-- 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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Can we learn something (anything?) from Pacific Gas & Electric? Customers who decided to live in fire zones lost their houses and filed so many suits against the power company that it is now bankrupt. This season, the company is shutting off the power when there is increased fire risk. Naturally everyone complains. Likely the complainers are many of the same folks who condemned PG&E for the fire risk. This new proactive stance has literally and figuratively made the complainers “powerless.” Rather than let the union bankrupt the city and the schools, shut the schools down. Is this a greater… Read more »
The flaw is assuming that the parents actually care. The politically active parents are mostly wokesters who support the striking teachers and the slightly less progressive parent left CPS before they even enrolled their first kid. It’s a bit like the Salem witch trials, the entire community was nuts and there was no one left but the witches to object to the insanity.
You’re good, Cass. Really good.
I don’t know what the end game is here and I don’t think the union or lightfoot does either. Kind of like Cruz’s government shutdown back during the Hussein years, not sure why it shut down and not sure if it really even mattered. Didn’t Trump have a shut down in there somewhere too?