[quote=CA renter]
Mind you, CalPERS used to manage almost everything in-house and had tight restrictions WRT what they could invest in — almost exclusively Treasuries with some smaller allocations to very highly-rated municipal and corporate debt. Wall Street lobbied hard both to change their allocations to riskier investments (those lovely “innovations” created by Wall Street, included), and then lobbied to have outside managers and consultants at the public pension funds. If not for those changes — the PRIVATIZATION movement at work — the “pension crisis” would be much less significant than it is today, if it were to exist at all.
So…how’s that “privatization” thing working for you?[/quote]
Well it would be really tough to assume a 7.5% rate of return if you had to put most of you assets into treasuries and highly rated debt. Most of that is paying somewhere between 2 and 4% now and has been for awhile. If you have to assume 3-5% rates of return you’re screwed anyways.