While America Aged

The retirement crisis facing America-and the road map for a way out-from The New York Times bestselling author of Origins of the Crash

In the last several decades, corporations and local governments made ruinous pension and healthcare promises to American workers. With these now coming due, they threaten to destroy twenty-first- century America's hopes for a comfortable retirement. With his trademark narrative panache, bestselling author Roger Lowenstein analyzes three fascinating case studies-General Motors, the New York City subway system, and the city of San Diego-each an object lesson and a compelling historical saga that illuminates how the pension crisis developed. Cumulative retirement deficits are approaching $1 trillion, and Lowenstein warns that these are only the first. Retirement pensions will continue to be a critical issue as the country ages, and While America Aged is the urgent call to action and prescription for reform.While America AgedIntroduction

Part One: Who Owns General Motors?

1. Walter Reuther and the Treaty of Detroit
2. The Anti-Reuther

Part Two: The Public Freight

3. An Entitled Class
4. On Strike!

Part Three: Debacle in San Diego

5. Finest City
6. Pension Plot
7. The Bill Comes Due

Conclusion: The Way Out
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

" Financial journalist Roger Lowenstein uses the stories of three deeply encumbered institutions . . . as examples not only of the way most individual Americans conduct their personal finances, but also of how the country as a whole has long lived beyond its means. . . . Gripping."
-Phillip Longman, The Washington PostRoger Lowenstein, author of the bestselling Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist and When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-term Capital Management, reported for the Wall Street Journal for more than a decade and wrote the Journal’s stock market column “Heard on the Street” and also its “Intrinsic Value” column. He now contributes articles and reviews to the Journal and the New York Times Magazine and is a columnist for SmartMoney Magazine. He lives in Westfield, New Jersey.