-- 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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His new strategy. We’re going to go like this and then go like that. They’ll never know where we’re at. It’s brilliant!
Neglecting to do the hard work of raising your kids properly because you are still a child, victim, and so totally dependent that you cant figure out how to do much of anything yourself. Is where all this starts. There is no shortage of immoral kids being placed into society by the helpless victim blaming class.
I think that there is another totally overlooked very plausible reason behind all this crime and that is lead poisoning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis https://www.manhattan-institute.org/verbruggen-lead-and-crime-review-evidence https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2017/06/01/new-evidence-that-lead-exposure-increases-crime/ https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i5/Crimes-Lead.html https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated-lead-crime-roundup-for-2018/ There are many more article too numerous to include. Many if not most inner cities homes have lead pipes/lead paint where the suburbs are newer and use PVC and copper pipes. When lead was outlawed in gasoline there is approx a 20 year lag to increased crime rates. To prove these theories can be simple. Anyone in jail now at random would take a heavy metal test to check lead levels. Non invasive just a… Read more »
Scientists have tried to give credit to all sorts of theories for crime, from lead, to abortion, to welfare reform of the 1990’s; but if anything, the answer in front of us today: decreased prosecution of crime leads to an increase in crime. The state and federal crime bills of the 1990’s to address the gang and drug wars locked up millions of felons and, therefore, less criminals were on the streets commits crime. Since about 2016, with the Ferguson stand down, crime has been cranked up to 11, and now with St. Floyd’s blessings in 2020, it’s been cracked… Read more »
Is that the same Edison park in the northwest suburbs by the railroad? I went there for a wedding rehearsal years ago. Real good Italian food. If it’s the same that’s pretty sad.
Edison Park is not yet destroyed, but, if crime were to continue to proliferate everywhere in the city then nowhere would be safe.
I wouldn’t downvote your post, but I don’t buy this theory. Generations of people have lived in those same bungalows, crime free, prior to the white flight.
Don’t forget when the lead pipes were installed the population was all white in the 1920’s. Decade upon decade the lead pipes were deteriorating and that’s when the white flight happened and it became mostly black. Also decades of chlorinated and fluoridated water leached the lead out of pipes. Fluoride was put in 1968. https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/chloramine-lead-pipes-fluoride-contaminated-tap-water https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8569015/ It takes time for lead (decades) for the negative effects of lead to manifest. Now add in lead paint and the stories of kids in inner cities eating paint chips. When whites first moved in the homes and pipes were new and maybe not… Read more »
Lead poisoning is a problem, but I think it hard to believe that the outsized incidence of crime is due to lead poisoning. Again, I can see it in a few isolated cases. Reading the record from the Freddie Gray Baltimore case, one can conclude that Gray was indeed a victim of lead poisoning as youth. Of course, Gray was a relatively low level criminal so I don’t think he is a good anecdotal example of violent crime (murder, armed robbery, etc). The problem lies in the culture.
https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/data/state/ildata.htm
The CDC does Blood Level Surveillance in children under 6. There is lead in some children but not sure if its enough to be causing the current situation.
I don’t think low-income households are drinking lots of tap water anyways, look at soda-consumer demographics.
Lead poisoning causes brain damage, lower IQ and mental competency, not enhanced anti-social criminal tendencies. What’s route to choice of gangbanger lifestyle? Let’s see: poor parenting, little parental supervision, absence of consistent positive role modeling by parents, absentee fathers, poor educational outcomes (and poor-quality teacher performance from average “18 ACT” CPS teacher), no consequences for bad behavior, and inappropriate SJW/CRT-messaging and constant reinforcement of racial stereotype “victim mentality”. Not “lead water pipes”. Not “lead paint”.
I’ve given this considerable thought lately and have reached the conclusion that the crime in the last 5-6 years, starting with the spike in 2016, really is the result of sociopathic super predators, the same super predators that Joe Biden warned us about during the 1990’s crime bill hearings. Sociopathic is the only way to describe youths who play Grand Theft Auto in real life. Sociopaths shoot up groups of children, funerals, school yards, parties, maiming and killing indiscriminately. A sociopath is a broken person that cannot be cured. It is a mental disorder. Our city’s sociopaths consciously and voluntarily… Read more »
You’ve written a very thought-provoking and nicely expressed point of view. We are living in a time and place where government is trying to be all things to all different kinds of interest groups, and we are alll seeing the immediate and depressing outcomes when these long-term political views create short-term consequences that are absolutely disastrous. You can please some of the people most of the time and some of them some of the time, but you can’t ever please all of the people all of the time. To hope and pseudo-plan otherwise is a fool’s game.
Never underestimate the number of stupid people in circulation. The voting public, with 55-40 majorities elected a city and county government that promised to emasculate the police department and set the criminals more or less loose on that public. Since its founding, someone has always been kicking 4$$ on the streets of Chicago. In the early 20th century it was the Colosimo/Capone and Moran mobs, since their eclipse it has been the police. The public apparently became tired of the relative peace and quiet of the past 90 years and has voted for some excitement. Urban voters all over the… Read more »
Every other month there are new strategies, tactics and task forces. It’s all talk, and the thugs know it. Lori Lightweight is worthless. It’s as if the mayor’s office is vacant.
Hmmm We’re going to hold them accountable? We’re going after them constitutionally? Yea, OK, sounds like a solid plan. Are Tim, Kim, and Toni onboard? Huh? Just some weasel words for the bootlicking media. How about a CAPS community summit? How about something with substance? Anything beyond talking about it?