I guess I’m cynical. I’ve been paying attention to pensions and their obvious insolvency since before the financial crisis. They all have wacky assumptions that I don’t think anyone seriously believes could ever be true.

I’m not a mathematician or an actuary, but these pensions have been underfunded for decades by any measure. Maybe some of the underfunding can be explained by a lack of careful oversight, I don’t know. But it seems much more likely that pension managers dually recognize that 1) they have cover of law to run their pensions poorly and they won’t ever be brought to justice for abandoning their fiduciary duties 2) they have the tacit or explicit promise that they’ll get bailed out in the “unlikely” eventuality that they fail.

And of course, politicians aren’t on the hook for bailouts either, so it’s a big circle jerk of people all winking at each other and collecting generous paychecks and well-funded retirements while they destroy a the pension plans of other people (intelligently or not) trusted to their care.

I happen to think, and I recognize that I’m weird, that people should keep careful tabs on their retirement accounts. No one is better incentivized to make sure that pensions are adequately funded and responsibly managed than pensioners. I didn’t notice too much of a kerfuffle from these people 1 year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago or 20 years ago when they maybe could have done something about the obvious pending insolvency. They didn’t, as far as I can tell. They were equally gleeful to join in on the winking and nodding from politicians and pension managers.

I’m not blaming these people for believing their defined benefits would stay that way… but I think it’s a lesson other still-not-doomed pensioners might learn. And it’s an important lesson for everyone to keep in mind: no one cares more about your financial well being than you do. They can’t.