[sykh]

...pensions create a long term liability in a way that putting cash in employee 401k doesn’t.

Assuming we don’t want to live in a society in which vast numbers of elderly live in penury this isn’t true. It’s well known that when retirement savings are the responsibility of the emoloyee then they don’t save enough.

What you say about bad governance is certainly true and incompetent or badly incentivized leadership will exacerbate problems. I don’t know what the solution is for the U.S. but the current system is going to make us end up with a society with large numbers of destitute elderly. Shifting the onus to the employee via 401Ks is just kicking the can down the road so to speak. It also allows politicians and voters off the hook because the liabilities aren’t on the books. On paper it looks good but the reckoning will occur.

[ethbro]

Not to mention shifting responsibility on the management side from professionals to citizens.

(There are a lot of arguments to be quibbled over here, but when the average American can't calculate interest I'm not going to point to them as the best steward of their retirement)