6 ms·

The Millionaire Cop Next Door

68 points by parennoob 12y ago

trhway 12y ago
compare to your 401k contribution: http://paloaltofreepress.com/palo-alto-city-employees-to-reap-a-boat-load-of-money-on-taxpayers-sponsored-cruiseliner/ http://paloaltofreepress.com/palo-alto-city-employees-to-rea... "The city’s pension contribution for police managers will be $59,903 on average, according to the proposed budget. Police officers pensions are the next most expensive, costing $42,688 each, followed by firefighters pensions at an annual average cost of $42,289, and fire chiefs pensions at $41,828." This 40K+/year contribution is what allows to pay those 200K+/year pensions.
- rhizome 12y ago
  Next time anybody says developers are too expensive, ask yourself how much they would have to earn to get $50K in matching on their 401(k).
DeadHitchhiker 12y ago
It's fantastic how articles like these trot out figures like '$80k a year!' as if we're all supposed to be shocked and appalled that someone is making around what it costs to have a decent home and raise a family. I guess we really do need to pay our greedy firemen and teachers less, they have had it too good for too long making a decent wage and deserve to go right on the scrapheap with the rest of the trash in this country that we've already convinced to work for peanuts. Not that they had a choice.
- bruceb 12y ago
  Should you get paid near $80k a year for the next 26 years when you are not working? I also think it should be adjustable depending where you are living. Do you live in the area and so plowing some of that money back in to the local economy? If not there should be a reduction. England is reducing some benefits for those who live abroad and thus not spending money in the country.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - DeadHitchhiker 12y ago
    > Should you get paid near $80k a year for the next 26 years when you are not working? Yes. Why not? Because that offends your sensibilities about work? Because you feel that people should work until they're 65~70 to retire, if they ever manage to? Right now a number of school teachers are working until their late 60s to make a pittance upon retirement, trading down from houses to mobile homes to even make their retirement manageable. Do you feel these people aren't as worthy as others making obscene amounts of money as they essentially raise the nation's children for them? Your entire supposition either buys into the myth that there isn't enough to go around or worse, that you simply believe because we treat the majority of our labor pool like shit that anyone daring not to is in the wrong.
    - adventured 12y ago
      Why not? Because the math doesn't work out in the end. Never has, never will. You can't raise taxes high enough to make it all work, and you can't force people to stay in those munis and pay the taxes. It's a utopian government fantasy that is collapsing and taking municipal well-being down with it.
    - bruceb 12y ago
      Clearly I suggested they be banished to the poor houses so that the ghosts of rich monocle wearing robbery barons could fling quarters at them and watch the teachers scramble.
    - zo1 12y ago
      "> Should you get paid near $80k a year for the next 26 years when you are not working? Yes. Why not?" They got paid a salary their entire working career, which they should have been taking out of to save up for retirement. You know, like the rest of society does.
      - joshAg 12y ago
- melling 12y ago
  The real question is can we afford it. Public pensions are not fully funded while the employee is working. In many cases there won't be enough people paying their benefits in the future so taxes will need to be increased or benefits cut.
  - bsder 12y ago
    We can afford it if the people in charge of the pensions would put the money away when they're supposed to aka NOW. Instead, everybody treated pension funds like piggy banks, looted them, and now want to run away with the money with the "Oh they're so greedy."
    - ars 12y ago
      That doesn't make it affordable. That just makes it unaffordable much earlier - which is useful granted, but doesn't actually solve the problem.
    - zo1 12y ago
      You can afford it, of course! Assuming you take debt out against your unborn children, and grandchildrens' future labor. If you're fine with that then keep repeating: "Yes we can!" Some of the stats I've seen claim that the US has trillions in unfunded liabilities such as these pension funds. Anyone have any concrete stats we can reference?
- declan 12y ago
  I don't think the article was trotting out $80K/year as the shock figure. That was supposed to be the $2 million number. (It's also in the headline.)
noname123 12y ago
