-- 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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Having been born and raised in the DePaul area I can relate to the increase in property values.
More power to the developers who invested in a usable but run-down area and turned it around. The property our three-flat house was on is now home to a $1.27 million home.
Neighbors who rode the wave ended up with valuable properties; those of us who left did not.
Choose to ride the wave or get out of the water – it’s the residents’ choice.
“When Christian Mejía’s parents settled in Logan Square in the late ’80s, the neighborhood was a welcoming landing place.”
Now do a story about the migrants that replaced the former residents of Logan Square. How did they accept their neighborhood quickly turning from English to Spanish? This is just another example of the “We are in charge and you are not” mentality that is pervasive in Chicago. Neighborhoods change all the time but its only ‘bad’ when it is gentrification.