is a simpler explanation. And one perfectly in character for those involved. Every last dime in the hands of anyone other than the tenth-percenters is a dime that belongs to THEM in their own minds.

You don't get into that situation by poor accounting practice

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/rtc/chi-pension-crisis-gallery-storygallery.html

this is the kind of thing that is done to cover up/mitigate the fallout

In this case:

"Because they can."

They're biding their time hoping to regain the money (probably in even riskier vehicles). However, even assuming they succeed in that endeavor they would then just take those gains and reinvest them, thus never recapitalizing the pension funds.

It's becoming a Ponzi scheme except the true owners of the money have no say over whether or not to participate.

a thief, and talk like a thief, and steals like a thief??? Its a DUCK!!

Capitalists nowadays only care about maximizing next quarter's profits, even if that means cannibalizing the company. Why? Because with capital gains taxes so low being a vulture capitalist is more profitable than actual investment in the real economy.

Everyone feeds from the same medicine dropper.

The money was never there anyway. Wall Street owners set up the perfect system in the 80s. It is all just numbers in accounts somewhere on hard drives. At least to those that cook books like Enron did. To the actual people they steal from, it is very real and costs lives and livelihood.

The cromnibus bill (OTOH) is what helps them hide poor accounting practices. It lets them write their own policies and pass laws at our expense.

Pensions are deferred compensation. Essentially, you have stolen years of work from someone when you loot their pension.

The company already got the value of a person's work, and they squeeze out more when they don't honor pensions. The money is always there, it just went to someone else.

not to fund adequately pension plans. "Oops, the pension plan is underfunded. Guess we have to cut benefits." Kinda like if you bought a car, didn't make the payments, so the seller lowered the price of the car you bought. Car buyers would learn pretty fast, would they not? Not that that would ever happen to us peons.

I am a public employee with a union plan that the state hasn't funded per the contract for years. Now they are whining that they have this huge pension fund liability. Funny how that works.