All right, I am getting back in the saddle after a couple weeks off from blogging to recharge my batteries and tie up some key end of the year issues in a few cases. Not wanting to do too much heavy lifting on my first day back on the blog beat, I thought I would pass along, with minimal comment from me, this nice little piece on cash balance plans, and particularly how they might fit in alongside 401(k) plans in a particular business’ benefit plan structure. Anyone who follows the field knows that the rise of cash balance plans and their implementation, especially in instances where they have supplanted traditional pensions, has been rife with problems, both real, imagined, and litigatory (I may have just made up that last word, but still). Amara, of course, jumps to mind, but so do many other examples. The story I am passing along today, though, does a nice job of showing how, properly used, cash balance plans can be a force for good, not evil, to borrow a cliché.