Moody’s Investors Service is warning states and cities that the unfunded liabilities of their public pension plans are reaching critical levels, and they will no longer accept accounting gimmicks being used to cover up the true nature of the shortfalls. The shift in accounting rules will expose how bad the problem truly is, which Moody's believes approaches $5 trillion in unfunded liabilities, compared to the $1.7-trillion shortfall that the Federal Reserve claims. Bloomberg: Moody’s, which in 2013 began using a lower rate than governments do to calculate future liabilities, has estimated that the 25 largest U.S. public pensions alone have $2 trillion less than they need. Cincinnati and Minneapolis are among cities Moody’s has since downgraded. The credit-rating company said in a report Friday that the shortfall in Dallas’s police and firefighters’ pension system will more than triple to $4.7 billion because of the...(Read Full Post)