Kodak Says It'll Figure Things Out and Won't Shut Down (theverge.com) 41
Kodak says it remains confident it can avoid shutdown despite filing required "going concern" disclosures about $500 million in debt obligations due within 12 months. The 133-year-old photography company plans to draw approximately $300 million from its U.S. pension fund in December to pay off a significant portion of its term loan before maturity. Chief Marketing Officer Denisse Goldbarg said the disclosure was mandatory under accounting rules but Kodak would emerge virtually debt-free.
That Just Ain't Right (Score:4, Interesting)
They're publicly stating that they are going to rob the pension fund.
Then what? Their business isn't changing. They're just kicking the can down the road, until next time.
Kodak pensioners are about to get fucked!
Re:That Just Ain't Right (Score:4, Informative)
I'm a pretty staunch capitalist.
I have seen where companies borrow from the pension fund to do expansions, etc then return the money plus quite a bit of extra to the pension fund. John Deere did this in the 1970's and 1980's, and the pensioners benefited greatly.
However, more often than not it's an act of desperation by management.
This move feels much more like the 2nd. I thought we'd passed legislation a few times to prevent exactly this.
Re: That Just Ain't Right (Score:1)
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Captalism is awesome, but it isn't a fix-all for every single problem. Short and medium-term efficiency and profit, yeah capitalism is da bomb. But it's absolute crap at dealing with things on the 30+ year time scale. Governments are the right entities to deal with very long-horizon stuff.
It should be illegal for US
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Capitalism is great with 30+ year timescales. Its solution to it is creative destruction though. Pension funds are a scam since maintaining them requires propping up companies and keeping them alive for far longer than one would expect in a truly capitalist situation.
Kodak should probably be dead, or dramatically smaller (than it is even now), and it's shrinking/failing should have no impact on workers that no longer work there.
Re: That Just Ain't Right (Score:1)
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Unfortunately, no, we did not pass legislation to prevent this. Sarbanes-Oxley imposes strict reporting requirements amongst other things. In this case, Kodak is publicly reporting that they're going to do it, so in that narrow sense, they are compliant.
What should really happen is that pension funds should be managed by an organization independent of the employer. That gets challenging when companies own companies, and then own each other, and so forth.
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It is entirely possible that the debt Kodak will be paying back with the pension funds is owned by, you guessed it, another pension fund.
It is not so easy to say which debt obligation should be satisfied first. When a debtor is unable to pay back all it owes, there will always be hard choices.
If they don't raid the pension fund, they may end up in bankruptcy court, and it may be that the judge would order them to raid the pension fund. I am no expert in bankruptcy proceedings. So this is pure speculation.
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If they don't raid the pension fund, they may end up in bankruptcy court, and it may be that the judge would order them to raid the pension fund.
The pension fund is not (should not be) the property of the company, it's the property of the pensioners who paid into it. It should be (in many countries for many companies is) an independent entity which has no duty to the company and is specifically designed to survive when the company does not. In most bankruptcies the judges don't make any such order and in fact, the pension fund gets priority over a bunch of other debtors other than the tax authorities.
There have been cases like Robert Maxwell (Gisell [mirrorpensioners.co.uk]
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That does not match with what I am reading when I search online. But I have no firsthand experience and IANAL.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodfinancialcents... [goodfinancialcents.com]
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Faccountinginsights.org... [accountinginsights.org]
Etc.
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I'm pretty sure that within 10 to 20 years, all pensions will be shown to be scams. About 40 years ago, I did a course that involved demographic projections. It was obvious that eventually there wouldn't enough workers to look after the retirees. When the baby boomers stop working in large numbers, the value of the workers must rise to dilute the value of the pension savings, likely via inflation.
Since then the demographics have gotten worse. The dating scene, marriage rates, divorce rates, and general
Re:That Just Ain't Right (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand why people are upset at Elon Musk calling social security a Ponzi scheme. Just because someone brings upsetting news, doesn't mean they are wrong.
That's because calling Social Security a "ponzi scheme" is at best a complete lack of understanding of Social Security and at worst (and accurate to what Musk is doing) blatantly lying because republicans have been trying to dismantle Social Security (a highly successful, highly popular and highly efficient government institution) for my entire life and my parents lives.
It's upsetting because he's being a weaselly little liar who has no interest in actually fixing anything, only destruction with no plan behind it.
Anyone who is concerned about Social Security (or says its going bankrupt, another lie) but doesn't talk about raising or eliminating the contribution cap is lying to you.
