The Looting of Detroit’s Pensions — The American Magazine:
"Public employee pensions also need better oversight. Unlike corporate pensions, public plans are unregulated except by the governments that sponsor them. And many pension trustees are either union representatives or the appointees of politicians who gained office through union support, giving a fox-regulating-the-henhouse aspect to pension oversight. Pension boards are anything but neutral players in the current debates over pension reform. While pension governance is complex, simple changes — such as making employees help pay off unfunded liabilities, as Nevada’s pensions do — would align incentives toward better management. Detroit’s pensions present a lesson: public employees won’t turn down a good deal. It’s elected officials who have to learn to say no."
Bottom line: history is replete with examples that politicians don't say no, especially when they are enriching themselves at the same public trough. Answer? Abolish all public pensions (in the private sector almost no one receives a pension these days) , everyone on social security and individual retirement accounts -- that's it. But I guess it's too hard for politicians to do the "right thing" particularly when they are "stealing" from the same public trough as the public unions,
et al.
