-- 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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If you have to receive the last receivable to make the next payable, that’s the definition of a Ponzi scheme. You are building no equity as people are living longer, no way this works.
The pensions are so expensive that they are unsustainable at today’s levels. The taxpayer cannot afford to pay for them. Higher and higher taxes just chase out more upper income earners and job creators to other states. This is a death debt spiral that will not end well for anyone. Pensions are a form of economic cancer.