Category: Business
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Labor Force Participation Rate Lowest Since 1981
This story is actually over a month old. It’s been sitting in the “drafts” folder. Still just as relevant as the day it was published. In April the number of people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 522,000 from 87,897,000 to 88,419,000. This is the highest on record. The flip side, and…
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Your Home’s Router is Spying on You
It must be spy on American’s week given posts on law enforcement asking for your cell data and how the NSA is going to expand its spying on Americans on a massive scale. Now we have this: Cisco Systems told users of its new high-end home routers — in a roundabout way — they couldn’t…
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Gotta Love American Ingenuity (& Tax Avoidance)
So I’m reading two stories (here and here) about a new law that will effectively outlaw Roll-Your-Own tobacco stores. It’s something I kinda follow because I always thought it was a decent business model (until the government outlaws your business) and another fine example of what steps people will go through to avoid taxes. In…
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More And More Americans Are Leaving
Last year, nearly 1,800 Americans surrendered their citizenship. In a nation of 300 million folks, 1,800 émigrés is hardly a rush for the exits. But the recent trend is, nevertheless, intriguing. … Who knows the exact reason why 1,800 Americans chose to leave last year — nine times as many as left four years earlier.…
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Bankrupt Stockton Chicago
Yesterday’s news: Officials in Stockton said Tuesday that mediation with creditors has failed, meaning the Central California city is set to become the largest American city ever to declare bankruptcy. … The river port city of 290,000 in Central California has seen its property taxes and other revenues decline, while expensive investments and generous retiree…
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More Bad News on the Pension Crisis
If I was Rahm I would so totally throw Daley under the bus on this issue. The debt from 10 Chicago-area pension plans swelled more than 600 percent to $27.4 billion between 2001 and 2010, according to a study released Monday by the nonpartisan Civic Federation. That’s $8,993 for each man, woman and child in…
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Illinois lags in science, tech, engineering, math grads
Bad News: Illinois is producing fewer graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math than the national average, according to the June release of the Illinois Innovation Index. … According to the Illinois Innovation Index, the number of STEM degrees granted to Illinois graduates hit a high-water mark of 20,248 in 2003 before dropping…
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Google and the Merchandise Mart
Good News!! Crain’s Chicago Business reports: Google is in talks to lease some 500,000 square feet in the Merchandise Mart, sources say. The deal would include a rooftop deck. The Internet search giant, looking to move employees from the Libertyville headquarters of its recently acquired Motorola Mobility, has an office for tech workers near the…
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Illinois’ Pensions are the Worst
A new report being issued today — see the bottom of this post — from the Pew Center on the States says that Illinois once again ranks 50th of the 50 states in assets relative to liabilities. But while Illinois’ absolute position did not sink — a mathematical impossibility — its relative position did erode,…
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JP Morgan: Public Employee Pension’s Set to Explode
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…