-- 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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There’s a long comment section over at Crap Fax about crime in Chicago. Ken Griffin apparently claims that he knows people who’ve been mugged and stabbed. The commenters, including Oswego Dummy, claim he’s lying! Crime is not up at all! Oswego Dummy said that 800 people murdered in Chicago last year is nothing, nothing at all compared to the 30,000 people who died with COVID in the state….’Xir’ actually said that. Maria Pappas who lives on Michigan Ave must be a liar, right? Hahhaha Some even said that anyone who thinks crime is up MUST be a racist! These people… Read more »
It will take a few years but with the new casino, the night clubs, bars, and likely some weed stores, its only a matter of time before river north is revitalized as a sin city of the midwest. The hotels will be a lot seedier and there will be a lot more crime, but it will come back to life. The condos will be sold on the cheap to investors who will rent them out as airB&Bs and the condo boards will be forced to allow it. The infrastructure of river north is there it will be repurposed but in… Read more »
Now that tourists and suburbanites seem to have deserted Boul Mich, maybe Lori and Toni can pick up the I Magnin building and Water Tower retail space for cheap and convert them into some of the affordable housing that we need more of. They could spend some of that unspent federal money for the conversion. After Kim and Toni achieve more social justice by emptying out the county jail, maybe they can use more of that federal money to redevelop the land at 26th and California into homes for the homeless. The last prisoners can be released to halfway houses in… Read more »
Chicago always treated us primitive suburbanites like it was doing us some sort of favor. Now the pandemic has shown that suburbanites aren’t as reliant on the big city as they thought. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Chicago needs external sources to keep afloat: tourists to fill the hotels and suburbanites to pop in-and-out of the city, consuming as they go, then returning home to pay for their kids’ expensive public education. It certainly doesn’t seem like its own residents are picking up the slack.
My family doesn’t spend money in Chicago any more.
Finally a Democrat who speaks the truth about the collapse of the Mag Mile. All the rest of them lie, lie, lie. Unfortunately at her current position she can do little about it. But speaking out is a start.
Maria Pappas not very good at math but she made some valid points.
Just as shootings and carjacking have become ubiquitous in Chicago, it appears crime on the Magnificent Mile as well.
Pappas is refreshingly honest.