By: Mark Glennon* Nobel Prize winning economists aren’t the hyperbolic type. They usually speak in measured tones, careful to protect the precision of their academic  viewpoints. Two of them have spoken openly about public pensions, including one about Illinois pensions. They are uncharacteristically harsh. First, there’s William F. Sharpe, a Stanford professor who won 1990 Nobel Prize for Economics for his work in developing models to aid investment decisions. The Financial Analysts Journal interviewed him last year. Here’s what he said: Is this a disaster? You bet….  It’s a crisis of epic proportions…. [Pensions] value liabilities at 7.5% or 8%