Wilbur

“Somebody always has it worse than you do.” — Marjorie Dufton

The #1 conversational topic among old farts is our individual medical history. “How much of your body will they have to remove before cremation? Knee? Hip? Elbow? Pacemaker?” The #2 topic is how our employers screwed us over in retirement. “The cost of living keeps going up, but my pension and medical benefit remains the same as it was twenty years ago.”

The guy next to me on the elliptical at the gym this morning had a classic “tale of woe” regarding the #2 topic. “When Bethlehem Steel went bankrupt in 2003, I wasn’t worried. After twenty-five years there, my pension was 75% of my average base pay over my final five years plus full medical/dental/vision. Then Wilbur Ross took over. His bankruptcy plan moved Bethlehem Steel’s pension obligation to the Federal government. My pension was half what it was before and my medical/dental/vision was gone. I was screwed but Wilbur made out OK. He sold Bethlehem Steel’s remaining assets to some steel company from India and made a $260 million profit.”

At least, Air Products never sold out its pension plan and I’m still seeing the same monthly payment that I got in 2002.

At that point, the gym TV tuned to Fox News showed a Trump 2024 commercial. A hard hat wearing worker declared, “Crooked Joe and Kamala ruined the economy. The Trump Team gave America jobs and low inflation!” according to the closed-captioning.

The guy next to me began furiously pounding on his elliptical. “You know who was Secretary of Commerce in that wonderful Trump Team? Wilbur “F-ing” Ross! That SOB!”

By the way, Wilbur was one of the few cabinet secretaries to survive all four years of the Trump administration.

Who screwed workers worse while enriching themselves — Donnie or Wilbur?

By Ed Dufton