Author: Jimmy
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Raise Taxes — Lose Revenue
The current taxes on a pack of cigarettes in Chicago include $2 from Cook County, 98 cents from Illinois and 68 cents from the city. If Quinn signs the latest increase, the taxes in Chicago will be $4.66 per pack, compared with 99 cents in East Chicago. On Monday, a pack of Marlboros at a…
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Protests
Story: Protesters throw fence on police 5:43 p.m. Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, dressed in his white uniform and wearing sunglasses, has appeared behind the thick line of police in riot gear. The police are facing off with protesters at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Cermak. A large crowd of protesters is gathered in the…
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Half of Florida H.S. Students Fail Reading Test
Nearly half of Florida high school students failed the reading portion of the state’s new toughened standardized test, education officials said on Friday. Results this year from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test showed 52 percent of freshman students and 50 percent of sophomores scored at their grade levels. Students in the 10th grade must pass…
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Illinois 3rd in Foreclosures Nationally
This is embarrassing: Foreclosures starts in Illinois are on par with those in other areas but the state’s court-supervised foreclosure system continues to bog down properties in the process. Almost 7.5 percent of all one-to-four-unit mortgage loans in Illinois were in foreclosure in the first quarter, compared with a national average of 4.39 percent, according…
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Gov. Red Tape Kills Another Biz, Jobs
Last month when Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced his streamlining of city business licensing procedures, he chose Logan Square Kitchen as the location to herald this new day in better relations between the city and small businesses. And so it’s more than a little ironic that today LSK owner Zina Murray annouced on her website that…
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Stripping Chicago Spending, Bare Down
“What do a Chicago strip club and the President’s campaign fund have in common?” ANSWER: BOTH were paid- with public funds- as “VENDORS” to the City of Chicago. _______________________________________ Yesterday, OpenTheBooks.com upgraded it’s transparency portal to include the City of Chicago checkbook from 2002-2011. It contains $74 billion in vendor payments. Last year 69,800 entities received checks. Here’s what I found while scanning…
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Wealthy Flee France (Shhh, don’t tell the U.S. Media)
For those that don’t know, France recently had an election and voted for the most socialist guy on the ballot. The guy who’s promising to raise taxes on the rich and increase the transfer payments to the poor. The result? The rich are leaving… in droves. France’s high earners feel increasingly unwelcome in a country…
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21 Unanswered Questions
#3 Why does the Department of Homeland Security need Predator-B drones to patrol the border between the United States and Canada? #4 Why is a militarized “Red Zone” being set up in Chicago three weeks prior to the upcoming NATO summit on May 20th and 21st? #5 Why is the Milwaukee Red Cross being told…
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Layoffs on Wall Street?
After adding thousands bankers in the past two years, financial firms again appear to be on the verge of cutting that many positions and then some. Consultants and Wall Street recruiters say banks could eliminate nearly 21,000 jobs from their securities divisions in New York alone. Worldwide cuts could be even larger. Recruiters say big…
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Cars Sit Unused for 5 Years in Maimi
Have you ever bought a brand new cars only to forget where you put it? How about 300 of them? Probably not – unless you’re Miami-Dade County, which was recently reunited with 298 vehicles it bought brand new between 2006 and 2007. The county “discovered” this fleet of no-mileage vehicles after reading about them in…