Talk:Cash balance plan

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[edit] NPOV tag

Whoever added the NPOV tag, please explain. --Woohookitty 05:30, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I thought that with section titles like "the sleight of hand starts" and the obviously anti-Cash balance plan text, that it was self-evident. A cash balance plan may very well be as bad as it is explained, but it needs to be explained in more neutral and more factual terms. BlankVerse ∅ 11:09, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Age Discrimination Cases

The section about Age Discrimination Cases contains "...as I discussed above..." (emphasis mine). Surely this is so blatant a sign of an NPOV or NOR problem that it burns right through your eyelids? JIP | Talk 11:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Current event?

Sorry, help a silly person like me — what's a current event about this? MJSkia1 20:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

The Seventh Circuit has just reversed the District Court in the IBM case. Erisa Goss 20:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV, Cleanup, and Sources

Disclaimer: Despite being a pension actuary, I'm not coming at this article with a bias or an axe to grind. Here are a few of my problems with this article:

  • From its second sentence, this article assumes that the reader is already familiar with, or an expert in, US pension systems. It breezily throws out phrases (such as "Although it works much like a defined contribution plan, it is actually a defined benefit plan for legal purposes.") that might be cocktail chatter at an actuarial meeting but aren't helpful in an encyclopedia. Name "it", explain how "it" works, with pay credits and interest credits (which aren't mentioned until the middle of the article), and then describe its similarities to a DC plan but legal status as a DB plan -- perhaps defining what those animals are for the non-expert reader.
In fact the context is a problem altogether because it supposes that Wikipedia is written specifically for a US audience. It's like having an article on "Government" that describes details of the US government as though that was all there was to government, and without even mentioning the United States in the article. —Largo Plazo 21:00, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The article has no sources, and makes exaggerated claims. For example, "Cash balance conversions have been controversial and have raised the ire of workers and their advocates." Is every worker in a cash balance plan irate? Why? Is every conversion controversial? Why? And what is a conversion anyway? The second sentence of the article starts talking about conversions, and a whole section describes the controversy, but the article never explains what a cash balance conversion is and only hints at why it might be controversial.
  • Although it tries, the article does not speak from a neutral point of view. Here are three examples: "Judge Richard Posner in a stinging phrase – “for hybrid read unlawful” – held that the lump sum amounts should have been larger." "Judge Hamilton ... then engaged in an exercise of statutory construction that Professor Ed Zelinsky found fault with." "Murphy has just been reversed!"

I'll try to fix this up a little when I have some time, but maybe somebody else can also lend a hand. Malik Shabazz 06:33, 4 February 2007 (UTC)