-- 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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Fixed? They need to be in jail. “Just above junk” is a wonderful place to be, it sells. Doesn’t matter if you have that rating by screwing over all the residents, confiscated their home values, got the legislators to put your investors first in line, or coloured and shaped the very thing you are supposed to be objectively rating, or how many lunches you had with the governor. Raters are not raters in Illinois, they are more like Ponzi operators.