Jim Paris Live (james L. Paris)

In his book, California Dreaming, Dr. Lawrence Mc Quillan outlines the problem and potential solutions to America's burgeoning pension crisis. Nationwide, there is almost a $5 trillion dollar shortfall in funding of government pensions. Although his book focuses primarily on California, he also makes the point that this same crisis is about to happen in multiple other states. This is not a distant problem, but is a present day crisis as cities like Chicago are already facing a collapse of their pension system. Much of the problem stems from a lack of honest accounting on the part of politicians, but bloated benefits are equally to blame. In California alone, more than 100,000 individuals receive government pensions of greater than $100,000.