-- 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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Pritzker and Lori killed the restaurant industry in Chicago for no good reason. There never was any evidence that restaurants and bars were a breeding ground for Covid. Look at the scandal in Nashville when the Democrat mayor there shut the hospitality industry down like in Chicago, only to have leaked emails from his own staff warn that there was no evidence whatsoever that the bars and restaurants were a problem. And how many millions and millions of people wore those silly blue masks that even the CDC says “are little more than facial decorations.” And Old Joe below is… Read more »
Oh, au contraire mon fraire, she destroyed the restaurant industry for equity. You see, it’s inequitable that some people had to work at restaurants during a pandemic, when instead, they could be a home getting an extra $600 a week in PUA (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance). So she kept them home, let them collect a few extra dollars, only now there were fewer restaurants to return to!
Debtdor, the correct phrase in French is “mon frere”
An article that attempts to claim that the downtown Chicago hospitality industry hasn’t recovered because workers are staying home to avoid COVID. What nonsense, and the Sun-Times knows it. My wife commutes from our Central Illinois home to downtown Chicago for required overnight guvmn’t business trips pretty much monthly. She stays in overpriced and understaffed “full service” hotels without room service, restaurants, daily housekeeping or what used to be customary in-room amenities. Companies have not required their employees to return to downtown Chicago work-sites because their employees hate commuting. That’s the short and sweet of it. Many, perhaps most, former… Read more »
Spot on GG. I knew when these shutdowns started in March of 2020 it was too throw a monkey wrench into Trumps economy and “help” the Dem nominee with a zillion diffferent vot from home schemes.
I also knew that there was no way you could clobber so many little guys and mom and pop places for several years and they’d all resprout like magic. You can see this everywhere now. Old places you used to patronize are gone for good. Only big Dem connected businesses were exempt. Oh, and the price went up too!
Downtown is absolutely unsafe. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. The loop crime rate has soared in the last two years. Before covid, downtown was one of the safest areas in the city. This is borne out by the facts https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2022/5/2/23054296/downtown-shootings-homicides-violence-moulin-rouge-nederlander-river-north-streeterville-cpd-police Downtown shootings continue spike with 64% jump in 2022 [snipity snip snip] The increases have been significant in the Central and Near North police districts covering the Loop and River North, which have seen 23 homicide and shooting victims through April 30 of this year. That’s a 64% jump compared to the same time period in 2021, according… Read more »