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Chicago has been Neil Spun’s home for more than half his life, but recently, the 60-year-old state worker has been conflicted about staying in his Edgewater apartment. “There have been riots before, and looting. It just seems to me now that the city isn’t doing anything about it. I don’t see this getting any better, and so I’d like to leave.”
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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My favorite subject interviewed in the story was Amber the nurse:
“I think people forget that people do live here, too — it’s not just the Guccis and the Jimmy Choo stores,” she said. “And I completely support it all. You stealing shoes means nothing to me — that doesn’t hurt me at all. It’s just the fact that that brings more crime, and that does endanger me.”
Wow, and some licensing board in Illinois lets this lady practice.
Cause and effect, how does it work Amber?
Amber does sound a bit conflicted between her stated support of BLM and “the uprising,” and her discomfort with the effects: “. . . people had shopping carts full of (stuff), and all you heard were sirens, glass shattering and shouting. And gunshots,” she said. “It was just very jarring.” Oh, really?
Is this a surprise. The mayor only thinks about herself and lets the rest of the city be open to whomever!
The mayor has made it clear that she’s on the side of west and south side feral predators. This is how she will be re-elected. She’s not interested in business or destruction.