10 is not for everyone else to save more in the face of overwhelming fiscal, monetary and financial debasement due to demands by the first group. Indeed, the centralizers have become the finan- cial equivalent of nymphomaniacs – kicking the capital centralization into liquidation of human and environmental capital to provide more cheap capital to the insiders. The solution is to address the fundamental corruption of the political mech- anism. Over the long run the privileges afforded the few are shrinking the total pie. I chose pension funds as the theme for the 2017 Annual Wrap Up to invest time in reviewing the current state of global and US pension plans. For a complete list of the most useful studies, book and articles I read as well as website sources I used, see our Bibliography section on page 38. My goal in writing about the state of our pension system is to help you better understand and, where appropriate, reject parts of the official narrative – not get frozen in fear or overwhelmed by the complexity of it. My hope is that you gain a simple overview of the situation that can help you success- fully navigate the specific aspects that touch you and your family, either as beneficiary or taxpayer. Without question, the underfunding of pension funds will impact you, one way or another. If you are a US citizen, you are going to have to deal with the failure, by our various corporate, public and governmental agencies, to fully fund pension funds and health care promises. These failures will touch you as a taxpayer. If you live in a state where the state and local pension funds are significantly underfunded, the impact on your state and local taxes, your property taxes (not to mention the appraised and market value of your home, farm, land or other real estate) and your municipal systems and services could be significant. Pension and health care liabilities may impact or determine in which state or locality you choose to live. Certainly, if you are planning on moving or buying real estate researching unfund- ed liabilities should be on your due diligence list. These failures will also impact you as a federal taxpayer for military and government employee obligations as well as for obligations assumed by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, as companies fail or shed their pension funds in bankruptcy. If you depend on income from one or more pension funds that reduce benefits as a result of underfunding or that fail and are assumed by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, it could impact your quality of life, life expectancy and health. This also extends to families and friends. If your parents’ pension benefits are canceled or cut, and they show up at your door wanting to live with you, you are likely not going to tell them, “Sorry, it’s not my problem.” In addition, numerous things are happening in the world, including war, environmental degradation, significant credit problems in the fixed income markets or loss of reserve currency status for the dollar that could significantly decrease pension fund returns and asset values, thus diminishing ex- isting funding ratios. This is one of many reasons the health of the entire economy and financial system are important to all of us. The state of our current pension fund systems is one of the reasons I focus on the financial coup d’état, including trillions of dollars of bailouts and money missing from the US government. You can’t be short trillions to fund contractual and le- gally obligated pension promises and simply allow $50+ trillion (my estimate) walk out the monetary and fiscal doors when you have no legal obligation and/or basis for doing so. So let’s review the current state of US and glob- al pension funds and see if we can’t change the narrative. There is no pension fund crisis! The so-called pension crisis is the result of a leadership deci- sion that financial obligations to the elderly are expendable. After buying their votes and labor with promises, the leadership is wiggling out of those promises by draining returns with an engineered housing bubble, low interest rates and not funding on a pay-as-you-go basis, then cutting benefits and throwing retirees overboard. Rather than pay for nursing homes, we prefer to expand the billionaire class and use our pension funds “For a complete list of the most useful stud- ies, book and articles I read as well as website sources I used, see our Bibliography section on page 38.” II. THE STATE OF OUR PENSION FUNDS