In an introduction at Facebook for my last blog post I wrote as follows:

A few years ago at a public forum I listened apprehensively as the owner of a large St. Louis business defended the attacks on pensions that are going on presently in the public and private sectors. “Why should today’s managers have to abide by contracts with workers that were made over twenty-five years ago?” he asked. I might put the question differently, at least with respect to public workers: “Why should todays managers, having systematically and illegally underfunded public pension obligations for years (and perhaps lost workers’ contributions by bad management and high-risk investment strategies) be allowed an escape hatch?” But my argument and others like it have largely fallen on deaf ears for the past thirty-plus years. Now we’re seeing the consequence of this unconscionable public irresponsibility in Detroit, complete with the connivance of the Obama administration.

But I spoke too soon, at least in one respect. Underfunding pensions for public workers has not been illegal since 1974. In a piece that appeared in Rolling Stone a few weeks back, Matt Taibbi has presented a substantial and well-documented analysis of the financial crisis we seem to be in as a nation, that honors the perspective of those of us who worry that benefits we worked for years to obtain may disappear because of the machinations of “huckster financiers.”