-- 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
Can they propose mental health days for parents and taxpayers that are under duress from the teachers unions and woke administrators? A rebate on real estate taxes equal to their compensation for those days. If we are giving away money, I think taxpayers deserve some too.
Newsflash: They already have them available in the form of sick days. Oh, but they can also roll those sick days and retire up to a year earlier, full pension in their late 50’s. How many of you have that same benefit??
Another way to think about it is that every benefit requires workers somewhere to strongly agitate against the status quo and face whatever reprisals that ensue. I don’t know what company or political entity started the 40-hour work week, but I feel safe in saying that was accomplished through the laborers there rather than the company or political entity volunteering to do so. In short, life teaches you that gifts from total strangers are exceedingly rare and that if you want something you have to be persistent in forcefully saying so. Meekness is seldom a winning strategy.
Actually, it was Henry Ford who instituted the 40 hour week. He believed it would improve productivity. It was not the laborers agitating for it and forcing it on the company.
Okay, that’s something I’d forgotten. I do think I’ve read that at some point, but what I tended to remember more is that he also gave an hourly raise to his workers hoping that would incentivise them to buy his cars and give some word-of-mouth favorable advertising for others to do likewise. I think my general premise was largely correct even though you’ve given me a noteworthy case to the contrary and one that decidedly disproved the example I had offered. Thanks for doing so.