I think it's great that police officers, teachers and gov't employees with seniority make six figures with pension in some of the better unionized municipalities. Their work provide a valuable and concrete service to the community. I think startup enthusiasts on the other hand are kind of like starting a band, providing entertainment/art for an audience and for the performer to satisfy an itch. Life is a finite thing which makes our chosen paths speak for our individual/subjective values. We shouldn't be green about other people's financial or personal success, but should of focus on ourselves and embrace the rewards and consequences our choices make. I think that's what makes a Computer Programmer so exciting. You can either choose to work for a startup and be a rock star or you can choose to work to work at a regular company or gov't with good life balance and benefits; and/or save your money and good planning to retire at mid-50's. I must admit, sometimes it does feel like I didn't have the choice and have been dealt with a bad hand. But I think how lucky I'm to be in US where I can eat really delicious taco's, watch free TV shows/movies and chillax with peeps and other things I enjoy without being rich. Ofc, there's a lot of social pressure to earn more for your family and for yourself, but I think relationships in general should focus on empowering the other person than imposing with money, expectations or guilt. And being upset with what other peeps make is just my own projections of my own insecurities.
- nilsimsa 12y ago
  I just think we shouldn't be bankrupting the state and cities to pay for these pensions.
  - dalke 12y ago
    Going back in time, when the person first started as an employee, the employer made a promise that the person would receive a pension upon retirement. That was part of the employment contract negotiation. People decided on a job based in part on the entire earnings, which includes both salary and pension. Some people are willing to take a lower salary in order to have a higher pension, while others prefer it the other way around. If the state and cities are going bankrupt then why did they enter the contract in the first place? What was the economic planning they did which let them conclude - apparently falsely - that they would be able to keep their side of the bargain, and how has it broken down? Personally, I believe it's a combination of continued pressure to lower taxes and continued pressure to outsource government work to more expensive private businesses, especially when tied to the philosophical idea that the government should be small enough to 'drown it in the bathtub.' In other words, another solution to not going bankrupt is to raise taxes, rather than breaking existing contracts.
breakend 12y ago
Having been raised in a single parent home with a government employed mother, I know first hand that it is extremely difficult to raise a family on a government salary. Like another commenter said, these plans also are paid for from the government paycheck in part by the workers, reducing their current salary. Often, these government workers are also raising families and putting their kids through school. Without such a pension plan, this would not be possible and many (especially single parent) families of government working households would be stuck to a threshold close to the poverty line. The reality is that just because over the course of 30-some-odd years of hard work they accumulate enough pension to live a middle-class life style, does not make them millionaires, especially when you take into account healthcare deductions, the cost of living, their childrens' education, and any mortgage/car payments. The least we can do is support the people that protect, educate, and serve our communities. It is not necessary to bring light to their supposedly vast troves of wealth (sarcasm) when there are plenty of millionaires and billionaires who acquire their wealth through questionable means. (Also I don't approve of the fact that comments on the article itself are disabled, sidenote.)
- theboss 12y ago
  I accidently upvoted you and now I have NP idea how to remove it. It depends on what you do. A secretary will make far less than the chief of police but they both happen to be government workers....how is that not obvious..?
- zo1 12y ago
  "Often, these government workers are also raising families and putting their kids through school. Without such a pension plan, this would not be possible and many (especially single parent) families of government working households would be stuck to a threshold close to the poverty line." Please can you explain to me, honestly. Why would someone that has children or plans to willingly choose to take a pay cut in exchange for a big pension fund? Sounds very selfish, because it implies that these people want to struggle to pay for their children's upbringing and education just so that they could have a "cushy middle-class" retirement when the kids are out of the house. That is the quote and justification one of the posters below used when explaining why it's okay that they get huge pensions instead of using their salary to save up for retirement like the rest of society.
declan 12y ago
Forbes is just now reporting on the obvious: $2 million in pension benefits per retiree is becoming increasingly unaffordable for many cities. (Also because municipal workers in some states can switch jobs to a nearby city and get a second pension, that can jump to $4 million per person.) In the San Francisco bay area we have this nearby example: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703625304575115551578762006 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405274870362530... "The study also found that lavish pay and benefit packages were a root cause of the city's problems. In Vallejo compensation packages for police captains top $300,000 a year and average $171,000 a year for firefighters. Regular public employees in the city can retire at age 55 with 81% of their final year's pay guaranteed. Police and fire officials can retire at age 50 with a pension that pays them 