-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Calvin Miller, associate director of the Illinois Council on Problem Gambling, has heard some heartbreaking stories in his work on the council. “People can lose their life savings in a weekend," Miller told The Center Square. "But there is always a way out. If you are losing your house, if your marriage is falling apart, the same thing has happened to other people and we can help."
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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Money is finite. While the usurious taxes on marijuana might be great for the state’s finances, it’s dollars that cannot be spent elsewhere in the economy. Same with gambling losses.
How is money finite? Can I look up the number to this finite amount of money? Surely this must be published somewhere. Please explain.
Silly me always thought the economic pie of our economy was unlimited.
Here’s one measure:
You’re making the argument that we’ve reached the upper limits of the money supply? You don’t hear that argument from people that typically support Republicans in government.
Can I look up the number to this finite amount of money?
See that little hook on the end – that’s the top of the M2 money supply. The Feds can print more money, for sure, but the state of IL does not have the power to print money.
Nixit referred to money being spent on weed could not be spent elsewhere and that money is finite. It’s simply false to conclude that the economic pie is finite. Now perhaps Nixit was referring to the actual amount of money in circulation but that wouldn’t make any sense to the remaining text that he wrote. The actual money supply makes little sense when it comes to the total economic pie and money being spent on one item vs another. Also, actual money supply is not finite. There is no upper limit that couldn’t be changed. You seem to want to… Read more »
You asked for a publication of the finite money supply. I gave you a link. Now you complain about it. Nixit probably should have said that the amount of tax revenue the state can generate via cannabis has an natural ‘upper limit’ rather than ‘money is finite’ but you’re just being pedantic, we all know what he meant.
I wish the weather would clear up a little, I have things I need to do in the yard today, instead of surfing the internet on my laptop.
Money is not just our M2 money supply. I clearly referenced the economic pie in my post. I was also asking nixit. As usual, you inserted yourself to change the topic at hand. Go do some yard work. Keep that property value in tip top shape.
What Is M2?
M2 is the U.S. Federal Reserve’s estimate of the total money supply including all of the cash people have on hand plus all of the money deposited in checking accounts, savings accounts, and other short-term saving vehicles such as certificates of deposit (CDs).
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/m2.asp
Money is nothing more than a medium of exchange.
Does crypto qualify? What about promising to pay someone later based on my excellent credit? These things increase the amount of things that can be bought yet they don’t qualify as M2. The economic pie can still grow regardless of the M2 definition.
The M2 money supply has nothing to do with nixit’s comment. You keep trying to change the topic.
Maybe, it would have been better for Nixit, paraphrasing Gailbraith in The Great Crash of 1929, to suggest that there are more cannabis shops in IL than there are weed smokers, and unfortunately for the department of revenue, the tokers of the world cannot be everywhere at once, and those states that over rely on cannabis tax revenues to fund their budget deficits will find themselves in insolvency and bankruptcy…
Hurt families for the lust of pension money. That is the way of a greedy society.