Skewed Pension Perception

In the Jan. 14 commentary, “Meddling by Public Pension Funds Is Picking California’s Pocket,” Nicole Gelinas implies that public employee pensions are primarily funded by California taxpayers, and asserts that they are serving only their own political interests and not the interests of retirees.

She fails to point out that not all public pension funds are one and the same. For example, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the State Teachers’ Retirement System are not the same. Teachers’ pensions are paid from STRS, to which all teachers contribute throughout their careers. Teachers are the primary contributors to their own retirement (85% of the retirement fund, I believe, comes from the teachers’ contributions and the investment income earned by the pension fund).

The notion that private-sector fund managers would do a better job managing the teachers’ retirement fund is not credible, given the financial market and corporate scandals of recent years and the less-than-stellar private-sector fund performance.

Gary Nagy

Gardena

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Gelinas’ thesis is that it’s inappropriate for public pensions to meddle in the business of corporate America, but implicit in her argument is that it’s perfectly OK for corporate America to meddle in the democratic process by funneling billions of dollars through Washington lobbyists to subvert the will of average Americans. The more our public pensions influence the boardroom, the better it will be for us peasants.

Mark Kenaston

Mentone, Calif.

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Gelinas concludes that the trustees of CalPERS cannot succeed in “maximizing financial performance to ... cut the annual pension bill for taxpayers.” In fact, there isn’t any annual pension bill for taxpayers. Public pension funds are a much better arrangement than individual 401(k)s. Because CalPERS is a big investor, it gets better deals than I as an individual 401(k) holder would get. It has investment managers that I could not afford.

Corporate managers often believe that stockholders should be quiet; they should sell the stock if they don’t agree with corporate policies. Gelinas parrots that view, suggesting falsely that CalPERS’ investment in Safeway puts taxpayers at risk. Clearly the author does not like public pension funds, unions or powerful stockholders.

Philip Gilbert

Los Angeles