-- 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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I visit family and friends in the Chicago metro once a year. To get into the Loop I take the Metra train from either the Westmont or Clarendon Hills stations. In 2019, pre covid, the parking lots around those stations were packed and I would have to look for a parking space. This past October, when I was in town and took the train into the Loop you could roll a bowling ball thru theses spaces and not hit a single car. Literally hundreds of parking spaces were vacant at these two train stations. This does not bode well for… Read more »
That rat race sucked real bad for a long time. I’m surprised it lasted for as long as it did. It’s almost an hour door to door from Clarendon Hills to the loop after factoring in driving to/from the train station, the 5 minute wait for the train, the 5 minutes to get out of the train station and the 5-10 minute walk to the office, often in inclement weather (very hot, or cold, sloppy sidewalks), all the while crammed into a standing room only train car with people coughing and sneezing everywhere. Horrible experience, straight out of a third… Read more »
a little comment on the rat race you referenced: I remember walking from work in downtown Chicago to the Metra station in the winter, where I had to walk backwards part of the way because of the wind chill well below zero.
They’ll just move somewhere else and vote-and-destroy their new host.
Like the article says, prices are falling because demand is collapsing. I’ve been downtown a handful of times since COVID, despite having worked downtown 3-4 times a week prepandemic, and it’s become undesirable. Bums and migrants on every corner and criminal elements lurking everywhere. Vacant storefronts and mostly-empty restaurants. Few people milling around. Few want to pay $$$ to live in a moribund mostly dead city. Buyers want the hustle and bustle of a big, walkable city with lots of activity. Whatever downtown and the near north is selling is crap. And now that most of the wealthier suburbs have… Read more »
I’m glad I got out and escaped to Idaho
I miss what Chicago used to be
Excellent! Lori Lightfoot set it all in motion, and doesn’t get near the credit she deserves for the disaster that it’s become.
Lori also allowed St. Floyd BLM rioters to loot downtown twice. I think quite a few businesses got the hint.
Yes, the first round of looting in May and June 2020 was a serious wound to the city’s vitality, but we could have survived. Most other downtowns have come back, not 100%, but have come back. It was the second round of looting in August 2020 was a fatal wound because that’s what caused most suburbanites to dismiss Chicago for the next generation. Other than for family or business, I hardly know anyone who goes into Chicago for leisure. My son went to a northside neighborhood, with family friends, a few weeks for a community event, one of the first… Read more »
I get a kick out of these dated specials on PBS, showing how vibrant Chicago is and how desirable it is to hang out there with no chance of getting mugged.
I learned a new word today. Thanks
In Lori’s defense, she did not want to shut down or require Nazi-esqu fake vaccine cards, she’s on record saying as much. However being a good little DNC soldier the powers that be put her in her place and within 24 hours of publicly stating “what works for NYC does not work for Chicago” she was on TV backtracking and falling in line. Was it Pritzker? The national DNC or Obama? We’ll never know. Lori could have been great and bucked the ruling junta but she didnt so she goes down as the worst mayor in history (thus far). Nothing… Read more »
And there is another aspect of this problem that is hard to quantify but just as impactful, and that is the wealthy folks who still have a residence in Illinois so they seem to still live here, but in fact they have already changed their residences to a more tax friendly state. You would be surprised how many folks who look like they live here are actually tax residents of other states. Florida in particular, but also Tennessee, Arizona and Texas have all attracted thousands of Illinoisans by virtue of the “six months and a day” rule. I know at… Read more »
Good point. It would seem to follow that for half of every year, these wealthy folks don’t contribute to the Illinois economy, increasing the tax burden on the rest of us residents. However, I’m not faulting them.
That’s for sure. We hear it from potential contributors all the time. “Sorry, I’ve given up on Illinois.”
I have given up on Illinois. It is wonderful to watch the collapse from afar than have to scramble around inside the collapsing building trying to avoid the falling beams.
Yes, true. Most of my business contacts have relocated out of Chicago, and many have established legal domicile in a more tax-friendly state.
Go woke until you go broke. Tell that to Preckwinkle, Evans, Pritzker, Lightfoot, Brandon “Conehead” Johnson, the Daleys, the Biden-Harris-Walz circus, and the rest of our progressive-liberal huckster politicians. You need taxpayers to fund all that woke progressive socialist social policy initiatives, and taxpayers to fund all those sweetheart contract awards. Eventually many taxpayers wise-up, and relocate their tax obligation-determined residence and business locations to reduce their tax burdens.
