Calpers is a giant government monopoly in California. No matter what any municipality in California did wrong, I have no sympathy for Calpers. Like Freddie and Fannie it should be “sold off in pieces” to a bunch of newly privatized non-profit, non-polictical pension investment outfits that afterward any enterprise, governmental or non-governmental was free to participate in, or not, as they chose. I say “non-profit” because like the old “mutal” insurance company model the “owners” are the policy holders and all “gross profits” (capital gains and investment earnings) minus all needed operations costs and reserves that should not be distributed accrue to the pension accounts of the pension policy holders - they are the investor owners. And, as with any “mutual” insurance company it does not mean it is not competitive or not out there competing for business.
This is a tough one. As much as I hate unions, I have a hard time sympathizing with someone buying San Bernardino bonds in 2005. It has been obvious for a LONG time that California & its cities are in a race to hell...