-- 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 the price of a night in the Palmer House went down to the price of Motel 6 in Hammond, I still have no desire to spend a weekend downtown. Funny because we just booked a Miami beach vacation and were having trouble finding a nicer hotel at a discount, we got our flight for a ridiculous $50 a ticket! But discounted finer hotels in Miami are nowhere to be found.
there won’t any conventions in chicago in 2021, and probably not 2022, or beyond. Chicago is a disaster and everyone knows it. We’ve lost the convention industry. It’s gone other than a few specific things like the car show and maybe the winter wonderfest.
I’ve run many convention booths all over the place. Orlando is the best Chicago the worst. In Orlando the wait staff literally forms a gauntlet of thanks as you enter the dining hall. In Chicago you’re lucky to get clean plates. When it comes to setting up, in Chicago you have to pay a union electrician to plug in your laptop network and computers, God forbid you want to put a case of water in your booth that you didnt buy at six times the cost from McCormack place. We had a case of Sams Club water confiscated from the… Read more »
McCormick places has hundreds, if not thousands, of high paying unionized jobs. None of them have worked a full since March 2020.
This has been known for years, but we unfortunately treated it as a joke, haha Chicago unions. Not so funny now…
Chicago could probably bring in CUPSA for conventions.