Icahn Should Make Up TWA Pension Shortfall

“Deals” columnist Allan Sloan just doesn’t get it (“TWA’s Bankruptcy Filing Puts Icahn’s Bargaining Powers to the Test,” Feb. 9).

The question in the TWA case is not merely one of personality--the brash New York deal-maker pitted against the St. Louis business establishment. Carl C. Icahn is a charter member of the modern-day robber barons’ club. He has had a seat at the world’s biggest gambling table, the U.S. stock market, and has used someone else’s chips--namely, the public’s. The members of this small club are like the pirates of yore who plundered with reckless abandon.

Perhaps if there were more severe consequences for the buccaneers’ irresponsible pursuit of the deal, we would not be facing a situation in which TWA’s pension fund is estimated to be grossly under-funded.

With his legions of high-priced legal and accounting advisers, Icahn evaluated the risk/reward inherent in acquiring TWA and concluded that it was a win-win situation. If things went right, he would win big. And if not, he could always seek refuge, like all the other modern-day pirates, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

We are in a tremendous mess right now because a select few have benefited at great cost to most people in this great country. I think it is time to send a message that the peanut-shuffling days and financial machinations that produce no value are over.

Icahn should not be able to avoid accountability for pensions to the workers who created the value that he so eagerly sought to acquire.

The 1980s was supposed to be the decade in which risk and reward became uncoupled. We have now been reminded all too painfully that an age-old axiom still holds true: Where there are great potential rewards, there are also commensurate risks.

If Icahn must learn this lesson by being held personally responsible for TWA’s pensions, so be it. Unfortunately, it is articles like Sloan’s that keep the wrong game going. This country was built on the idea that a person could get rich creating value. The sooner we get back to this concept, the better off we’ll all be.

BRADFORD POLLACK

Santa Monica