90% of their final year's salary every year for life and the lives of their spouses." And another example in California, where residents may be required to pay more in taxes (it's already the highest-taxed state) because of political mismanagement and ballooning pension benefits: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304815004579419371878171830 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230481500... "Yet government pension costs are soaring as the bills that politicians postponed during the hard economic times come due. No less than Warren Buffett warned this week that "local and state financial problems are accelerating, in large part because public entities promised pensions they couldn't afford." .. Calpers also voted last month to dun state taxpayers for an additional $1.2 billion a year. And lo, the state Legislative Analyst's Office says that California State Teachers' Retirement System (Calstrs) says it needs $5.3 billion to $5.7 billion more annually by 2020 to pay down its $71 billion shortfall. That's more than California spends on the University of California and Cal State colleges."
- patio11 12y ago
  There also exists a culture in California of systematically looting the pension system via "spiking", where everyone knows the formula of the pension weights the last year's pay most heavily, and engages in a game of "I'll scratch your back and someone will scratch mine in N years" whereby people are allowed sudden bumps in seniority / job title / overtime hours months before retirement, to no legitimate governmental purpose, with the sole objective of increasing their pension's value. There are a variety of reforms designed to address this, from speedbumps like "OK, we'll use the average of the last 3 years" to making spiking outright illegal. The common argument against illegalizing spiking is, I kid you not, that spiking is so ingrained in the cultural mores and expectations of California public servants that to deny spiking for new retirees would be grievously unfair to them when compared to Of-Course-I-Spiked-Everyone-Does retirees.
patio11 12y ago
I sympathize with the general direction of the criticism ("defined benefits pensions are much, much more valuable -- and expensive -- than people typically give them credit for"), but $2 million is strictly superior to a $80k annuity, even if one's assumption is 4% annualized post-inflation returns or, more pessimistically, a 4% safe draw-down rate. Cash doesn't expire when you expire, pensions (mostly) do. The fair cash value of the pension is closer to $1 million. (Please accept this as a handwavy approximation as I'm on a train -- you can probably find any number of calculators on the Internet which would give you a more exact calculation.)
- anifow 12y ago
  Yes, the author is pretty off-the-mark and I would say misleading. Here are some scenarios worked out with www.numbercanvas.com Early Retirement, Average Lifespan: $1 million Early Retirement, Long Lifespan: $1.5 million Average Retirement, Long Lifespan: $1.25 million Average Retirement, Average Lifespan: $650,000 Early Retirement, Short Lifespan: $480,000 http://pastebin.com/QU5dnCe8 http://pastebin.com/QU5dnCe8
  - Ntrails 12y ago
    Expected joint life at early retirement (which is what the article prices) in the US is ~35 years assuming spouse of similar age to the retiree (looking at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p590.pdf http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p590.pdf from a quick google). The 4% was not defined as real return, maybe it was supposed to be - but otherwise you need to account for the inflation linkage of the annuity. With that basis you get $1.4m with no inflation and almost exactly $2m with an inflation assumption of 2%.
- Ntrails 12y ago
  I am thrilled that you're able to design a risk free portfolio returning inflation + 4% annually. Please share this with the rest of the world, that we may all have better annuities... People massively undervalue pensions - especially those with additional benefits such as spousal, early retirement, minimum payment periods etc. The only valid valuation for any asset remains what it would cost in the market, and as such $2m is the correct value. It is entirely possible you'd rather have the cash, but it's not objectively superior.
hudibras 12y ago
Guys, guys, I hate to break this to you, but I think Forbes picked an example that may not be representative of the typical government pension. I'm not saying that I disagree with the North County Times of Carlsbad, California, but I think that most government pensions are not that generous. $30K/year is more likely, and those employees may not be entitled to Social Security benefits either. http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/pension-theft-class-war-goes-to-the-next-stage http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-colu... http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/23/retirement/detroit-pensions/ http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/23/retirement/detroit-pensions/
ajtaylor 12y ago
The article and discussion here left me wondering what will happen when some of the public pension funds inevitably start to default on their obligations? Based on the amount many states need to invest every year, an amount which they don't have and can't reasonably get via taxes/fees, I think it's only a question of if, not when.

