Bailing out the pension funds includes bailouts for the money managers who fucked up.

Increasing the public pensions for everybody bails out the pensioners whose funds those money managers pissed away.

Private pension funds are a stupid idea anyway. They create a number of very large market players who are subject to virtually no oversight, they channel money into equities, which causes inflation, and they are big, fat targets for scammers.

Oh, and they add unnecessary overhead.

Just pay out a fixed amount per month to every retiree. Much lower administrative overhead, no inflationary effects on the stock markets, perfect transparency and no need to bail out pension funds that have been scammed. If you personally want to set aside more money for your old age, then that's your lookout, and you should not expect to get bailed out when the hedge fund you put it in blows up.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.