-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Five years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. cities are still struggling to avoid commercial real-estate doom loops that have claimed areas such as downtown St. Louis. Fights like the one involving the River North building’s creditors are making it much harder for communities to rebound.
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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Downtown is now Dead town. Not safe so people leave the area, never to come back. Many of the businesses have left the state for greener pastures.
Democrats did this. They have finally killed the business climate in Chicago but are too stupid to realize it. Fools like PPF never thought that the Golden Goose would die. Its not dead but living well in Texas and has flown from Illinois. Hopefully the Public Sector Union scum got a nice fat dropping in their gaping moronic mouth as the goose flew over them while vacating the state.
Not a very good article. Blackstone ‘defaulted’ to get the loser property off it’s books, not because they financially had to. Says a lot about the ‘doom loop’ and it’s spread out to the nice suburbs.
“Build it and they will come” no longer applies. That’s why you have so many abandoned strip malls. They’d build them w/o tenants, figuring they’d rent them out once finished. This story is why I never invested in REIT’s. And if properties are worth less they’ll get a property tax reduction so homeowners have to make up the difference.