-- 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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So you want people to plant trees to control global warming and then you increase their real estate taxes because they have trees on their property? Torch them all. Only Illinois could come up with something this wacky!
Someone has to pay for all the social programs designed to right the wrongs of the oppressive land owners, what with Illinois’ long tradition of imperialism and slavery. Hundreds of dead/ dying small towns in IL are testament to that.
At the rate property tax rates are rising all over rural Illinois, and the formulaic inflation of farmland assessment, it is conceivable that all productive crop acreage will need to be converted to wasteland and non-farmable conservation easement.
Once converted, it is quite expensive to recapture tillable status.
It looks like classic dump-and-pump opportunity for Pritzker-eques to obtain extraordinary high loan leverage ratios from friends and family banks, in order to buy up distressed land at fire sale prices.
Once land title is in the hands of Illinois political insiders, assessment regulations may be relaxed to re-inflate property values.