Right, like imagine a majority of all American pensions busting out at once because they all roughly bought SPY and QQQ and then we have some major bubble burst

Right, like imagine a majority of all American pensions busting out at once because they all roughly bought SPY and QQQ and then we have some major bubble burst that takes more than a few years to resolve itself and those indices are down 40% for 5 years. If 3% returns is not fully covered, -30% returns would have to be an existential crisis. I would imagine many retired government workers would end out on the streets or instead they will print an ungodly amount of money to paper over and shift it into a different problem.