text: It seems Hick would like to keep PERA on a starvation diet, wrest away any semblance of post-retirement benefits such as COLA from retirees (especially current retirees), and phlebotomize or bleed out current employees until it affects the recruitment of new hires.  Then a future legislature and governor will use some future economic downturn as an excuse to ratchet down or claw back the earned base benefit of retirees and those nearing retirement, as there would be no post-retirement benefit to reduce.  I think the eventual assumed rate of return for the PERA trust will be between 4 and 5% as increased socialism affects the market returns of more economic sectors.