Public Employee Pensions: America’s Ticking Time Bomb

The stock market’s volatility continues to roil and slam retail investors’ portfolios. After last month’s ups and downs, the Dow continued its downward trajectory this week by dropping another 700 points. While many focus on such dramatic plunges, there is a more obscure, almost hidden problem in the financial system: public employee pension funds across America are suffering extensive market losses and putting the retirements of the workers they are supposed to protect at high risk. About half the states have pension plans that are 70% funded or much worse. And states can’t borrow or sell bonds to China to prop them up, according to a recent report on MarketWatch. It is estimated that in five years or so, some of those states will likely have to either cut their services, the equivalent of a state bailout, or they will need a federal bailout. And that’s a problem for all taxpayers. The MarketWatch report, which draws many of its conclusions from a…

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