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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 Bond Buyer keeps on swallowing JB the Hutt and Mayor Cliff Notes’ Kool Aid. Over the past couple of years, I read their report and ask: ‘what planet in Jen Shea on?’. or ‘Is she on the take from Illinois leftist Dems?’
Nothing out in Realville justifies any of The Bond Buyer’s ratings for Illinois and Chicago’s debt being so high except maybe to con chumbolones into buying these imprudently issued securities.
Not one tenth of one percent of people who hear about this understand what it means. It is bad news. It is in fact a downgrade going from “positive” to “stable”, just without the letter grade being downgraded right now. And the alderman correctly stated that the City is expecting a downgrade next. And don’t forget, Moody’s is paid by the City, so you don’t think Moody’s is sensitive to the political bad news for their client who is paying them?