I often post thoughts about our denial of Detroit's contributions to its own decline. I do so mostly to counter the prevailing wisdom that Detroit just ran into some bad luck. We did have a lot to do with our woes.

But upon leaving the boxing ring here, I had to admit that the problems with public pension funding is not solely a Detroit problem. We were the canary in the coal mine. The mine is about to explode -- and we should not just be calling for the banks to pay their fair share of what they stole from the cities, but also calling for fundamental reform of public pensions.

A number of articles discuss this lately, but here I present an article from the liberal perspective: NYT: Detroit Emerges From Bankruptcy, Yet Pension Risks Linger

The obvious problem is that nobody wants to make the changes necessary. Taxpayers don't want to see their rates go up 10% or more. And public employees and their unions sure don't want to see pensions go down 10% or more. But either or both may be required. Or Detroit will see round 2 of bankruptcy -- even if the banks pay their fair share and the economy recovers.