-- 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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And further divide the country. Since when is it legal for the government to write a check paid for by the private sector and hand it over to the workers in the government sector?
If I’m not mistaken, that’s what is going on in Puerto Rico. The federal government can pay off dollar-denominated liabilities by putting more cash into the system and with bankruptcy laws it can expropriate bond-holders to pay retired teachers. Certainly we already participate in the losses experienced by those who live near beaches and rivers and in the wooded mountains of the West. When public employees retire in their 50s and live into their 80s and 90s their pensioned years may well exceed their working years. Later or sooner (I hope) the younger cohorts of workers will tire of funding… Read more »