pension issues are almost entirely caused by 2 things:

underfunding – actual decision’s by politicians to use the money elsewhere

one sided “bargaining” by unions with pols they donated money to and got elected – think pension spiking, credits for uniform allowances, cities purchasing or outright granting time or benefits to people, double dipping etc

the article made it very clear that pensions investing in hedge funds and PE was a relatively new phenomenon. Wall St has not taken over any pension funds. Again, managers make descisions to invest ins tocks, bonds etc. I’m not sure what “market distortions” are.