My Blog

Category: Society

  • Anti-Austerity Protests in Spain; U.S. Media Not Reporting

    Police are trying to clear out the massive anti-austerity demonstration that engulfed Spain’s federal district this evening.

    via Business Insider.

    Follow the link for photos.  This is us in a few years.  There’s no other way.

  • Painkillers Kill More Than Heroin And Cocaine Combined

    Prescription opioid painkillers are responsible for more fatal overdoses in the U.S. than heroin and cocaine combined, according to a new study out of Brandeis University.

    via Business Insider.

    I’m fascinated by statistics about how we die.  In Chicago gun crimes get all the media attention however heroin, and now I guess narcotic overdoses actually kill more.  In any given year it is likely that more die in automobile accidents as well; the media doesn’t really cover those either.  This is all media bias against guns.

    Where is the 60 mins story on prescription narcotics?  Where are the interviews with the parents of the dead teenager, crying, screaming into the camera?  Why is Mayor Bloomberg silent on this?  Why isn’t there a call for more regulation of these drugs?  Isn’t there a single politician who will stand up and say that it’s all for the children?

  • Embarassing Americans — And These People Vote

    I received this via email this morning.  I thought it was timely because just yesterday Howard Stern played audio of his producers in Harlem interviewing Obama supporters.

    There is something very very wrong with the educational system in this country whereas so many can be so ignorant of the most basic facts.  There is no way that these people can understand anything about finance, economics, job creation, tax theory, or any other subject that would make them an informed intelligent voter.

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE?rel=0]

    These people do not possess the requisite base of knowledge and analytical skills necessary to determine the implications of their vote.  They ought go into the voting booth and flip a coin.

    This is the result of 60 years of modern liberalism governing our schools.  Modern liberalism has created legions of undereducated men and women who can barely take care of themselves.  We’ve told them that they’re “special” and deserving when they are not even average or in fact normal.  They’re unique only in their ability to articulate idiocy and not be even slightly embarrassed.

    They are the poster children proving that ignorance is bliss.

    This is what the modern unionized public school system has given us.

  • Two Stabbed Outside Near North Bars

    Two men were stabbed, another badly beaten and a fourth arrested early Sunday morning after a fight on Division Street spilled over onto State Street, according to police.

    An officer sustained non-life-threatening injuries that didn’t require hospitalization while trying to make the arrest on a 24-year-old man, Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer John Mirabelli said.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Four people injured by one crazed lunatic with a knife.  When is this town going to get tough on crime and demand common sense knife laws?

    Hey Rahm!!  On No one’s talking about banning knives.  But shouldn’t we have a knife registry?  What we need is a CKOC (Chicago Knife Owners Card) to make sure that only people who’d paid their fee are able to buy and carry knives.  We clearly need more common sense knife laws in order to prevent another tragedy like this one.

    BTW — Kudos to the police for not just shooting this idiot and sending his to his eternal rest.  CPD shows incredible restraint under tough circumstances.

  • Streetwise Launches Neighbor Carts

    Rick Jones’ booming voice makes him hard to miss on the corner of Broadway and Wilson Avenue, where he shouts “fresh fruit” to passers-by rushing to and from the nearby Red Line station.

    Neatly displayed apples, bananas, plums and strawberries line the stainless steel cart that sits behind him. Jones, a struggling veteran, was recruited by StreetWise — the ubiquitous street magazine sold by the needy — to help operate the cart as part of its latest program for at-risk Chicagoans.  …

    Jones is one of seven trainees selected for Neighbor Carts, a new program designed to help unemployed, underemployed and other at-risk Chicagoans earn a paycheck while learning entrepreneurial business skills. StreetWise and Neighbor Capital, nonprofit organizations that focus on Chicago’s homeless and at-risk population, launched the program this summer.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    I’ve always liked Streetwise as an idea and as a company.  My understanding is that they are a little top-heavy; that too much money is spend on admin and offices, etc.  But they do good work.

    Kudos to Mr. Jones and the Streetwise team.  Best of luck on your new endeavor.

