There is a distinct cerebral pleasure, relief even, derived from lapsing into a state of suspended disbelief.

Do we care that saw-wielding magicians don’t really cut the girl in two, or that big screen good guys never run out of ammunition? Would the frightening folklore of vampires have survived the ages and still be capable of delivering a captivating bite? Poor Walt Disney would have been just another flash in the pan, and winged porcine platoons never have taken flight. Why love itself might not have survived the rigors of scrutiny without our ability to suspend disbelief. Do I detect a smile on your face?

Levity was indeed Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s aim, a just reward for an aesthetic philosopher hitting the zenith of his cognitive prowess at the dawn of the 19th Century. In 1817, Coleridge encouraged those who endeavored to spin tales via the beauty of the written word to marry “human interest and a semblance of truth” thus resulting in a fantastic tale. Contentedly compliant readers would in turn gladly suspend judgement concerning the implausibility of the narrative.

There is of course a caveat. At the risk of inciting deflation, one’s critical faculties can, and well should, only be suspended for finite periods of time. The alternative risks intellectual indigestion, an overdose of fantasy, which carries nasty and lingering side effects. In the words of the actor Edward Norton, “The more you can create the magic bubble, that suspension of disbelief, for a while, the better.” Note Norton only recommends suspension of disbelief for a while.

Chances are, 70 years is a bit much for loitering in the orbit of suspended disbelief. According to Richard Ingram, such an extended stay inevitably leads to disaster. Apologies if you feel you’ve just been sideswiped by a colossal non sequitur. Ingram is the Executive Director of the Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois. And 70 years is how long it’s been since the great state he calls home has satisfied its annual contribution requirement to the pension he runs today.

Little wonder that Illinois boasts the most underfunded pension in the country. According to Moody’s, the Prairie State’s pension coffers were $193 billion shy of being whole in fiscal year 2015. Given that Ingram has seen through a decrease in the Teachers’ assumed rate of return to seven percent, there could be more red ink in the making.

A smidgen of pension accounting here. The ‘assumed rate of return’ is what pensions use to discount their liabilities, which then dictates sponsors’ required cash contributions. The higher the rate assumed, the less cash required, and vice versa.

For a point of comparison, this rate is capped at 3.5 percent in Great Britain. Encouraging reckless investment behavior on behalf of pensioners is apparently frowned upon in the UK. The irony is, Illinois actually looks pretty conservative in assuming seven percent vis-à-vis its peer average among the other 49 states of 7.5 percent (which has come down from eight since 2012).