Kill the Machine
I wrote this a few weeks ago as a comment on a retired teacher’s blog. The post there was about how we need to “tax the rich” in order to fund the teachers’ pensions. I was asked to comment on the post by a retired teacher I know. Analysis follows: There is no one sided … Continue reading “IL Pension Hole Analysis”
But they wanted to keep the story to themselves: JPMorgan recently circulated a “strictly confidential” report among leaders at the bank and with trusted hedge fund allies outside of the bank which details an impending public pension crisis. And we mean big time nastiness. Massive cuts in services will have to happen, or massive tax … Continue reading “JP Morgan: Public Employee Pension’s Set to Explode”
The head of Illinois’ largest pension plan strongly suggested that cuts in cost-of-living benefits are inevitable for more than 360,000 teachers and retirees outside of Chicago. In an interview with Crain’s editors and reporters, Richard Ingram, executive director of the underfunded Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, said state politicians will have few other options if they … Continue reading “Illinois Need to Cut COLAs”
Save. Save as much money as you can. Live well below your means. The pension time-bomb is coming. One of the most vexing problems for Chicago and its teachers went virtually unmentioned during the strike: The pension fund is about to hit a wall. The Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund has about $10 billion in assets, … Continue reading “One Word for CPS Teachers: Save”
We’re national news again. … Indiana’s debt for unfunded retiree health-care benefits, for example, amounts to just $81 per person. Neighboring Illinois’s accumulated obligations for the same benefit average $3,399 per person. Illinois is an object lesson in why firms are starting to pay more attention to the long-term fiscal prospects of communities. Early last … Continue reading “How Retirement Benefits May Sink Illinois”
We’re now making national news: After trying to tax Illinois to governmental solvency and economic dynamism, Pat Quinn, a Democrat who has been governor since 2009, now says “our rendezvous with reality has arrived.” … Illinois was more heavily taxed than the five contiguous states (Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin) even before January 2011, when … Continue reading “lllinois Moves Toward Insolvency”
The Machine taking care of its own: At first blush, a pension bill adopted by the General Assembly in 2007 seemed to have a laudable goal: extending retirement benefits to local police force employees’ widows after they remarried. But buried within the legislation was something considerably less altruistic: a provision that enabled a member of … Continue reading “Clout Boosts Ex-Police Chief $30k per Year”
Media tries, fails to explain why TIF is so confusing: [E]ven Mr. Orr and top aides [are] unsure exactly how much money is in Chicago’s TIF coffers. … There are now 158 TIF districts in Chicago, and they generated $519 million last year, Mr. Orr said. In all, there may be a shade over $1 … Continue reading “Media on TIF does not understand TIF”