This is from Barron's commentary on Saturday:
Calpers [The California Public Employees' Retirement System] and its strategists have led pension management down many garden paths, claiming, for example, that investing for social returns also would produce acceptable financial returns. ... It was no coincidence that some of its strategies resembled the platforms of California politicians. ...Taxpayers will pay for Calpers miscues. California's constitution puts public pension benefits ahead of all other forms of state spending, no matter how badly the public employee pension funds perform. ... Public pension funds aren't managed by people who have the taxpayers' interests at heart. Most managers are beholden to public- employee unions; some are themselves public employees more interested in their benefits than their costs.
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