Calif State Pension Benefits

In a very good letter to the editor this morning, Jim Bock writes . . . "The reason state, county, local and school governments are struggling to come up with funds to pay their share of worker pension costs has nothing to do with the actual pension benefits. Instead, it has everything to do with the fact that through the years when that stock market flourished, the employing agencies were not required to make their full contributions to CaPERS. Rather than saving those funds in case the stockmarket caused a problem, they felt it was prudent to spend that money elsewhere.
Had the agencies been more responsible and planned for what was inevitable, they would not be complaining about having to pay the costs associated with retirements. They caused the problems now the uneducated governor is trying his best to saddle the blame on the employees who have actually paid more into their retirement over the last 20 years than the agencies who are now complaining about being broke.
This is what happens when elected people are not money-conscious and spend money that they should be saving."

my opinion is that all retirement systems should switch to defined contribution plans and move away from defined benefit plans