Public Pensions Are Shooting Themselves In The Foot: Here’s How

Late last year it looked like the pension crisis was getting a little bit less bad, in the sense that funding levels had improved a bit. However, the extreme market volatility experienced in the last three months of 2018 may have undone most of the improvements, and any further volatility this year threatens to wipe out the rest.

In fact, public pension funds appear to be their own worst enemies because the harder they try to rack up gains against their massive amounts of unfunded liabilities, the harder it's becoming for them to make any progress. Essentially, volatility begets more volatility, which erases the high returns they desperately need.

Changes urged at public pension funds

Moody's Investors Service Analyst Thomas Aaron warned...