  • Quick Pension Analysis

    Ok, so I was getting asked about this the other day both in person and in the comments about why the pensions are really in such bad shape and what the latest GASB positions mean to the funds.  GASB first.

    GASB Changes
    I did some poking around and the recent GASB changes really mean nothing.

    After six years of research and about 400 pages of text, GASB’s statements 67 and 68 do little to provide enough meaningful information about the potential retirement costs faced by the taxpayers. The statements will force the worst of the worse, such as Illinois, to recognize a much larger liability.

    That’s like throwing the zombified Walking Dead under the bus to give the appearance of taking a serious step in providing transparency. Zombies are already dead. You can throw them under a bulldozer; it doesn’t make them more dead.  …

    The new standards still allow most pension funds to choose their discount rates when determining their pension liabilities. In other words, the sworn and civilian plans of the City of Los Angeles can wantonly throw caution to the wind and assume a 7.75% earnings assumption going forward, avoiding any consideration of risk.

    via City Watch LA.

    You can read the policy papers.  It’s pages and pages of nonsense summarized nicely with the zombie analogy above.

    But what the lastest GASB changes point out to us is the danger regarding the assumed internal rate of return.

    Interest Rate Issue
    For giggles I found the 2011 annual report of the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund.  It’s 116 pages detailing a underfunded, mismanagement, no financial understanding pension time-bomb with some lipstick.

    From page 13:

    As of June 30, 2011, investments at fair value plus cash totaled $10,456,912,118. This reflects a 16.8% increase from the $8,949,590,783 value of June 30, 2010. The Fund’s investment performance rate of return for the year ended June 30, 2011, was 24.8%, exceeding the projected return of 8% and reflecting a 82.3% increase from the 13.6% performance rate of return as of June 30, 2010. The ten-year rate of return posted by the Fund for the period ended June 30, 2011, was 5.7%, and fell short of the actuarial assumption of 8%.

    That’s a lot of information.  I draw your attention to the incredible swings in the rate of return of the fund over the years.  24.8% one year, 13.6% another, however the 10-year average is a mere 5.7%.   On page 25 we learn that the 5-year average is only 4.7%.  Yikes!!  But the fund assumes that over the long term it will average 8%.

    But what does that mean? So what?

    Well, the fund currently has net assets of $10.344 billion.  When invested at the given rate of returns at the end of 5 years we have:

    Year Value @ 4.7% Value @ 5.7% Value @ 8%
    0 $10,344,100,000.00 $10,344,100,000.00 $10,344,100,000.00
    1 $10,830,272,700.00 $10,933,713,700.00 $11,171,628,000.00
    2 $11,339,295,516.90 $11,556,935,380.90 $12,065,358,240.00
    3 $11,872,242,406.19 $12,215,680,697.61 $13,030,586,899.20
    4 $12,430,237,799.29 $12,911,974,497.38 $14,073,033,851.14
    5 $13,014,458,975.85 $13,647,957,043.73 $15,198,876,559.23

    If the next 5 years are like the past 5 years the fund will earn 4.7% on its assets.  So in 5 years it will have $13.014 billion.

    In the next 5 years are like the past 10 years the fund will earn 5.7% on its assets.  So in 5 years it will have $13.646 billion.

    However the plan assumes that over the next 5 years it will follow the 8% column and have $15.1 billion.  History is against them.

    If the fund earns 5.7% over the next 5 years it will be $1.55 billion short of projections.  That’s 10% less money available.

    If the fund earns 4.7% over the next 5 years it will be $2.18 billion short of projections.  That’s 14% less money available.

    If all the assumptions go on for 10 years:

    Year Value @ 4.7% Value @ 5.7% Value @ 8%
    10 $16,374,178,752.54 $18,007,050,537.73 $22,332,136,064.29

    Earning 5.7% the fund is $4.33 billion short or 19.3%.

    Earning 4.7% the fund is $5.95 billion short or 26.6%.

    So if the next 10 years are anything like the past 10 years from an investment standpoint we can expect the all the state pension funds to have about 20% less money than they’re projecting.  That could easily be another $40-50 billion that someone’s going to come looking for.

