-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
"Nearly 600,000 people across Illinois work in restaurant and food service jobs, and the Illinois Restaurant Association estimates more than half of them have been laid off or furloughed during the pandemic...The Tribune’s running list of shuttered restaurants in the Chicago area has topped 50, and probably doesn’t account for dozens more tiny mom-and-pop spots that couldn’t make it. The corner diner. The taqueria. The all-night gyro shop. So many favorite places, gone."
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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Government criminals are directly responsible for the collapse of independent restaurant businesses and these owners’/workers’ loss of livelihood.