Now comes the tsunami of pension problems that will wash over many cities and states. According to its mayor, the city is “walking into the fan blades” of pension promises: The fund for retired police and firefighters is $5 billion underfunded. In the entire year, the fund paid out $283 million and the city put in just $115 million. Last September, in the seventh year of the recovery from the Great Recession, the vice chair of the agency in charge of Oregon’s government workers’ pension system wept when speaking about the state’s unfunded pension promises passing $22 billion. This game, a degradation of democracy, could be disrupted by laws requiring more realistic expectations about returns on pension fund investments, or even by congressional hearings to highlight the problem.

Source: Washington Post February 23, 2017 00:44 UTC