NEW YORK - August 11, 2010 - I've been writing for a couple of years about the risks corporations face from what is now an impending cataclysm that will hit earnings, cash flows and credit. Posing that risk are pensions and other employee benefits for which the bill will soon come due.

Why now? The bills would have come due sooner, except that many firms were bailed out from having to make stepped-up contributions last year by the large rally in the financial markets. Now, however, it looks like their luck has run out. That is especially true because, under the Pension Reform Act of 2006, corporations were given a grace period until fiscal 2011 to fully fund their pensions - a time that is rapidly approaching.