-- 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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This sort of corruption is widespread. Law firms and retirement homes and whoever knows how to fill out a form without obvious perjury gets to feed at this trough. I doubt this vig even finds its way into the inflation data.
It seems as if everyone has learned to kick the can or milk the goat. They’ve also learned to postpone the reckoning through re-financings and bankruptcies. Musical chairs: someone is supposed to withdraw a chair after each round. I think someone else said there is no such thing as perpetual motion. Art and science are marching on.