-- 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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State data at https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19/data/hospitalization-utilization.html says Illinois hospitals have 31,754 total beds, of which 3,783 (or maybe fewer, as the data be inconsistent) are occupied by Covid patients. There are 5400 beds “open.” The same site shows that most ICU beds are occupied by non-Covid patients, and 9% are “open.” Assuming that we can trust these statistics, there certainly could be localized difficulties as reported by the article, but it seems overall there’s plenty of capacity.
I did not see any statistics about what proportion of patients are vaxxd.