Companies controlled by PE firms use bankruptcy to shed pension obligations
To me the bigger culprit is the unfunded pension as a tool of retirement planning. Unfunded pensions are failing or on the brink of failing almost everywhere they are tried. It&#x27;s a huge scandal and deeply immoral IMO. I read the other day that NYC alone has over $100bn in unfunded pension liabilities. There is simply no budget to pay that down. Unfunded pensions taking down numerous economies in Europe.<p>There is a county in Georgia (Sandy Springs) that effectively went private. Rather than offering a state pension to their employees (other than ones they were legally required to), they calculated the value of the pension contribution they would make and simply tacked it on to employee salaries. I personally think this is a good approach (with some room for incentives that help  protect people from themselves).<p>Note: not trying to mount a defense of PE - often people ask what is the purpose&#x2F;role or value of PE in society. In a somewhat perverted sense, this is it. There are not many mechanisms that can almost instantly re-habilitate an enterprise that was mismanaged or made severely consequential long term false promises to employees. The alternative is a slow, timely and painful decline similar to Sears or Kmart and rather than this article we&#x27;d be reading articles about the towns that Marsh left behind.