-- 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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Jabba expects $170,000,000 year in sales tax from cannabis. Let’s see, at 11 mil a week, at PEAK demand, with lines that are hours long, and they ran out of supply, times 50 weeks is $572,000,000 in sales, and assuming, optimistically, 33% taxes that’s $190,000,000 in revenue. So yeah, maybe. But that assumes crazy, line out the door waiting every day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to reach $500,000,000 in gross revenues, at the current stores. Sure they’re supposed to approve more dispensaries, but we’ll see, we’ll see. Everything seems too optimistic.