Anybody who bothers to think about them and has the brain power to get beyond the examples of poor management, mismanagement of funds, false allegations, and inadequate rules really can't help but like them.
Unfortunately many people aren't adequately informed on how such funds are funded and managed, and rely on pundits who are also often uninformed or have personal axes to grind. For instance, here it's often tossed around that people who retire under PERS get their entire salary or more paid to them while retied; blatantly false. Or when it's said that the employees don't also contribute or that the general public pays for it.
There are examples of public pensions that had problems, just as there are examples that are contrary to almost everything. The trick is understanding that a small number of instances does not indicate that the whole is wrong.
