By Adam Liptak; The New York Times ~ Nov 10, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed puzzled on Monday about why it was being asked to decide whether a chemical company could cut the health benefits of its retired workers.

“This is an important benefit and an expensive one,” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. He would have expected, he said, that the issue would have been resolved in the company’s contract with the union.

“Why is it that in this collective bargaining agreement and apparently many others,” he asked, “there isn’t anything explicit one way or the other?”

The Associated Press ~ Nov 07, 2014

NEW YORK (AP) — AT&T is buying Mexican wireless company Iusacell for $1.8 billion and plans to grow in Mexico.

The Dallas company said Friday that Iusacell has 8.6 million subscribers under the Iusacell and Unefón brand names. AT&T had 116.6 million subscribers as of June 30.

AT&T values the deal at $2.5 billion when debt is included.

The company sees potential for growth in Mexico because of its rising population and middle class, even as the proportion of Mexican people with wireless service lags other Latin American countries, according to AT&T.

By Mark Miller; Reuters ~ Nov 06, 2014

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The Great Recession served up some nasty financial surprises to people approaching retirement – the housing crash, job loss and shrunken 401(k)s, for starters.

But retirement can bring lifestyle surprises, too. It’s one of life’s biggest transitions, and a major leap into the unknown. Hoping to lessen the guesswork for people who aren’t there yet, I asked experts who work with people transitioning to retirement about the surprises they hear about most often.

“Time freedom” is a shock for many, says Richard Leider, an executive career coach and co-author of “Life Reimagined: Discovering Your New Life Possibilities” (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2013).

By Julian Hattem; The Hill ~ Nov 06, 2014

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson had a rare personal conversation with the head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over new potential rules for the Internet, according to new documents.

The telecom executive spoke with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on Monday and urged him not to enact tough regulations on Internet service providers such as AT&T by reclassifying broadband Internet service to treat it like traditional phone lines.

Taking that potentially controversial step would be “contrary” to the FCC’s precedent and “would negatively impact” companies’ ability to build out new high-speed broadband networks, Stephenson told Wheeler, according to a federal filing.

By Howard Gleckman; Forbes ~ Nov 05, 2014

Republican control of Congress means that senior service programs—most of which have been frozen for years—will face growing budget pressures. At the same time, the GOP also may try to give states more flexibility in the way they provide Medicaid and other benefits to the elderly and disabled. And while the GOP leadership will be under pressure from Tea Party conservatives to trim Social Security and Medicare benefits, it is less likely a Republican Congress will try to do so without bipartisan support.

Republicans will have a majority of the Senate but not close to the 60 votes necessary to pass most legislation. And they will be even further from the 67 they’ll need to override any of President Obama’s vetoes. Thus it is likely that the fate of most senior service programs will be decided in a handful of key spending bills, where Republicans will have some important legislative advantages now that they control the Senate as well as the House.

By Rodney Brooks; USA TODAY ~ Nov 05, 2014

It was different back in the day. You worked 30 years, got a watch and a pension. Your health care was probably provided by your company’s retiree insurance plan, or even your union.

And a highlight of retirement was the ceremonial burning of the mortgage as mom and dad began retirement debt-free.

That’s how our parents did it. But there’s no chance we’ll see anything like that. As they say, it’s not your father’s retirement anymore.

By Liz Moyer; The Wall Street Journal ~ Nov 05, 2014

The start of required minimum distributions from individual retirement accounts is a headache for many affluent investors approaching their 70s. After 70½, even if they don’t need the cash for living expenses, they are required to pull money out each year—and to pay tax on it at ordinary-income rates.

Vanguard Group recently found that 20% of its investors who take an RMD simply divert the funds to a taxable investment account, where it can be left alone without any more required withdrawals.

Vanguard also found that a chunk of its customers start moving money from regular IRAs to Roth IRAs in the decade between age 60 and 70. Part of the appeal is that Roth IRAs don’t have required minimum annual withdrawals. But conversions need to be considered carefully because the dollars converted from a traditional IRA to a Roth are taxed as ordinary income.

By Hazel Bradford; Pensions & Investments ~ Nov 05, 2014

Retirement issues rarely came up during federal elections that gave Republicans control of the House and Senate on Tuesday, but that is expected to change when the 114th Congress convenes in January.

Their first appearance is likely to be when the new Congress focuses on tax reform and other revenue raisers. With retirement incentives high on the list of tax expenditures, “that puts retirement issues squarely on the table,” said American Benefits Council President James Klein. “For plan sponsors and participants, that is bad news if it comes at the expense of improving national (retirement) savings, or at the expense of existing plans.”

By Harrison Weber; VentureBeat ~ Nov 05, 2014

AT&T today announced the sale of its “Watson” speech recognition platform and some related patents to the Interactions Corporation in exchange for an undisclosed amount of equity.

For clarity, AT&T’s Watson has nothing to do with IBM’s Watson.

Although the terms of the deal remain vague, the essence of the transaction appears to be pretty simple: AT&T is giving Interactions its speech tech, and Interactions will run with it, hopefully enhance it, and license the technology to developers.

By Marina Lopes; Reuters ~ Nov 03, 2014

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Verizon Communications and AT&T Inc expect to be able to transmit wireless voice calls between the two carriers over high-speed data networks by 2015, the companies said on Monday.

The technology is expected to improve the quality of calls and allow for video calling and voicemail.

The calls would be transmitted using a technology known as Voice over LTE, which repackages voice calls as data and transmits them over carriers’ high-speed data networks.

Carriers currently transmit most voice calls on older 2G networks, while data is sent through high-speed 4G networks.