- The Public Pension Disaster

I've been writing about this for years, but I strongly suspect no one cares ....yet.

My friend John Derbyshire posted my "Civil Servants Gone Wild" piece in the corner once. In that one I said that most economic terms cause spontaneous narcolepsy and that 'Unfunded pension liability" is no different. I tried to make the lighthearted parallel between the way our public pensions are being run and the way a college kid uses their parents credit card while on vacation in Mexico. If you understand the ins and outs of institutional finance, it's a better comparison than it probably seems if you don't.

Here is a TownHall piece by Bruce Bialosky which puts some harder numbers on the problem, using California (natch) as an example. But I can assure you that the very same thing is occurring in NJ, NY, Mass, VA etc. Since the process is self sustaining there is no way to break the chain. Large benefits leads to big union gains, which leads to big political contributions, which leads to politicians friendly to big benefits etc. Round and round we go until the music stops and we realize that we just burned the last chair for firewood. that's when we typically realize that not only is there nownowhere for anyone to sit, but winter is coming and there is nothing left to burn either.

That's progressive America.