68 points by parennoob 12y ago

compare to your 401k contribution: http://paloaltofreepress.com/palo-alto-city-employees-to-reap-a-boat-load-of-money-on-taxpayers-sponsored-cruiseliner/ http://paloaltofreepress.com/palo-alto-city-employees-to-rea... "The city’s pension contribution for police managers will be $59,903 on average, according to the proposed budget. Police officers pensions are the next most expensive, costing $42,688 each, followed by firefighters pensions at an annual average cost of $42,289, and fire chiefs pensions at $41,828." This 40K+/year contribution is what allows to pay those 200K+/year pensions.

rhizome 12y ago
Next time anybody says developers are too expensive, ask yourself how much they would have to earn to get $50K in matching on their 401(k).

DeadHitchhiker 12y ago

It's fantastic how articles like these trot out figures like '$80k a year!' as if we're all supposed to be shocked and appalled that someone is making around what it costs to have a decent home and raise a family. I guess we really do need to pay our greedy firemen and teachers less, they have had it too good for too long making a decent wage and deserve to go right on the scrapheap with the rest of the trash in this country that we've already convinced to work for peanuts. Not that they had a choice.

bruceb 12y ago
Should you get paid near $80k a year for the next 26 years when you are not working? I also think it should be adjustable depending where you are living. Do you live in the area and so plowing some of that money back in to the local economy? If not there should be a reduction. England is reducing some benefits for those who live abroad and thus not spending money in the country.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- DeadHitchhiker 12y ago
  > Should you get paid near $80k a year for the next 26 years when you are not working? Yes. Why not? Because that offends your sensibilities about work? Because you feel that people should work until they're 65~70 to retire, if they ever manage to? Right now a number of school teachers are working until their late 60s to make a pittance upon retirement, trading down from houses to mobile homes to even make their retirement manageable. Do you feel these people aren't as worthy as others making obscene amounts of money as they essentially raise the nation's children for them? Your entire supposition either buys into the myth that there isn't enough to go around or worse, that you simply believe because we treat the majority of our labor pool like shit that anyone daring not to is in the wrong.
  - adventured 12y ago
    Why not? Because the math doesn't work out in the end. Never has, never will. You can't raise taxes high enough to make it all work, and you can't force people to stay in those munis and pay the taxes. It's a utopian government fantasy that is collapsing and taking municipal well-being down with it.
  - bruceb 12y ago
    Clearly I suggested they be banished to the poor houses so that the ghosts of rich monocle wearing robbery barons could fling quarters at them and watch the teachers scramble.
  - zo1 12y ago
    "> Should you get paid near $80k a year for the next 26 years when you are not working? Yes. Why not?" They got paid a salary their entire working career, which they should have been taking out of to save up for retirement. You know, like the rest of society does.
    - joshAg 12y ago
melling 12y ago
The real question is can we afford it. Public pensions are not fully funded while the employee is working. In many cases there won't be enough people paying their benefits in the future so taxes will need to be increased or benefits cut.
- bsder 12y ago
  We can afford it if the people in charge of the pensions would put the money away when they're supposed to aka NOW. Instead, everybody treated pension funds like piggy banks, looted them, and now want to run away with the money with the "Oh they're so greedy."
  - ars 12y ago
    That doesn't make it affordable. That just makes it unaffordable much earlier - which is useful granted, but doesn't actually solve the problem.
  - zo1 12y ago
    You can afford it, of course! Assuming you take debt out against your unborn children, and grandchildrens' future labor. If you're fine with that then keep repeating: "Yes we can!" Some of the stats I've seen claim that the US has trillions in unfunded liabilities such as these pension funds. Anyone have any concrete stats we can reference?
declan 12y ago
I don't think the article was trotting out $80K/year as the shock figure. That was supposed to be the $2 million number. (It's also in the headline.)

