No big mystery here: Corporations are "going to have to disclose their unfunded pension obligations later this year anyway, under new accounting rules about to go into effect."
What I don't get is where Reich is coming from with his idea that, "Wall Street should be telling their corporate clients to fund their pension promises pronto," because "Including these liabilities on balance sheets now would wipe out the book value of at least a dozen big companies ..." Like this "flash" makes any sense at all...
What...?, like they should start printing money...?
And furthermore, it doesn't seem too very difficult to understand what's going on with this issue: "The tough medicine favored by the Bush administration, which would eliminate loopholes in the system ... would lead to more companies freezing their plans or leaving the system outright. The number of pension plans would continue to shrink and in time all but disappear."
But of course darling: if companies have a good excuse to jump on the bandwagon--well, what's that worth to the sons-of-bitches...?
Bottom line: the old system stank to high heaven...

The Bush Admin wants it because it will accelerate the abandonment of defined benefit plans -- a result which it sees as good for US business competitiveness. Reich sees the same writing on the wall, but thinks accelerating the process will help bring the whole underlying crisis to public attention so the entire retirement system -- all three legs of the stool, including Soc Sec -- can be rationalized to reallocate risk among business, gov and individuals before the stool collapses.

Both are scared of an S&L-type day of reckoning if the under-funding issue problem being put off. An expensive bail-out of the PBGC is only a matter of time if Congress keeps delaying.

Mr. Plumer you're absolutely right that Bush isn't going to stand up for workers aganst the big corps. ; the Bush Admin is simply thinking ahead to when the pension crisis hits the fan; "what?--certainly it's not our fault, contraire, we've been endorsing a law to prevent this sort of thing..."
On the other hand, you make it sound like companies can simply welsh on pension promises; they can't, even if it means going bankrupt.
And if indeed that actually does happen, "... the plans of the companies that fail will become the responsibility of the gov.'s pension insurer, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.
Furthermore, I don't see that any new law (requiring pension plans to be fully funded) would accelerate the crisis.
Like the gov. is going to pass a law where, in order to save people's pensions, companies are going to be driven bankrupt; hell no, the opposite is true...
And I don't see a collapse type scenario. While "The P.B.G.C. ... is deeply in the hole, prompting comparisons to the savings and loan fiasco of the 1980's," in fact, doesn't this problem differ from the S&L bailout insofar as not everyone is going to up and retire all at once...
As for reallocating risk: what...? If someone owes a debt..., well, ...finale...

Did any of you consider the idea that perhaps this push might be to camoflage a crime? Like funds that are already missing? Despite what Bush has claimed that the "trust fund" is only journal entries and not actual funds is a "convenient fiction." The fact is that Social Security was set up as a TRUST FUND and the MONEY has been deposited when it was collected. It is supposed to be sitting there waiting for us. What if we opened the vault and all that was there was a series of IOUs starting from the 70s when Bush Sr. started "borrowing?"

Think about it.