lot of my old friends, co-workers didn’t do so well, supervisors were forced out, etc… Luckily, VZ, T and now AAPL dividends are a big help, buying into AAPL early has really more than made up for the losses at LU…
But it still grinds to see how upper management at LU tore it apart like that, rather than adapting, reestablishing to the needs as they changed… So many creative, inventive, folks, out the door…
That is Shiny management in action. I have commented before on the delusional nature of management at Radio Shack. That was a very substantial company, at one time. Refused to recognize the changes in the market. Refused to change their business model. Figured all they had to do to make more loot for themselves was to beat on the people in the stores more.
Their first CEO from outside the company was Len Roberts. I remember reading an interview with Roberts back in the early 90s. Roberts said he had wondered why RS was run the way it was. He said the outgoing CEO, Bernie Appel, took him to lunch, and, over the course of that lunch, converted him to the RS way. I was still with them for a bit after Roberts took over. Watching a satellite broadcast from the honchos in Fort Worth, Roberts talked touchy-feely stuff, then the “show” cut over to other honchos, who ordered us to use bait and switch sales tactics. I remember one newly promoted Divisional VP saying “Don’t sell what is on sale. Only sell what is full price. That is the plan. If it doesn’t work for you, it’s all your fault”.
When my uncle died, I was helping my aunt go through his papers. He had been buying T stock through payroll deduction in the 50s and 60s. I could not find anything giving his cost basis for those shares. I found hand written forms for things he checked out of the Kalamazoo Michigan Bell tool room in 1948, but nothing about the stock. He had hung on to his Lucent, which became Alcatel. My aunt finally sold it just before the buyout by Nokia. What was probably a significant position at one time had withered to fiddling small change, so paying cap gains tax on the position didn’t amount to much. She had some Frontier, which went BK, so that position was probably wiped out, but, with no cost basis information, she could not take the tax deduction for the loss. Besides the T and VZ, she still has what was US West, which became Qwest, which became Century, which is now Lumen. Appears Lumen stock has dropped some 90% over the last few years, so not much left to show for that position either.
Steve
When we sold the last of the LU, we ended up doing a WAG, as to sort out the various purchase times was a nightmare to make it near accurate, as the buys, after weekly payroll deductions, were made monthly, on a date chosen by that department, so over years, who even had those records, and could pin down the cost basis, so it came down to just pick a number and go with it, let them prove it wrong if it was ever to be questioned. Never was.
We just went through paperwork, and I did find the actual buys, copies of the certificates of my AAPL, and it matched some notes I had made a while back. Sent that in to our EJ folks, so if/when there is a need to sell any of the shares we’ll know the numbers… Plopped the paperwork into an offsite safe deposit box, as we’ve seen that even fireproof safes are not really useful in a serious fire,
Progress!
I got started with investing by using DRIPs ( dividend reinvestment plan ). I was clueless about accounting and tax reporting, lol, but did keep track of each purchase. Got lucky doing DRIP investing with Intel. When I finally sold it, was initially a bear trying to figure out how to get the numerous purchases onto the tax form. But checked out 1 of the self-help tax books from library, and the biggest takeaway from the book was that the IRS would let you pool all of the purchases together, and could just use “various” for the date when showing cost basis.
Did real well on that investment, but that was the beginning of the end of drip investing for me, just didn’t care for all of the record keeping for many tiny quarterly transactions. It was all just basic math, so nothing hard, but it was very easy to miss some transactions.
That must have been a real bear trying to round up all of the info on your Uncle’s purchases, playing tax detective has never been real fun in my experience.
I found that right in the schedule D instructions. I dripped a few issues 20+ years ago, but, like you, tired of the accounting. It helped that the stack of loot got big enough that I could afford round lots too.
Steve
yeah, that was the 1st time I had ever done taxes with cap gains, didn’t even know what a Schedule-D was, lol, was a long time ago.
At the time, drips were a good deal, but once “discount” brokers came on the scene, drips were not needed for most people.
Ever wonder how the brokers can stay in business when buy/sells are “free” lol ?? It’s almost like they are making money some other way, wonder what that could be ? /sarcasm