33 and corporate governance issues. One area in which this question of “total eco- nomic return” is pertinent is health care. One challenge for the US pension systems is un- derfunding of health care benefits. One reason for underfunding is that health care costs are exploding. The United States does in fact spend significantly more per person than other coun- tries on health care, but that investment does not translate into a healthy population. When one studies the health care corporate prof- its that generate high stock prices, one sees how the pension funds are making a nice profit on ac- tivities that are slowly but definitely bankrupting them with health care liabilities. They are also financing the US government as it passes laws, enforces regulations, or provides subsidies that ensure that the health of the general population will deteriorate. Another area is the black budget. We know that the US government official outstanding debt is $20 trillion. We also know that there are $21 trillion in undocumentable adjustments in federal accounts between fiscal 1998-2015. Let’s say for purposes of this example that this $21 trillion works out to $10 trillion in cash that was transferred into the black budget, creating valu- able assets and technology now owned by private companies and investors. A significant amount of that transfer would likely have been financed by the purchase of US Treasury securities. US pension and retirement accounts are significant purchasers of these securities. In that case, the US federal financial operations have been used to transfer trillions in real savings out of our pension funds and into private companies and investors. The assets our pension funds now own are IOUs from ourselves as taxpayers backing the US government. We have transferred real savings to private investors in exchange for an IOU from ourselves. If you step back and look at the operation care- fully – particularly in a world where interest rates are extremely low – the US government appears to have become a money-laundering operation that transfers our private savings into the black budget in exchange for an IOU, to which we taxpayers are liable. It seems that the pension funds have a responsi- bility not to permit our savings to be systemati- cally drained. No doubt some people would still argue that the pension funds are in part protected by owning stock in the companies that benefit from asset and technology transfers. If we allow our family wealth to be centrally managed and controlled, it seems that we have an obligation to ensure that our pension man- agement understands and makes sure that the total economic return of pension investments is sound. If you look at the shenanigans that the US pension funds have been financing all along, you would expect them to outperform the benchmark considerably. But they have under- performed the benchmark, making our situation much more frightening. IX. OTHER ISSUES There are other issues to consider when address- ing the condition of our pension funds. Leadership and Management The first – and most important- is the integ- rity of the governance structure. Increasingly we are seeing business and government leaders compromised by surveillance, covert operations and control files. We need to ensure that people who govern and manage our pension funds are qualified to do so and free to govern and man- age without pressure or influence to cause them to act in ways contradictory to the laws or best interests of beneficiaries. Fiscal and Monetary Policies Another issue is the impact of monetary and fiscal policies. Falling interest rates have reduced pension fund fixed-income returns. At the same time quantitative easing has debased curren- cies, contributing to the bubbling of real estate and stock market returns. These policies have contributed to long-term misallocation of capital. It seems that the pension funds should have a greater say in monetary and fiscal policies rather “One area in which this question of ‘total econom- ic return’ is pertinent is health care. One challenge for the US pension systems is underfunding of health care benefits.”