“In their 2012 strike, nearly 30,000 Chicago Teachers Union members planted a flag for labor militancy in public education. Today, they’re again on the verge of another strike — and they may be joined by 7,000 SEIU education workers, says socialist magazine Jacobin. “A strike by the SEIU and CTU together this fall could land a blow against everything wrong with our schools and much more besides: racism, poverty, inequality, union-busting, and the contempt of the city’s 1 percent for the workers who make Chicago run.”

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot will speak directly to the municipal bond market’s buyside at the city’s annual investors conference on Sept. 20.

Nice collection of the empirical evidence by Greg Hinz: “The weakness is in capital flows, the amount of money spent to buy or sometimes build new structures. Consider it a sort of leading indicator as to whether investors consider a given area worth the risk of plunking down their money in exchange for returns that can be many years away.

According to a new report by real estate investment bank Eastdil Secured, office building capital flows here dropped a heart-pounding 87 percent in the first six months of the year compared to last year…. Similar research comes from RCA/CBRE…. A

If congestion pricing’s main objective is to fill a general budget deficit, then it is simply another tax. If that is the reason for it, let’s not wrap it in the virtue of reducing congestion in downtown. The brief life of the county’s tax on sugary drinks should have taught us that lesson. Without the proper groundwork, congestion pricing will amount to little more than an unavoidable tax levied on those who, by choice or necessity, drive into the city for work or play.

“Teachers, don’t be goaded by your strike-hungry union leaders into a walkout. It’s unnecessary. Kids shouldn’t be locked out of their schools for who knows how long to feed an ego-driven demonstration of power by CTU leadership. You have a fair contract on the table.”

In a sharp break with City Hall convention, two Chicago aldermen fronted measures for now-indicted Ald. Edward Burke that steered millions of dollars in property tax breaks for Burke’s law clients in his Southwest Side ward.