Because that’s what the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the government insurance fund for defined benefit retirement programs, did last year, just before the stock market crashed.

The reason given by the Bush Evil Minion^™ Charles E.F. Millard was that the PBGC needed better returns to shore up its trust fund, because of all the companies going bankrupt and welshing on their pension obligations.

It may be true that they actually bought into the idea that they could get better returns, even in a stock market that was clearly overvalued and with an economy already shocked by the housing cost, but my money is that the real reason was that it was an election year, and they saw the signs of a stock market drop, and they wanted to push some money into the market quickly in order to keep everything afloat until after the election.

In either case, it should be noted that the PBGC’s trust fund is like a drop in the ocean compared to that of Social Security, and if they thought that it could effect the markets, just imagine what the multi-trillion Social Security fund would do.

In fact, it’s so large, that it would drive the stock market up upon being invested in the market, and when a large population cohort started to retire, it would drive it down, giving the Baby Boomers that wonderful “buy high, sell low” feeling.