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.
How do schools have a chronic absentee rate of 30% but a graduation rate of 87%? We all know how that happens.
Sure, it’s due to pressures brought to bear at every level to make things appear better than they are. We live in a society that can’t tolerate the downsides of realty, prefers pandering to fantasy portrayals and those who can successfully deliver it. Its everywhere you look in America—business report propaganda generally, advertising, politics, resumes, etc. We all want the illusive magical bullet, pill, employee, boss, or leader that solves all of life’s problems. We love to dream that’s going to happen, then reality steps in and says otherwise.