-- 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
Michigan Ave’s “Mag Mile” has become “Maudlin Mile”. Soon to be gone: Uniqlo, Disney, already gone: Best Buy, Macy’s, TJ Maxx, and many more fine and NEEDED stores. Don’t forget to mention guy who drove on sidewalk, chased pedestrians up by One Mag Mile, and eventually crashed INTO Dior store’s shatter-proof storefront window. Nice town you got here, Lori, Kim and Toni – thank you for your hard work towards destroying a formerly vibrant downtown of a major American city in two years. What an accomplishment! FYI: little covered news: Toni’s DIL was arrested for murder – nice family you… Read more »
I am quite unlikely to be back on Michigan Ave. Perhaps if there have been no episodes of carjackings, beaten shoppers, or looting bands of wilding youths for two or three years, I might risk a day on that street. That is, if it still exists.
Many forces here besides crime that are causing the demise… Amazon, why schlep around stores all day when you can see 50 versions of the item you want, at the best price, and have it at your door tomorrow. Parking, why pay $30 or more, to park blocks away? Inconvenience, you have to carry everything you bought, for blocks and blocks, for hours and hours. Also my wife and I once went into a Nieman Markus, would you believe it, we could not find a chrome shopping cart for anything! Thats supposed to be “luxury” shopping? Carrying everything around and… Read more »
The Mag Mile is now fondly referred to as Crap Street
Why on earth would anyone go to the Mag Mile? Closed storefronts, gangs terrorizing people and the stench of woke policies everywhere. No thanks.
I shed no tears for Michigan Ave. This was the inevitable result of the poor decisions made by your elected officials. City leaders, believing in politics instead of science, purposely shut down Michigan Ave. believing that it would slow the spread of coronavirus (it did not) and that equity demanded it (again, it did not). Then, they allowed an entire summer of mass protests and riots up and down Michigan Ave and all over the downtown area, for ‘equity’, because no one in charge had the political will to defy the idolization of St. George Floyd, and control the rising… Read more »