The sad case of Detroit is said to be the first shock in an earthquake that will rumble through many American cities. It will be up to a bankruptcy court to decide if the pension funds are an unsecured obligation. The precedent set will affect many other government entities with underfunded pension obligations.

The sad truth is that we are getting older as a society. The baby boomers are reaching retirement age. A great deal of these underfunded pension obligations are dependent on stock market investments. The stock market goes up because more money flows in than flows out. As we age as a society we will start taking more money out of the stock market to fund these retirements. As more money flows out of the stock market, stock market values have to go down unless new investors can be found.

The new investor in today's markets is the Federal Reserve and the United States government. This cannot be sustained. Where will these new investor's come from? If stock market values decline, pension underfunding will become even more problematic. These underfunded pensions will be scrambling for ways to properly fund them.

One temptation will to dig deeper into the lottery pools. As an example, each dollar in the present Powerball lottery is split fifty-fifty. Half goes into government coffers and half is used as prizes. The odds of winning are already so astronomical that week's pass with no winners. This growing pool is going to be a huge temptation to lottery administrators. The prizes are so large that a single winner could still be more than satisfied if the cash prize was partly confiscated.

This would be an insult to lottery participants. As the prizes grow larger, more and more people opt to play and the size of the lottery pool accelerates with a large prize.

This delicate balance should not be tampered with. The next lottery progression will almost certainly be online lottery purchases. This will make it easier to play the lottery, but it will also open the door to a lottery buyout. Buying every lottery number combination with present technology is nearly impossible. Online lottery purchases will allow a skilled computer programmer to purchase every number combination.

This will ultimately be good for the lottery. It will cause the lottery receipts to grow even larger, and this will aid cash strapped governments as well as creating lottery winners on a more regular basis.

The negative implication is that some hedge fund or lottery syndicate will become regular lottery winners. The fascination in the lottery playing public with these supersized lottery wins will be diminished by having to swallow the idea that some rich fat cats that don't need the money are lottery winners. The upside of that concept is the lottery jackpots will become even more gigantic, and if an individual does win, the syndicate or hedge fund will probably lose because the jackpot will be split. A serious lottery player will probably have the option of participating in these buyouts through some form of syndication.

As online purchases become reality, a possible source of pension income will be to limit access to a lottery buyout. If for example underfunded pension funds were allowed to syndicate, the lottery winnings in a buyout could assist pension underfunding.

The bottom line for the government will be more tax revenue. The fiscal problems of state and local governments are measured in billions and lottery jackpots are still measured in millions, so even a larger lottery jackpot will have little effect, but every little bit helps.

Some method of funding pension obligations for public sector retirees must be found. A career in public service needs to be appealing enough financially to attract new entrants. Many lesser economies have under compensated public sector workers, and the effect on economic progress is stifling. If a business enterprise is required to make illegal payments to influential government officials, economic growth becomes somewhere between difficult and impossible.

A corruption free government is something we have grown to expect. If help is needed from a policeman or fireman, we expect corruption free help. It is a slippery slope our society is on. If the promises made to dedicated public sector workers are broken, a trend toward corruption in government is surely beginning.

Partial funding from a lottery buyout could be one form of new revenue to underfunded pension funds. A disturbing trend occurs when fully vested near retirement public sector workers €cash out€ of their pensions. The lump sum distribution is a gigantic responsibility of the recipient who is generally not qualified to make the correct financial decision. The €lump sum€ distribution also has a huge negative effect on the pension fund when investible funds are withdrawn.

The most obvious solution for public sector pensions is to give them a higher creditor status than other obligations. This may happen anyway, because the bankruptcy judges are also public sector employees, so the fate of public sector pensions will affect them personally.

New sources of revenue, such as lottery buyout funding can help with the problem. An already over taxed private sector needs painless creative options for new revenue collection methods for economic growth to be sustained. A lottery buyout can be one of them.