Number of half-empty Chicago public schools doubles, yet lawmakers want to extend school closing moratorium – Wirepoints
April 19, 2024
17 Comments
A set of state lawmakers want to extend CPS’ current school closing moratorium to February 1, 2027 – the same year CPS is set to transition to a fully-elected school board. That means schools like Manley High School, with capacity for more than 1,000 students but enrollment of just 78, can’t be closed for anther three years. The school spends $45,000 per student, but just 2.4% of students read at grade level.
Hopefully, all media will get the message, in Illinois, too.
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about Illinois’ highest-in-the-nation property taxes, why lawmakers don’t want to touch the tax’s cost drivers, just how much Illinoisans’ tax burden has grown over the decades, why Gov. Pritzker failed to meet his promise to reform property taxes, and more.
So, when does the confidence game end for the bond market? I keep reading this, been reading it for over a decade now. What was Detroit’s last straw? What is ours? The next downturn surely will do it, but the math is already obvious. If you don’t get it now, why would you even “get it” then?
BONDFIRE. That’s what is coming. Today the only people showing up to buy bonds are the Pollyanna-like pension managers who are desperate for yield (and figure that when this turns into a firestorm…a huge BONDFIRE…they’ll be safely retired or too wealthy to care about unemployment.) But when the mood turns down and it becomes FASHIONABLE to ask the hard questions, bond markets will empty of buyers, prices will decline and then, when everyone realizes that the IOU’s they already hold cannot be sold at anything near today’s prices, they’ll panic. Prices will collapse (AKA rates will skyrocket) and the WEALTH… Read more »
Ok, good stuff, but WHEN Astonished?
Best guess, please.
Ha, ha, ha. When? In 1995. Then in 1998. Then in 2000. Then in 2007. I’m the last person to ask. The point is that as long as the SYSTEM rewards borrowers (with T-bill yields at 1.5% or less, 30-year T-bonds at 3% or less and deadbeat borrowers like Chicago and IL able to float their (toilet) paper at all) this farce will continue. It’s all about bonds. Stocks and other asset markets can rise or fall by half or more, but until debt prices enter a bear market, all paths are higher. The last bear market for debt ended… Read more »