Looting the Pension Funds
All across America, Wall Street is grabbing money meant for public workers
The siege of America's public-fund money really began nearly 40 years ago, in 1974, when Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA. In theory, this sweeping regulatory legislation was designed to protect the retirement money of workers with pension plans. ERISA forces employers to provide information about where pension money is being invested, gives employees the right to sue for breaches of fiduciary duty, and imposes a conservative "prudent man" rule on the managers of retiree funds, dictating that they must make sensible investments and seek to minimize loss. But this landmark worker-protection law left open a major loophole: It didn't cover public pensions. Some states were balking at federal oversight, and lawmakers, naively perhaps, simply never contemplated the possibility of local governments robbing their own workers.[Source]
- Pension Theft Crime Wave
- How A $100,000 Check Exposes the Politics of Pension Theft
- Illinois Pensions: Politicians Steal, Teachers and Taxpayers Pay (youtube video)
- Public Pension Crisis: The Problem (youtube video)
- Public Pensions Face $2 Trillion Hole: Moody's
- REPORT: STATE DEBTS TOP $5 TRILLION
- Promises Made, Promises Broken - The Betrayal of Pensioners and Taxpayers
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