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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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When government takes away all opportunity, all the other laws break down as a result.
It is hard to tell when Illinois politicians will wake up to the issue–when the unfunded liability reaches $300 billion? $400 billion? When Biden tells them no bailout? When the next 5,000 point drop in the Dow occurs? Maybe when a couple of the big funds start a negative cash flow position. But it can’t be too far off. And it is already past the point at which bankruptcy is the only solution.
The Fed will backstop until the market crash disallows them.
Chicago has 2 years, tops.
Very subtle article with significant impact all around – I don’t like what the Fed is doing at all. No wonder many equities are way above their historical multiples. I don’t think anyone really knows what will happen. This is scary and intuitively seems dangerous – Hope we all get lucky!
The Fed, from what I have read, is in the process of saving Wall Street. Right or wrong if one had their druthers I would think that bailing out Wall Street is preferable to bailing out the State’s whose decisions go beyond reality when it comes to the pension delema. Because of that situation it might be a better move to invest in what Wall Street is rather than the real estate that will be taxed to infinity to pay the pensions.
I’m sure the “laws supersede reality” brigade will be out in full force on this one.
I assume Moodys used the 4.14% rate when calculating its view of the pension liability at $250B. With the discount rate now to be fixed at $2.7B, query what it will be now. And query whether the press will report the new figure, which has to be astoundingly depressing. And yet the solution for the Capital Faxer’s is to close downstate facilities to punish them for downvoting the “Fair Tax (sic)’ amendment. The State could close virtually close everything downstate and it would be make no real dent in the massive debt.
“And yet the solution for the Capital Faxer’s is to close downstate facilities to punish them for downvoting the “Fair Tax (sic)’ amendment.” Most commenters on that blog are vindictive towards any one who has a differing opinion. It’s pathetic how angry they are and how much they hate anyone that thinks, talks or looks different than them. I’ve said for a while that it’s just a matter of time before the IL legislature drives the Republican voting family farmers out of state. They legislature will ban hog farms, they’ll ban GMO crops, they’ll tax farm land out of existence.… Read more »
Debtsor, The war on farmers has already begun. The French maggot farm going in Decatur will produce the equivalent of 2.5 million acres of soybeans per year (60,000 tons of meal). And that is just the maggot meal alone. It will also produce approximate 20,000 tons of “insect oil”, whatever that is, and 200,000 tons of fertilizer. One single plant can produce as much as 25% of the soybean acres in entire the state, it won’t be long before there are many, many more. Also, non GMO crops are not even possible. I know lots of folks are going to… Read more »
INteresting, I did not know this, I will research it more.
Not so fast – Democrats will gleefully allow Chinese companies that are run by the CCP to buy up the most fertile farm land in the world. For anyone paying attention, the CCP has been vertically integrating it’s raw material supply chain for some time now – just look at Africa. With Biden and the Democrats, the CCP has some very big goals in exploiting America.
Democrats will, yes. Farmers will not.
Nothing good comes from exploiting African resources. And China will soon learn, the hard way, that they’ve arrived seven centuries too late. Maybe they will do it better, or differently, than every other nation state who has attempted to colonize Africa since the Canary Islands were ‘discovered’ in 1302. Or maybe they won’t. I’ve heard anecdotally that China colloquially calls its investment hubs in Africa their colonies. Good luck with that.