New pension fund management [[maybe)

[corktownyuppie]

Obviously at that point it would have been better to inform every one that the seven percent could no longer be achieved at that time but some lower percent could.

I think you hit it on the head. An unwillingness to change and adapt to outside conditions is like an ongoing theme with city operations. At University of Michigan, their annuity, brokered through TIAA-CREF had a floating rate that would adjust up or down with conditions, with a baseline floor of 3%.

Trust me, even at 3% TIAA was losing money for a short period of time, but since you could only take money out of it over a 10-year period, the risk that they would have to fund and shortage was significantly lower than the 7% that Detroit was offering.

Plus, TIAA had a lot more funding to cover any shortage compared to the city.

Sigh. It's unfortunate that the retirees are getting screwed in all of this. The system was such a mess for so long.

[Wesley Mouch]

I think you hit it on the head. An unwillingness to change and adapt to outside conditions is like an ongoing theme with city operations. At University of Michigan, their annuity, brokered through TIAA-CREF had a floating rate that would adjust up or down with conditions, with a baseline floor of 3%.
...
Sigh. It's unfortunate that the retirees are getting screwed in all of this. The system was such a mess for so long.

The unwillingness to change with conditions seems to me to be an important part of many problems facing society.

Look at the car companies. Do ya think they didn't change with the times in the 70s and 80s? The Japanese and Germans sure did.

How do we encourage city governments to become adaptable? Look at how Charters are shaking up schools. Is there a way we can create Charter Cities where residents can toss out the ideas of the past and experiment with new ways to help citizens live productive lives? Or do we think everything's just gonna be fine when the money returns to Detroit?