[crmd]

What IBM really cares about is limiting the older employees’ defined-benefit pension liabilities. That is why it was so important to IBM that these folks were made to no longer be IBM employees. Lower salary was icing on the cake.

[lotsofpulp]

The wrong assumptions behind those defined benefit pension liabilities ended up being quite costly, this zero interest rate environment for the previous decade and foreseeable future will wreak havoc on them. I'm surprised they didn't freeze and terminate the plan years ago.