-- 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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Companies used to move from the city to the suburbs, and sometimes from the suburbs back into the city. But these days, they just leave Illinois altogether. Meanwhile, the middle class flees all of this. At the same time, the HR wine aunt cat lady takes her $120k a year job downtown, and the illegal immigrant sells ‘chalk-o-lot’ on downtown corners and suburban intersections for $5 a bar, and our politicians say “THIS IS PROSPEROUS PROGRESSIVE UTOPIA”