Maryland’s $37 billion public pension system earned a pitiful 0.36 percent return on its investments last fiscal year.

How embarrassing is that? Even the fiscal basket case that is California was able to eke out a 1 percent return. Indeed, the news for Maryland looks “like a minor disaster for fiscal 2011,” in the prosaic words of Jeff Hooke, chairman of the Maryland Tax Education Foundation. That’s a lot like saying the Trojan War was a minor disagreement over a girl.