Naked Capitalism has the post Michael Hudson: The War on Pensions – The US Budget Anti-Pension Law. He uses the Teamster’s Pension Fund as an example of  how the recently passed US  budget attacks pension funds.

But let’s look more closely at the alleged source of the problem. It’s not just that there are so many fewer employees per retiree. The Teamsters Central States Fund is a prime example of Wall Street mismanagement. Goldman Sachs, Northern Trust and other firms make the decisions, not the Fund’s own board. A recent report has found that “Roughly a third of the pension system’s shortfalls — or almost $9 billion – can be traced to investment losses accrued during the financial industry’s 2008 collapse. These losses were in addition to more than $250 million in fees paid by the plan to financial firms in just the last 5 years.”

To my friends who think that what this country needs is more political compromise, I say this is what political compromise looks like.  If you are wiling to give up your retirement security to pay for the financial benefit of the ultra-wealthy, then you should be pleased that President Obama did not veto this compromise.