[quote=pri_dk]So the Mexican drug cartels have all the pension funds.[/quote]

Setting aside the sarcasm, we have this thing called a ‘Drug War’ and law enforcement routinely seizes assets from drug busts. The FBI runs an investigation a couple of years ago and learns there’s nearly $400 billion dollars worth of cartel drug money getting laundered through Wachovia Bank in the United States. As it turns out, the drug money is the only thing keeping Wachovia solvent. Holy fuck, huh? So the Obama Administration’s DOJ buries the case and settles out of court with a minor fine and no admission of wrongdoing.

In other words, keeping Wachovia afloat is more important than shutting down an insolvent bank — a criminal enterprise no less, jailing its management, confiscating drug cartel assets and using the bank’s ill-gotten funds to safeguard the deposits of average Americans and offset losses to ordinary investments and pensions. There was an immense amount of fraud, incidentally, associated with Wachovia’s mortgage lending operations.

By my calculation, that’s $30B right off the top from the drug cartels. Probably another $70B could have been squeezed out of the bank and sent back to depositors and ordinary American investors through bankruptcy and restructuring — “Sorry, China. Sorry, Goldman-Sachs. Sorry, Sheik Ali Dick Wad (funding Islamic terrorism). Get in line. Oregon Municipal Employees are getting paid first.” The rest of the bank’s operations and assets would work their way through bankruptcy proceedings. On top of all this, Wachovia executives would likely be rotting in jail.

Average local public employees union is the least of our problems.