After all, public sector workers accept less pay in order to get them. Instead, why not ensure everyone has retirement security?

Gripped by a desire to ensure that misery is distributed as widely as possible, the cry goes up to ensure that public pensions are cut as drastically as private pensions in the wake of stock-market swoons.

Not so fast. Cutting public sector pensions is legally difficult, since they were part of a formal contract between employer and employee that cannot be unilateral...