My wife and I are retired and live in a rather modest abode in the suburbs, so we aren’t on the receiving end of all the taxpayer abuse. If they start taxing retirement income, all bets are off on continuing to reside in Illinois.
The progressive politicians you named don’t care if the wealthy taxpayers move. They don’t care if the county/city/state goes broke. People have trouble wrapping their heads around this concept because it’s so very foreign to normal people. But these people don’t share your values or think like you do. They are not going to make rational decisions because their voters are not rational either. They will go woke, they will go broke, and they will destroy and burn to the ground what is left. It’s not like we haven’t seen this before, the world is littered with the ruins formerly… Read more »
Won’t property tax assessments decrease as the value of the real estate decreases? So additional taxes will have to be raised to make up for the lost revenue? So, IL loses residents, businesses, and property tax revenue.
Yes, RE assessments will come down with the values. However, tax rates will increase to offset the reductions. The city and Cook County will always get theirs. As taxpayers depart, the total tab gets split across a smaller base and climbs for those remaining.
Exactly, also pertains to collar counties.
Taxes for a property owner are based on a two-part calculation. First, individual taxing bodies determine what they need or are entitled to (eg CPI increases for school districts.) Second, the sum of those ‘needs’ are rolled up and divided among property owners based on their relative share of the collective property valuations. So no, taxes don’t go down with property values unless elected officials determine they ‘need’ less.
Don’t forget about the 39 counties under Ptell (excludes Chicago but now Cook County) whereas the taxing bodies can get what was levied the year before not billed or collected plus 5% or 1/2 of inflation whichever is less. Ptell is basically a backdoor referendum without voter approval. Here is some info.
https://www.rrstar.com/story/sports/high-school/field-hockey/2016/12/15/eav-fluctuation-has-little-effect/19553466007/
Wally, you’re reading the story of Detroit back to me.
Having worked with many wealthy folks who were angel investors or in venture capital, I wrote here since 2013 on the evidence about the wealthy preparing to leave. https://wirepoints.org/more-evidence-the-rich-are-fleeing-illinois-wp-original/.
It takes time for that to actually happen and show up in real estate prices, but here it is. They changed their residences and estate plans long ago. The die was cast. We sounded the alarm and the Illinois establishment ignored us. Many of those wealthy folks described in the article sat on their asses as our problems multiplied, and still do today.
I have no way to show ’cause-effect’ but the dramatic rise in crime in Chicago probably was the real straw to push out well-to-do progressive Democrats and phony ‘Republicans’. Lightfoot and Pritzker encouraging BLM and Antifa to riot and looting of the Mag Mile may have been the break point. It’s hard to comprehend the malevolence of the Leftist Democrats. I suspect most who left didn’t engage too hard in the community to push back against the Leftists as they determined a hopeless situation. Cutting your loses and moving to higher ground is a legit business decision.
Agreed.
Much of the political establishment and significant number of leftist *want* the wealthy gone and out of Illinois. They tax the crap out of them intentionally so they leave. They really want them dead, as shown by the targeted assassination of the healthcare insurance CEO, but they’ll settle for their voluntarily relocation to a red state. Everything about the left is based in resentment and envy. This is nothing new, we’ve seen this all before. They don’t care if it all collapses. This goes all the way back to the French Revolution when peasants burned it all down just to… Read more »
That’s what “build back better” was all about. Burn down the old and rebuild it as a progressive paradise. The main constituency for that was losers — people who can’t figure out how to function in society so they prefer to roll the dice on a whole new world.
They want the non-leftists gone but they want them to leave their money. The leftist only wants to destroy what is, because generally they are failures in the current system. They have no vision about what will replace it. The problem with the class warfare against the “wealthy” is that as the wealthy leave, the leftists need to change the definition of wealthy to encompass more and more people. Eventually, you will all be promoted to “wealthy”.
Most of my high net worth clients have already transitioned out of Illinois, driven in large part by the Illinois estate tax, but also by other taxes, crime, corruption, business over-regulation, union craziness and the fact that they can see Illinois and Chicago dying. Someday you should do a story on the minority contractor scam at O’Hare and Midway, as well as other city and state projects. The ONLY reason I get from my clients as to why they stay in Illinois is family. That’s it. If it wasn’t for family ties, Illinois and Chicago would be more of a… Read more »