noname123 12y ago

I think it's great that police officers, teachers and gov't employees with seniority make six figures with pension in some of the better unionized municipalities. Their work provide a valuable and concrete service to the community. I think startup enthusiasts on the other hand are kind of like starting a band, providing entertainment/art for an audience and for the performer to satisfy an itch. Life is a finite thing which makes our chosen paths speak for our individual/subjective values. We shouldn't be green about other people's financial or personal success, but should of focus on ourselves and embrace the rewards and consequences our choices make. I think that's what makes a Computer Programmer so exciting. You can either choose to work for a startup and be a rock star or you can choose to work to work at a regular company or gov't with good life balance and benefits; and/or save your money and good planning to retire at mid-50's. I must admit, sometimes it does feel like I didn't have the choice and have been dealt with a bad hand. But I think how lucky I'm to be in US where I can eat really delicious taco's, watch free TV shows/movies and chillax with peeps and other things I enjoy without being rich. Ofc, there's a lot of social pressure to earn more for your family and for yourself, but I think relationships in general should focus on empowering the other person than imposing with money, expectations or guilt. And being upset with what other peeps make is just my own projections of my own insecurities.

nilsimsa 12y ago
I just think we shouldn't be bankrupting the state and cities to pay for these pensions.
- dalke 12y ago
  Going back in time, when the person first started as an employee, the employer made a promise that the person would receive a pension upon retirement. That was part of the employment contract negotiation. People decided on a job based in part on the entire earnings, which includes both salary and pension. Some people are willing to take a lower salary in order to have a higher pension, while others prefer it the other way around. If the state and cities are going bankrupt then why did they enter the contract in the first place? What was the economic planning they did which let them conclude - apparently falsely - that they would be able to keep their side of the bargain, and how has it broken down? Personally, I believe it's a combination of continued pressure to lower taxes and continued pressure to outsource government work to more expensive private businesses, especially when tied to the philosophical idea that the government should be small enough to 'drown it in the bathtub.' In other words, another solution to not going bankrupt is to raise taxes, rather than breaking existing contracts.

breakend 12y ago

Having been raised in a single parent home with a government employed mother, I know first hand that it is extremely difficult to raise a family on a government salary. Like another commenter said, these plans also are paid for from the government paycheck in part by the workers, reducing their current salary. Often, these government workers are also raising families and putting their kids through school. Without such a pension plan, this would not be possible and many (especially single parent) families of government working households would be stuck to a threshold close to the poverty line. The reality is that just because over the course of 30-some-odd years of hard work they accumulate enough pension to live a middle-class life style, does not make them millionaires, especially when you take into account healthcare deductions, the cost of living, their childrens' education, and any mortgage/car payments. The least we can do is support the people that protect, educate, and serve our communities. It is not necessary to bring light to their supposedly vast troves of wealth (sarcasm) when there are plenty of millionaires and billionaires who acquire their wealth through questionable means. (Also I don't approve of the fact that comments on the article itself are disabled, sidenote.)

theboss 12y ago
I accidently upvoted you and now I have NP idea how to remove it. It depends on what you do. A secretary will make far less than the chief of police but they both happen to be government workers....how is that not obvious..?
zo1 12y ago
"Often, these government workers are also raising families and putting their kids through school. Without such a pension plan, this would not be possible and many (especially single parent) families of government working households would be stuck to a threshold close to the poverty line." Please can you explain to me, honestly. Why would someone that has children or plans to willingly choose to take a pay cut in exchange for a big pension fund? Sounds very selfish, because it implies that these people want to struggle to pay for their children's upbringing and education just so that they could have a "cushy middle-class" retirement when the kids are out of the house. That is the quote and justification one of the posters below used when explaining why it's okay that they get huge pensions instead of using their salary to save up for retirement like the rest of society.

