-- 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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The suburbs will recover more quickly than the city. The Chicago office market is dead in the water. The larger issue is that, like everything in Illinois, there aren’t enough businesses left in Illinois to lease all of the available office space. Growth isn’t going to fill the office space and available space grows old and obsolete before it can be leased. At best, downtown companies will move to the suburbs when their leases slowly expire in the upcoming years cannibalizing one leasing market for another.
You have pretty much summed it up perfectly. The u s populatiion growth overall is down to less than one percent. Somehow, some way, that can never quite be articulated, growth will always materialize. Like so many of these types of articles, it is interviewing people who are just talking their positions.
Especially in Illinois, growth is difficult to come by, with anti-business policies being enshrined into law.