Tag: Debt Crisis
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Quinn Spends Another $1.5 Billion We Don’t Have
Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn on Thursday signed into law an extra $1.5 billion in spending for road construction and child welfare investigations, even as Republicans decried the measure as including ill-timed, pork barrel money. via Chicago Tribune. What is wrong with this guy? Really? Quinn already stopped a bond auction because the rates for Illinois…
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Wanna See Our Future?
Hundreds of people jostled for free vegetables handed out by farmers in a symbolic protest earlier on Wednesday, trampling one man and prompting an outcry over the growing desperation created by economic crisis. Images of people struggling to seize bags of tomatoes and leeks thrown from a truck dominated television, triggering a bout of soul-searching…
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What Drives Corporate Profits?
In a heady story over the Business Insider today Joe Weisenthal walks us through an analysis as to why corporate profits are so high right now. It generally all comes down to this chart: It shows the various drivers and drags on corporate profitability. So for example, household savings are always a drag on profitability,…
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The Fiscal Entitlement Cliff
The U.S. Census Bureau says 108 million Americans live in households where at least one person participates in a means-tested program. We estimate that 80 million are the primary recipients…. Since the president took office: • Medicaid is up from 46.9 million to 56 million people. • Disability beneficiaries are up from 7.5 million to…
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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…
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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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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…
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Chicago Aldermen: White Collar Criminals
An analysis of pension fund documents for 21 aldermen who retired under the plan shows they are in line to receive nearly $58 million during their expected lifetimes, though contributions and assumed investment returns are predicted to cover just $19 million, or a third of that sum. The pension deal was inked more than two…