-- 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.
SIGN UP HERE FOR OUR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER
Even though farmers are paying double for fertilizers one thing is missing from this equation. Water! We are still in a drought pattern that may last years. Not much snow on top of little rain in our area and most of the west and midwest. It will cost farmers more than twice as much to TRY to grow crops which are dependent on water. It is raining in areas where few crops are grown and drying up where many crops are grown. The world is in a turmoil due to oil prices but the shortage of clean water in the… Read more »
Farmers are gamblers at heart or fail to recognize it when things go awry. Some years they win big-time, some are equally bad, and most years they can some variation of a reasonable living. Where they tend to “score” really heavily, if literally many decades of evidence is proof, is in owning at least some farm land. Many such farmers live modestly by necessity or choice depending upon the year, but land-value appreciation over several decades can make their estate’s beneficiaries wealthy, indeed, more often than not.
The most un-reported property tax burden story in Illinois is the parabolic rise in farmland property tax assessment engendered by tying to a U-of-I-derived productivity index (which does not factor in drought). No Illinois political class member is willing to address: property tax assessment of farmland reflects what Illinois productivity soil index determines is ‘fair market value’. In real life, fair market value for farmland is calibrated to cost of inputs and revenue potential. Soil productivity is one component to determine a willing buyer’s perception of value, but another component is the buyer’s cost burden of owning that land. (In… Read more »