I retired from Lucent Technologies and was getting decent pension. The company sold out to Alcatel (France) and the pension checks kept coming in. Recently Alcatel/Lucent offered to give you a one time buyout or keep the monthly pension checks. Alcatel/Lucent is now being looked at by Nokia - another foreign company. I took the buyout fearing that a non-US company doesn't have to play by US laws. So I'll be getting a guaranteed monthly stipend for the investment company, and along with the monthly Social Security check and monthly VA disability check, I'm doing OK.