-- 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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The article-writer (as so many “analysts” of the govt ‘ee pension disaster do) ignores the overall problem of the egregiously large (too big and too early) pension promises. It is grossly unfair to extract SO much money out of the private sector to fund these excessive promises. The pensions must be cut…..that’s job 1. Then job 2 is to get the costs down to a responsible 10% of payroll (down from about 70% of payroll now, believe it or not).
“And he’s throwing it all on red, as Allysia Finley writes in the WSJ”. Not really. Betting on ‘red’ on the roulette wheel gives the player a probability of winning that
is just shy of 50%. The mayor is betting on green, the ‘0’ and ’00’ slots that have about a 5% chance of winning.