-- 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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My understanding is the pensions assume 7.5 percent to 8.5 per year, and that’s what they have usually done. Whats wrong wit that?
Sue, it’s just not a reasonable number any more. That’s not my opinion, its Warren Buffet’s, the entire private sector, the accounting standard board, the ratings agencies, etc. Try to find a place that will assure you a 7.5% return. You won’t come close, anywhere.
Please print out a copy of this and nail it into the foreheads of the morons at all the papers who lecture us about pension reform but never tell us things like this.
I linked through to the report. That’s the kind of bullshit paper I learned to write in school. If anybody really understands how to fix something with so much to fudge and so much guesswork like inflation rates, its sure not the politicians who are in charge of fixing this. These plans will never be fixed and have to be replaced.