Confused about the looming............

..................................................................public pension mess?   

David Merkel offers seven Central Errors that are casting a dark shadow over promises made.  As he notes,  "Pensions are promises. Sadly, promises are often broken. Choose your promiser with care…"   Full post is here.  Cherry-picked excerpts here:

"Before I start, remember that the rich get richer, and the poor poorer even among states.  Unlike what many will tell you though, it is not any conspiracy.  It happens for very natural reasons that are endemic in human behavior.  The so-called experts in this story are not truly experts, but sourcerer’s apprentices who know a few tricks, but don’t truly understand pensions and investing.  And from what little I can tell from here, they still haven’t learned.  I would fire them all, and replace all of the boards in question, and turn the politicians who are responsible out of office.  Let the people of South Carolina figure out what they must do here — I’m a foreigner to them, but they might want to hear my opinion."

"Forewarned is forearmed.  South Carolina is a harbinger of future problems, in their case made worse by opportunists who sold the idea of high-yielding investments to trustees that proved to be a bunch of rubes.  But the high returns were only needed because of the overly high promises made to state employees, and the unwillingness to levy taxes sufficient to fund them."