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Re:Champions of the 401(k) Lament the Revolution They Started by gohrt on Monday January 02, 2017 @08:09PM (#13305845)
Pensions are funded. There is a national pension insurance fund. They are completely sustainable, as long as they are funded. A pension is an annuity. The pension money comes from money that is withheld from wages.

Now, if some company engages in wage theft (raids its pension fund), that's fraud just as any Madoff-esque pyramid scheme.

Re:Champions of the 401(k) Lament the Revolution They Started by sigzero on Monday January 02, 2017 @10:02PM (#13306354)
California is in a pension crisis because they screwed they whole thing up. When people are involved, expect those screw ups.
Re:Champions of the 401(k) Lament the Revolution They Started by eaguyhn on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @11:16AM (#13310131)
Which pension system are you referring to? State, counties and cities each have their own system. The press tends to lump them all together but they are independent of each other, save for the management organization.
Re:Champions of the 401(k) Lament the Revolution They Started by hudibras on Monday January 02, 2017 @08:49PM (#13306031)
The HN crowd will never believe this, because it runs contrary to the beliefs of libertarianism and the what-I-vaguely-remember-from-Econ-101 crowd, but correctly-funded public pensions are completely sustainable. The main reason is that public pensions operate on a nearly infinite time horizon, unlike a worker's 401(k).
Re:Champions of the 401(k) Lament the Revolution They Started by grzm on Monday January 02, 2017 @11:15PM (#13306671)
The HN crowd will never believe this

Please don't make generalizations like this, especially of a community you choose to participate in. Your comment reads perfectly well if you omit everything up through but.

Re:Champions of the 401(k) Lament the Revolution They Started by hudibras on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @02:09AM (#13307326)
Good point, thanks.
Re:Champions of the 401(k) Lament the Revolution They Started by analog31 on Monday January 02, 2017 @09:27PM (#13306188)
Long ago, conservatives believed that public assistance made people immoral. Then Ronald Reagan discovered that his own followers actually like their public assistance when it benefits them and not those "other" people. So conservatives changed their tune and began claiming that public assistance is "unsustainable."