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The old Republican propaganda was that Social Security was a Pension plan, or savings account. The voters wanted to invest the money, and chose "Treasury Bills and Bonds" as the method of investment. Now, Treasury Bills and Bonds are loans to the government, which must be repaid through taxes. Republican propaganda capitalized on this loan from Social Security, and called i
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Apparently to you being able to read is a Jedi Power
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"The wild card is AI"
Musk and many like him will use AI to make sure *they* are holding all the cards & fuck the rest of us
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On the other hand, if Kodak goes out of business, pensioners are still out of luck.
How about Kodak goes back to optical media? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ages ago, in antediluvian times, Kodak made an optical system for WORM storage which went up to around 1-1.5 TB. Doesn't sound like much now, but for the times, that was enormous.
Maybe it is time to revisit storage again? Companies are WAY desperate for some media other than LTO tape for mass storage, and optical storage can do this. About a year ago, some Chinese researchers were able to do 100 TB/platter using 100 optical layers. This isn't exactly new technology, but stuff that hasn't been worked on because there hasn't been a market demand. However, with Internet pipes not getting any faster, data needs getting greater, companies want fast WORM storage, not just because of backups, but to ensure ransomware protection.
If Kodak could come out with somethng like a DVD drive, even if it is not compatible with BD, etc... but designed for WORM backups with media being fairly cheap, people would buy those things left and right.
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This looks really cool if they can bring it to market: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fholomem.co.uk%2F [holomem.co.uk]
Raiding the pension fund? (Score:2)
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In the US, corporate pension funds are basically piggy banks that the companies can raid by filling out a few forms and getting a stamp from a friendly judge.
Maybe it's different in other countries, but I don't know a single person on corporate pension (in the US) who actually got the promised amount of money for their entire retirement. I know multiple people who got their benefits drastically reduced when the
Well, that sounds like a better attitude (Score:2)
Kodak Says It'll Figure Things Out and Won't Shut Down
Well, that sounds like a better attitude. Hopefully it more than just words.
I'm pretty conservative... (Score:2)
...but "plans to draw approximately $300 million from its U.S. pension fund" makes me want to storm the fucking barricady with the red banners of the proletariat.
If that's your employees pension fund, yes, you may be managing it BUT IT'S MORALLY NOT YOURS TO SPEND. This is money you've promised to people as part of their compensation.
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if the president can be blatantly immoral why cant companies?
we all voted for america to be an immoral nation. now when reaping we're gonna be mad?
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if the president can be blatantly immoral why cant companies?
we all voted for america to be an immoral nation. now when reaping we're gonna be mad?
a big reason why the POTUS can be like that IS because companies & their owners HAVE been like that for a long time.
they rig the game, we're forced to play it
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welcome to the 50 year conservative political project; a nation without morals where anyone can be as big of a piece of shit as they are
It's been this way since Clinton (Score:1)
if the president can be blatantly immoral why cant companies? we all voted for america to be an immoral nation. now when reaping we're gonna be mad?
You realize we've been saying that since Clinton? And no not with reference to the BJ. Its with reference to lying to a judge under oath, which people decided was less important than him supporting an agenda they liked.
Gary Hart was the last honest politician at the Presidential level. He was a candidate, he got caught, he resigned. With Clinton, the rules were changed, a new normal was set. A new normal that allows for Trump. We vote in a politically opportunistic way, we get a political opportunist.
Re: It's been this way since Clinton (Score:2)
I'd say that Reagan is a better story to explain how we got Trump, since he was mentally deficient and that allowed him to dodge a scandal. On the other hand, Reagan was actually shot, and we got the medical records to prove it, so I guess the parallel isn't perfect.
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I'd say that Reagan is a better story to explain how we got Trump, since he was mentally deficient and that allowed him to dodge a scandal. On the other hand, Reagan was actually shot, and we got the medical records to prove it, so I guess the parallel isn't perfect.
Reagan was old, but functional. His decline didn't really occur until after he left office.
Trump has no apparent age related mental decline either. He's just naturally generally ignorant outside of the area he worked in for decades, construction, property development. Suffers from the same delusion as many, being skilled in one niche suggest being skilled at anything. Now toss in a personality where ego and childishness go to 11.
Reagan was a truly proficient politician. One who worked his way up. Cali
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BUT IT'S MORALLY NOT YOURS TO SPEND
The gamble that they are making is: If they can save the company, the pension fund can be paid back from future profits. The alternative being to flush the company down the toilet, lay off all the younger workers but pay the geezers.
If you start burning the furniture to stay warm... (Score:3)
corporate theft. (Score:2)
chairman@kodak.com
Classic problem: company taking company point of (Score:2)
Company pension funds... (Score:2)
It is wild that companies get to manage pension funds. That kind of thing is not legal around here...
Indeed (Score:3)
Everybody will lose their pension but the CEO will retain his bonuses.