    – – –

    Now in all fairness, a historic average suggest that a return rate of 8% could be reasonable.  i.e. These funds may be able to earn an 8% return in the next 5 years.  Why?

    Interest Rates & Inflation.  In the last 5 – 10 years there has been very little inflation and interest rates have been low.  That’s generally accepted to be a good thing.  However it messes with the long-term analysis as to what something will be worth in the future.

    Given the amount of debt carried by the Feds, and the quantitative easing (a/k/a money printing) that been happening, it’s safe to say that very soon interest rates are going to start going up… fast and dramatically.

    When interest rates go up, the rate of return on these pension funds should go up as well.  If they get close to the 8%, then we’ll only have to worry about the current short fall of billions and billions and billions.

    Any questions?

  • Blantly Racist Headline at L.A. Times & Tribune

    White working class: Clinging to guns, religion and Romney

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Here is Barack Obama’s full quote:

    You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them.  And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not.  And it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
    — Barack Obama, April 6, 2008.

     

    There is nothing inherently racist in Obama’s quote.  While it’s true that: (a) small towns in Pennsylvania incredibly white and it appears Obama means, “small town white folk,” and (b) he characterizes these people as “anti-immigrant”, Obama was at least careful not to directly inject race into the statement.

    We really need to find a way to come together on this race issue.

  • Surgeon Sage Says

    “Surgeon Sage Says” (circa 1915)

  • Chick-fil-A Wavies 1st Amendment Rights

    Chick-fil-A has pledged to stop giving money to anti-gay groups and to back off political and social debates after an executive’s comments this summer landed the fast-food chain smack in the middle of the gay marriage debate.

    The Civil Rights Agenda, which dubs itself the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group in Illinois, said Chick-fil-A agreed in meetings to stop donating to groups such as Focus on the Family and the National Organization for Marriage. Such groups oppose same-sex marriage.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    WT…?!  Why?

    Everyone please note how the Left does not wish to openly discuss issues of public disagreement — No National Discourse will be held.

    Opposing opinions will be silenced by any means necessary.

    I fully support Chick-fil-A giving money to any political cause it likes.  I don’t have to eat there.

    I fully support Progressive Ins. giving money to any leftest cause it likes.  I have have to buy Ins. from them.

    Warren Buffet = Geico.  Don’t have to buy their ins. either.

    Sheldon Adelson runs the Sands Casino group and gives a lot of money to Romney.  You don’t have to gamble at a Sands owned hotel.

    I could go on.

    But badgering people over and over and over and over and over and over until the have to submit to political correctness does not server the public good.  The solution for bad speech is not no speech but MORE speech.

    If you disagree with me, fine.  Be polite, state your case.

    I disagree strongly with what you say,
    but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
    –Voltaire –

    This Civil Rights Agenda stands for anything but.  It’s evil.

  • 400 Richest Americans’ Worth $1.7 Trillion

    The net worth of the richest Americans grew by 13 percent in the past year to $1.7 trillion, Forbes magazine said on Wednesday, and a familiar cast of characters once again populated the top of the magazine’s annual list of the U.S. uber-elite, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison and the Koch brothers.

    The average net worth of the 400 wealthiest Americans rose to a record $4.2 billion, the magazine said.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    I love stories like this.  The Left will go on and on about how its unfair that these people earn this money; it’s terrible that anyone should be allowed to have this much money, and what-have-you.

    So let’s just take.  Let’s just take all of it.  Let’s take these thieving bastards money and redistribute it so everyone benefits.

    $1.7 T / 314,409,835 people = $5,406.96 per person.

    That would be a one time payment by the way.  No one would ever get another nickel from these people ever again.  Hardly seems worth it to me.

    Maybe we should use it to pay off our national debt.  After all every citizen owes the government over $51,000.  Surely we’d all be better off if we just paid down the debt.

    $16T – 1.7T = $14,300,000,000,000

    After that we all now owe about $46,000 to the government, each. … Huh?!   Still seems like we all owe a lot of money.

    And this is the folly — we can Eat the Rich — but it would never be enough to save us from what we’ve already done to ourselves.

    Inflation and austerity are coming.  Plan for it.