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A reader who asked to stay anonymous sent this image in of a shirt he had made.
“Ironic thing is,” he wrote, “people actually took it seriously — they did not realize I was making fun of the notion of just picking a number out of thin air.”
Such is the public’s understanding. Wages too low? Just pass a law making them higher.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Poe’s Law: it applies in real life, too.