Cash balance plans, which are portable, have a lot of appeal for younger employees who may not stay with a company long enough to reap the full benefits of a traditional pension programme with a payout weighted to favour long-term workers who satisfy some combination of age and service. Sixteen percent of the Fortune 100 companies, including Bell Atlantic, Bank of America and Chase Manhattan, have switched to cash balance plans.

These new plans are separate from whatever 401(k) plans a company offers.A cash balance plan is a retirement programme in which benefits build uniformlyyear to year, so that a vested employee (usually one with five years of service) can switch careers or retire early without a penalty. The benefit is usually paid in a lump sum, which can then be rolled over into a self-directed individual retirement account and continue to grow. Most traditional plans would simply freeze such a worker's benefits at a certain monthly level -- to be ravaged by inflation -- until the worker reaches retirement age.

``This can mean that a worker is much less of a pension hostage,'' said William J Arnone, the national director of employee financial education for the accounting firm of Ernst & Young.

Under a cash balance plan, there is still a pool of pension assets. But the formula determining a worker's share simply assumes that each year a percentage of pay is contributed to an account, which earns 5 per cent or so, depending on short-term interest rates. Usually a quarterly statement shows a worker's balance in the pool, which is paid out if the worker quits after vesting.The company invests that pool of assets and, if it earns more than the 5 per cent, can keep the difference -- much like a traditional plan.Older workers in a traditional plan need to be wary if their company switches to a cash balance plan. If the new plan is not designed to protect them, they could wind up with less than in their traditional plan, in which benefits were weighted to favour the final years of work.

Cash balance plans look somewhat like 401(k) plans, but there are important differences. Employees have no say in how the plan, or their part of it, is invested and their return is limited to the 5 per cent or so the plan pays. Also, employees must be vested to get the money.

One of the benefits to a company that switches to a cash balance plan is good employee relations -- more workers like it than do not.``Employees love lump sum payments, which most traditional plans don't provide,'' he said. ``Also, it gives a company and its workers more flexibility.''

But such a plan could be moreexpensive for a company with a lot of young workers and a high turnover, he said. ``And, of course, it is not a very valuable tool for retaining long-term employees,'' he added.

Living quarters for the rich

It's a pleasure for those looking for more than just a house. A couple of bedrooms, but with a pleasant view. And a reasonable amount of space - 1,900 square feet. You'll want a gym nearby (100,000 square feet) and movie theater (a multiplex), perhaps a hotel next door for when the house guests outnumber the couches. And reserved parking outside for the BMW, of course. Millennium Partners, a creation of New York developer Christopher Jeffries, is building just such a high-end living quarters for Washington's wealthy, writes The Washington Post.

At the site of the old city incinerator plant in Georgetown, the company will spend $125 million to build 30 extravagant residences with those unobstructed views and other opulent amenities. Construction begins this summer.

A secondproject -- in the District's West End neighborhood, where the company bought nearly an entire city block for a $260 million complex of 200 condominiums, a swank 300-room Ritz-Carlton hotel and a huge gym - will be completed next year.

Prices start at a cool half-million, but Jeffries is betting that Washington holds enough city-loving high-livers to fill his playgrounds and then some. Although, truth be told, Washington has never had Fat Cat Rows of the sort found in New York (Fifth Avenue, Society Hill, Russian Hill), Boston (Beacon Hill, Back Bay) or Chicago (Michigan Avenue Mile, Gold Coast).

``There has been a much larger aggregation of wealth at all age levels in the population,'' Jeffries said in a recent interview, ``and the premise is that that wealth enjoys the cities more than the generation before.''

The problem of over-building

Northern Virginia remains one of the busiest commercial construction markets in the US, reports The Washington Post. Among the latest buildings to startconstruction are Dulles Tech Center Three and Four in Herndon, a pair of five-storey, 113,000-square-foot structures that Trammell Crow Co. is developing speculatively for owner West World Holdings of Purchase, New York.Tom Finan, senior vice president of Crow's Virginia operations, said he's confident that plenty of demand remains in the market. His company completed two similar buildings in the same office park in December, and they're 97 per cent leased.

Nearby new office buildings constructed by other developers have filled up fast, too, he said.

``Buildings are still attaining 100 per cent leasing prior to (the completion of) construction; that still says there's more demand than supply,'' Finan said.

But how much more? ``I don't think anybody has an absolute answer on that,'' he said. ``I think we are as a development community being pretty sensible this time around.''

Of course, developers are supposed to be optimistic about this stuff. But several researchers who follow the Northern Virginiamarket agreed that overbuilding isn't a problem yet.