-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
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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With the paywall in place, how many people read Crains? Oh well, his column doesn’t exist to me. ?
Hinz says, “I miss the gym, dinner at a nice restaurant, going out with friends and more, and I’m sure you have your own list. But I’m not willing to throw hundreds of thousands of fellow Chicagoans and millions nationally under the bus to get there.” This is virtue signaling smugness. To belittle the concerns of people who are very worried about the rest of their financial life (like me) because it looks like small businesses are going to be indefinitely shut down is beyond tone deaf. It’s just dumb. This guy is living in a cocoon. Yeah, my concerns… Read more »
Exactly, it’s not virtue to go out to dinner with friends or go to the gym, it’s merely ‘virtue signaling’ the elite lifestyle he lives.
Let Hinz and the others like him continue with childish nonsense like that article. That’s why Wirepoints is growing so fast and the regular media is dying. They have nothing to say except partisan insults. Those same people let our financial mess grow for years and never reported and now we’re supposed to listen to them about how to get out of this bigger mess? Most people know better than that.
Hinz is a rich white liberal who’s still working. He’s still collecting his 6 figure salary and delaying paying state and federal income taxes (assuming he pays any taxes at all) but telling poor African Americans that they aren’t allowed to work. Hinz tells African Americans that they can’t get a paycheck and feed their families. Why can’t they? Because Hinz is worried white men might get sick!! According to Hinz, African Americans must sacrifice their income so white men like Hinz stay healthy and don’t lose their incomes. Off the charts racism!!
Wirepoints wants to throw grandma under the bus. An absolutely ridiculous argument.
Hinz wants to prevent African Americans from working. How racist. Another ridiculous argument.
Great job pointing out that the left doesn’t hold exclusivity to intellectually dishonest arguments. Your point would be valid in showing how those that earn their livings within the social distancing rules are thriving and don’t feel the same pressure to open up the economy. Don’t use tools from their childish playbook.
“Your point would be valid in showing how those that earn their livings within the social distancing rules are thriving…” Intellectually honest but not factually correct. Have you seen the extensive list of professional accountant, law, consulting, insurance, etc firms that have forced massive paycuts on the ‘thriving’ socially distanced professionals working from their home offices? I just read today that Aon forced execs to take a 50% pay cut and 20% paycuts for 70% of those remaining. In fact, the only group of workers that seem to be thriving are unionized IL state government employees, who are being paid… Read more »
I’m not arguing the merits of Hinz or his article. I was stating that calling him a racist is the same intellectual dishonesty of saying Mark wants to kill Grandma. As far as my point about people thriving, I am referencing the people that are doing just fine financially under the socially distant rules. These people feel no pressure to balance the economy with the risk of the virus. Yes those include government workers. It also includes people who normally make less than 40k per year that were laid off but now are making more with enhanced unemployment. It includes… Read more »
“As far as my point about people thriving, I am referencing the people that are doing just fine financially under the socially distant rules. These people feel no pressure to balance the economy with the risk of the virus. Yes those include government workers. It also includes people who normally make less than 40k per year that were laid off but now are making more with enhanced unemployment.” That’s a stretch to say that unemployed workers collecting a few hundred extra dollars a week are thriving. Now that’s intellectually dishonest! Even those making less than $40k a year are getting… Read more »
“As far as my point about people thriving, I am referencing the people that are doing just fine financially under the socially distant rules. These people feel no pressure to balance the economy with the risk of the virus. Yes those include government workers. It also includes people who normally make less than 40k per year that were laid off but now are making more with enhanced unemployment.” That’s a stretch to say that unemployed workers collecting a few hundred extra dollars a week are thriving. Now that’s intellectually dishonest! Even those making less than $40k a year are getting… Read more »
Nursing homes in Illinois number over 730.
They are skilled nursing facilities. Hardworking, underappreciated LTC facility nurses and CNAs should be extremely insulted by the characterization of their efforts as “being thrown under a bus”.
Why is it that when Leftists get pushed on the Constitution, they start to thumb suck like Hinz? Sounds like Hinz has been hanging out too much with the Mayor.
Let’s say we open the economy June 1 in the same manner in which we would have opened it up on May 1. And one person dies. Will someone say that person was thrown under the bus? Who will take the blame then? Certainly not talking heads like Hinz who continue to write from their bubbles.
I’m tired of the hyperbole used in the quarantine-vs-reopen argument. Implying anyone who questions Pritzker’s lock down is advocating for mass murder is a COVIDiot.
Hintz hasn’t represented journalism in years. He is a poorly camouflaged stooge for the goofs that run our state. It reflects poorly on Crain’s that he is till employed – he was the catalyst for me to dump that rag years ago. Hey Greg, the goal of closure was to ensure our health care system wasn’t overrun. Not to kill the virus – which it won’t. Nor does trying to save our country by intelligently reopening require those most at risk to change their behaviors.
