Higher Retirement Age? Lower Benefits? The President Says You Won't "Notice"

By Richard Eskow

Created 08/17/2011 - 2:55am

Back in my corporate days I sat in a boardroom with one of the most powerful and fearsome CEOs in the country. He had called in the executives that designed his employee benefits program and asked them to propose changes to the corporation's retirement and health programs. But he scowled and shook his head as they presented one set of options after another. Finally I asked the question the others were afraid to ask: What do you want to accomplish by changing your employees' benefits?

"I want to give them less," he said, "and make them think it's more."