-- 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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As the marketplace goes electric more and more over the next decade how is Illinois going to make up for all the Gas Tax revenue lost?
Gas taxes are so high there is an economic incentive to go electric.
If I were going to buy an EV, and I would if the range were close to 500 miles, I wouldn’t buy a Rivian. They are extremely unattractive vehicles. Unlike Rivian, some of the Tesla products and the new Blazer EV are really nice looking products.
Rivian got what it needed to keep going. Volkswagen wants to spend $5B on a business that loses big money on every vehicle they sell, and in a country where demand for EVs is waning. It’s a large bet. Watch for Governor Carnival Barker to trumpet the news and pronounce Volkswagen vehicles as “the Super best”.
Germany is de-industrializing in real time with their insane climate goals. So it would make sense that VW would invest in whatever global automotive assets it can find, at whatever price. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimvinoski/2024/02/29/german-deindustrialization-is-a-wake-up-call-for-us-manufacturers/ German Deindustrialization Is A Wake-Up Call For U.S. Manufacturers For generations, Germany has been a manufacturing powerhouse. The country was in the vanguard of the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century, establishing dominant positions in electrical components manufacturing and chemical production. Devastated by WWII, with the help of the Marshall plan the country quickly rebuilt its manufacturing base afterwards. It remained a top exporter of manufactured goods even… Read more »
VW has made a bad investment Rivian is not
And never will be profitable in Illinois.
The only way to make it profitable is to move it out of this state.