Just another goof trying to re-frame the goal for political reasons. What a POS.
Paywall so I cant read it. But I imagine its something like a mobster collecting “protection” money “Id hate to see something happen to your shop here Mr liquor store owner…”. So if the fed doesnt pay Illinois what it wants… “Id hate to see grandmas in Illinois here have problems Mr Fed…”.
Right, because the state is doing such a great job protecting the grandmas in the nursing homes…
I read the article. Hinz is really disingenuous. He’s not a journalist. He instead wrote a hit piece that misrepresents your position, which by the way, is very widely held opinion. He likely wrote this at the request of someone higher up in the political food chain. Luckily, his nonsense is behind a paywall, so few will actually read it.
From the article: “Is it reasonable, to pick another example out of the headlines, to insist that slaughtering houses be opened—America needs its burgers and pork chops!—without guaranteeing that hundreds more workers won’t be infected because of lack of masks, gowns, widened working space and the like?” This is just an irrational attack on Trump. Food supply lines are vitally important. Food shortages have been the instigator for nearly every social unrest in the history of civilization. The federal government has issued guidelines and oversight to provide the necessary PPE and other precautions to keep workers safe. Journalists like Hinz… Read more »
Crain’s is not doing well financially and they haven’t been for some time because of irresponsbile journalism like this. Steve Daniels is just as bad. They’re all social justice warriors cloaked as journalist. Advertisers are pulling out. Dump Crains!
I look forward to this rebuttal. Hinz and his other bleeding heart liberals at Crains don’t use facts in their articles. They use straw man fallacies such as the writers of Wirepoints are suggesting that they are willing to let senior citizens to die to open the economy. Shoddy journalism at best, potentially libel at worst. Same fear mongering that Pritzker is doing. Exactly where in the Wirepoints article does it imply what Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said? Also, if you’re going use a media platform to suggest the virus could spread faster, the onus is on you to… Read more »
Moreover, perhaps Hinz could articulate what is the end game to a shelter in place strategy? All citizens under house arrest until a vaccine is ready? That could be 1 year to 18 months away. The point he misses is that at some point the country will have to take risks. We can be smart about taking those risks based upon the 7 facts outlined in the Wirepoints article.
Mr. Hinz please recant your hachet piece!
“Straw man” you hit that nail on the head; the straw man is one of the more often used tactics to persuade others so efficiently because it seems to work so well. My neck of the woods has had a considerable tax and spend situation under that specific straw man of “how will grandma get around without a public transportation agency” that has amounted to an assortment of un-ridden buses that travel the county at all hours of the day and night. Another favorite is the tried and true “they are ignoring the children’s needs” that, when accompanied with the… Read more »
Labeling is the go-to tactic of the modern left. “Mathematicians think in proofs, lawyers in constructs, logicians in operators, dancers in movement, artists in impressions, and idiots in labels.” Nassim Taleb
In case you’ve not noticed there is a lot of labeling occurring on this website, too. No group is exempt from those who stoop to it as a last resort if not sooner, and often the final sputtering of those who likely think shouting shows a stronger argument, too. Not true; it shows desperation more than logic in either case.
Calling Hinz’s retort labeling, and then refuting the ‘labeling’, is giving Hinz’s ‘argument’ merit that it doesn’t deserve. The reality is that Hinz never had any intention of responding in good-faith to Mark’s arguments. He just wanted to ridicule Mark as much as possible with his platform’s bottomless inkwell. He acted like he agreed there were legitimate disputes, but then in the next sentence, twists the legitimate disputes into ridiculous straw men for the sole purpose of ridiculing. The fact that he says “america needs its burgers and pork chops!” as the meat aisles in some stores across the country… Read more »
And I thought the first rule in journalism school is that “thou shall not commit logical fallacies”. What a horrible article.
Can’t attack the message so attack the messenger. People who disagree with them must simply be bad people not worth listening to.
No logic, reason, or critical thinking in progressive arguments. Just emotion. Just ego.
Same as it ever was.
Throw 150 million Africans and Asians under the bus. That’s what the UN projects will starve to death this year due to the economic crisis. Not die from COVID. Starve.
But you know. Who cares. Let the eat cake.
Liberals have always loved eugenics when it comes to blacks.
Abort ’em. Starve ’em,… As a race, we’ve come so far to ending extreme hunger on this planet in the last generation… It’s absolutely outrageous so many Americans are making this political. So petty. Become a global citizen.
Black lives matter. Especially black children’s lives who will starve to death due to horrible decisions made by bad models and exaggerated fears in US liberal media and politicians eager to get one-liners in.
Americans… step up. Let’s feed the world again and end the injustice of mass starvation.