![\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3AMoney_Cash.jpg;](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2016\/10\/Money_Cash-1024x681.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Which we watched last night with the kids in a birthday evening for my husband, after a \u201cdate night\u201d dinner out and birthday cake afterwards. \u00a0(I\u2019m eating the leftovers for breakfast as I type.)<\/p>\n
The premise of the movie is this: \u00a0three retirees find that their pension checks have been cut off because their former employer is moving its locations overseas. \u00a0No American location, no one to pay the checks. \u00a0And at the same time, the pension fund is being dissolved to pay other debts, which the other villain in the story, the bank which is foreclosing on the home of one of the protagonists, is administering.<\/p>\n
This is all well and good as an explanation for why these men (who happen to be Morgan Freeman and two others) were morally justified in robbing a bank. \u00a0They also show them doing a calculation of how much they\u2019re owed, and giving the rest away. \u00a0And the movie is entertaining enough, and I understand that movies, in order to tell entertaining stories, aren\u2019t always accurate and factual.<\/p>\n
But at that point when they fleshed out this plot point, I really wished they\u2019d have put a footnote on the screen: \u00a0\u201c*Note: \u00a0companies can\u2019t actually do this; we just need to show this happening to develop the plot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps all my readers already know this, and it\u2019s kind of out of date by now anyway, but I do want to just put this out there, anyway:<\/p>\n
The events the movie portrays could not happen. \u00a0Pension funds are dedicated for the purpose and cannot be used to pay other creditors. \u00a0And if a company does go belly-up and terminate the pension plan, a government agency, the Pension Benefits Guaranty Corporation or PBGC, steps in to take over the pension fund and cover any shortfalls, with money that comes from \u201cinsurance premiums\u201d paid by all pension funds in the U.S. for this purpose.<\/strong><\/p>\n OK, now I feel better.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image: \u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3AMoney_Cash.jpg; By Jericho [CC BY 3.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Which we watched last night with the kids in a birthday evening for my husband, after a \u201cdate night\u201d dinner out and birthday cake afterwards. \u00a0(I\u2019m eating the leftovers for breakfast as I type.) The premise of the movie is this: \u00a0three retirees find that their pension checks have been cut off because their former […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":5466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-7126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-pensions"],"yoast_head":"\n