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To: research1234 who wrote (38356)	2/2/2013 3:21:44 PM
From: Paul Smith	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 85487

There is a very wide range of estimates for pension liabilities. I don't totally disagree with your point but also think estimating the pension liabilities can be done in a systematic way. Public companies like AT&T and others that have pension liabilities attached to union contracts have accounting rules in place to estimate the funding or lack of funding of their pensions. Shareholders need that information to know how much cash flow is already spoken for. To me, it seems like this sort of thing can be estimated with more precision than estimating what future profits at AT&T will be. It also seems ridiculous to assume that there will also be enough profit for AT&T (or any company) to fund the liabilities. The profits may or may not exist in the future but the pension liabilities are more certain to exist.