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Pennsylvania's Pension Fury?

"Joseph Torsella, state treasurer, has accused Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System (PSERS) and Pennsylvania State Employees' Retirement System (SERS) of wasting $5.5 billion paid as fees to Wall Street investment managers whose funds performed poorly. The dispute follows similar rows in Maryland and California, where pension officials were forced to admit their failure over decades to disclose multimillion-dollar payments to private equity managers."

Tackling Quebec's Pension Deficits?

"Clearly Quebec City and Montreal can't afford the status quo. Pension payments are draining their city coffers. They need to follow New Brunswick and move to a shared risk model for their defined benefit plans[.]"

MetLife's Missing Pension Payments?

"Companies offload pension risk, and it's up to the insurers to manage those pensions, including the administration of pension payments.... [As] more and more companies offload pension risk to insurers, these type of operational blunders are simply not acceptable. It's not just embarrassing, it could cost MetLife future business."

The Pension Storm Cometh?

"[T]he pension storm isn't coming, it's been here for years and will only get worse. Whenever people talk about pensions, they typically focus on assets, not liabilities. This is a fundamental mistake because pensions are all about managing assets and liabilities. In short, it's about the funded status, stupid, not bragging about how much money your pension plan makes in any given year. This is especially true in the US where you have mature, chronically underfunded pensions which are poorly governed. No matter what they do, they will never be able to invest their way back to fully-funded status."

The Public Pension Problem?

"The legislative response to public pension deficits is predictable and shortsighted. Some reforms, like raising the retirement age and using career average earnings for determining pension benefits, are necessary as people are living longer.... U.S. pension reforms need to incorporate the shared risk model that has worked so well in the Netherlands.... Moreover, U.S. pension funds need to incorporate the same governance model that has allowed Canadian public pension funds to flourish. This means adopting independent investment boards that operate at arms-length from the government and compensating public pension fund managers more in line with what private sector fund managers receive."

America's Crumbling Pension Future?

"[T]he biggest problem with all these multiemployer pension plans is they never had proper governance, were raked on fees by Wall Street, and were poorly managed for decades.... And now that the chickens have come home to roost ... retirees seeing their pension benefits being slashed by half or more are rightfully asking for the government to help them."

Chicago's Pension Patch Job?

"In Chicago, powerful public unions are going head to head with a powerful and unpopular mayor who got rebuffed by Illinois's Supreme Court when he tried cutting pension benefits. Now, they are tinkering around the edges, increasing the contribution rate for new employees of the city's smallest pension, which is not going to make a significant impact on what is truly ailing Chicago and Illinois's public pensions. All these measures are like putting a band-aid over a metastasized tumor."

New Jersey's Pension War?

"There is only one solution to this pension mess, introduce a shared risk plan and improve the governance of the state pension fund, which has far-reaching implications. Unfortunately, New Jersey is just one of many delusional U.S. pension funds that thinks it will invest its way out of this mess."

America's Looming Pension Disaster

"The discussion on pensions in the United States is mute. It's as if there is no crisis going on.... [W]hen the next crisis hits, you will see many U.S. public and private pensions get decimated. It's not a matter of if but a matter of when and the longer they put off real reforms, including reforming their terrible governance, the worse it will get."

Detroit's Deep Pension Freeze?

"[S]hifting public or private sector workers into a defined-contribution plan is effectively condemning them to pension poverty. Politicians recommending such reforms are absolutely clueless on the benefits of defined-benefit plans. They're basically appealing to the masses who are equally clueless on what consists of good pension and economic policy."