-- 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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These agencies need to be sued for tampering with the very things they are rating, then pretending to be impartial raters. They think they have no fiduciary responsibility here because they don’t process the transactions. In reality when a state is living on borrowed money these agencies become the most important element in the pomzi. The very act of “talking” to the entity pritzler that will be raising the taxes should be a crime. The whole bond rating industry is starting to stink as bad as the actuarial industry.