Wealth Transfer and the Public Pension Crisis

I think I'd mentioned before that in all our caterwauling about the public-employee pension crisis, we might as well start from the recognition that a good deal of this money will never be paid: not funded now, and not going to be funded by voters with tar buckets and pitchforks.

My friend Taxmom adds another filllip, addressing the issue of what happens to that money after it goes out of the public trough to fatten the retiree.  She points out that a fair amount of it just keeps right on moving until it lands in the pockets of the pensioners' dependent adult children.  In this sense, at least, public pension money is beginning to look like a more general form of off-the-books welfare.