declan 12y ago

Forbes is just now reporting on the obvious: $2 million in pension benefits per retiree is becoming increasingly unaffordable for many cities. (Also because municipal workers in some states can switch jobs to a nearby city and get a second pension, that can jump to $4 million per person.) In the San Francisco bay area we have this nearby example: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703625304575115551578762006 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405274870362530... "The study also found that lavish pay and benefit packages were a root cause of the city's problems. In Vallejo compensation packages for police captains top $300,000 a year and average $171,000 a year for firefighters. Regular public employees in the city can retire at age 55 with 81% of their final year's pay guaranteed. Police and fire officials can retire at age 50 with a pension that pays them 90% of their final year's salary every year for life and the lives of their spouses." And another example in California, where residents may be required to pay more in taxes (it's already the highest-taxed state) because of political mismanagement and ballooning pension benefits: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304815004579419371878171830 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230481500... "Yet government pension costs are soaring as the bills that politicians postponed during the hard economic times come due. No less than Warren Buffett warned this week that "local and state financial problems are accelerating, in large part because public entities promised pensions they couldn't afford." .. Calpers also voted last month to dun state taxpayers for an additional $1.2 billion a year. And lo, the state Legislative Analyst's Office says that California State Teachers' Retirement System (Calstrs) says it needs $5.3 billion to $5.7 billion more annually by 2020 to pay down its $71 billion shortfall. That's more than California spends on the University of California and Cal State colleges."

patio11 12y ago
There also exists a culture in California of systematically looting the pension system via "spiking", where everyone knows the formula of the pension weights the last year's pay most heavily, and engages in a game of "I'll scratch your back and someone will scratch mine in N years" whereby people are allowed sudden bumps in seniority / job title / overtime hours months before retirement, to no legitimate governmental purpose, with the sole objective of increasing their pension's value. There are a variety of reforms designed to address this, from speedbumps like "OK, we'll use the average of the last 3 years" to making spiking outright illegal. The common argument against illegalizing spiking is, I kid you not, that spiking is so ingrained in the cultural mores and expectations of California public servants that to deny spiking for new retirees would be grievously unfair to them when compared to Of-Course-I-Spiked-Everyone-Does retirees.

patio11 12y ago

I sympathize with the general direction of the criticism ("defined benefits pensions are much, much more valuable -- and expensive -- than people typically give them credit for"), but $2 million is strictly superior to a $80k annuity, even if one's assumption is 4% annualized post-inflation returns or, more pessimistically, a 4% safe draw-down rate. Cash doesn't expire when you expire, pensions (mostly) do. The fair cash value of the pension is closer to $1 million. (Please accept this as a handwavy approximation as I'm on a train -- you can probably find any number of calculators on the Internet which would give you a more exact calculation.)

anifow 12y ago
Yes, the author is pretty off-the-mark and I would say misleading. Here are some scenarios worked out with www.numbercanvas.com Early Retirement, Average Lifespan: $1 million Early Retirement, Long Lifespan: $1.5 million Average Retirement, Long Lifespan: $1.25 million Average Retirement, Average Lifespan: $650,000 Early Retirement, Short Lifespan: $480,000 http://pastebin.com/QU5dnCe8 http://pastebin.com/QU5dnCe8
- Ntrails 12y ago
  Expected joint life at early retirement (which is what the article prices) in the US is ~35 years assuming spouse of similar age to the retiree (looking at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p590.pdf http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p590.pdf from a quick google). The 4% was not defined as real return, maybe it was supposed to be - but otherwise you need to account for the inflation linkage of the annuity. With that basis you get $1.4m with no inflation and almost exactly $2m with an inflation assumption of 2%.
Ntrails 12y ago
I am thrilled that you're able to design a risk free portfolio returning inflation + 4% annually. Please share this with the rest of the world, that we may all have better annuities... People massively undervalue pensions - especially those with additional benefits such as spousal, early retirement, minimum payment periods etc. The only valid valuation for any asset remains what it would cost in the market, and as such $2m is the correct value. It is entirely possible you'd rather have the cash, but it's not objectively superior.

hudibras 12y ago

Guys, guys, I hate to break this to you, but I think Forbes picked an example that may not be representative of the typical government pension. I'm not saying that I disagree with the North County Times of Carlsbad, California, but I think that most government pensions are not that generous. $30K/year is more likely, and those employees may not be entitled to Social Security benefits either. http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/pension-theft-class-war-goes-to-the-next-stage http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-colu... http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/23/retirement/detroit-pensions/ http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/23/retirement/detroit-pensions/

ajtaylor 12y ago

The article and discussion here left me wondering what will happen when some of the public pension funds inevitably start to default on their obligations? Based on the amount many states need to invest every year, an amount which they don't have and can't reasonably get via taxes/fees, I think it's only a question of if, not when.