[Rusty0604]

The gov’t employee already underfunded pensions aren’t worried about losses, because they are under contract with a defined benefit plan and the taxpayers will have to pay.

[Riflema]

Here's an (at least to me) intriguing question about govt defined benefit plans: why do govt entities "fund" them at all? I understand that in the dreaded private sector, funded defined benefits are needed - a firm can go bust and contributions already made should be safe from that. But a govt body? The very essence of govt bodies is that they are immortal! No matter what, they have that power of taxation that can be used to fund all employee benefits.

Think it through:

• no fund to establish means no favors to friends to run the funds
• no fund to establish means no tinkering with contribution rates to alleviate current account budget problems
• no fund means the govt body (including its workers who are future benefit recipients) has to think about the balance between current employee payroll and pension bennies.

In short, picture this: what would happen if, say, the school budget had to be allocated year-by-year to current and past employee benefits in an "equitable" way? I'd love to listen in on those discussions.

Guess I got that off my chest...

[Vermont Lt]

Yes. The tax payer will have to pay. And that means that there will be higher taxes and/or more money printed.

My SS projection is in the couple of thousand a month when I turn 65. My guess is that the dollar will be so inflated by then that my SS will amount to about half of that in today’s dollars.