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This is not a liberal issue. Pensions are a major area where they have pilfered and loaded up all the risk.
Detroit has been very interesting, as they air, what they have been doing for years. People should also pay more attention to their local redevelopment agencies, the bonds being issued and who is getting that money. Start looking at the books.
And this is just for the municipal pension.
Their teacher's pension is only 54% funded.
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The municipal pension fund isn't the only pension in failure in Chicago. The city's teachers' pensions are also widely understood to be one of the worst-funded in the country. The teachers' pension fund will require a tripling of its required contribution.
"The Chicago teachers' pension fund is roughly 54 per cent funded, far below the 80 per cent threshold considered healthy," Financial Times reported last December. "But it is better off than the city's municipal workers, police, labour and firefighters' pension funds, which Fitch, the credit rating agency, estimates are collectively 33 per cent funded."
Does everyone remember that the Chicago Teachers all went out on strike for a week a year ago? They were demanding a 17% raise + extra bennies.
The Balloon payment is 1/3 of the entire City Budget ...... no way they can make the payment. Impossible to feel sorry for these folks.. They have the Government they have voted for, and they vote for it over, and over, and over again. NO BAILOUTS for these cities that have deliberately gone into Massive Debt with the full consent of their citizens. They own it.
Does everyone remember that the Chicago Teachers all went out on strike for a week a year ago? They were demanding a 17% raise + extra bennies.
The Balloon payment is 1/3 of the entire City Budget ...... no way they can make the payment. Impossible to feel sorry for these folks.. They have the Government they have voted for, and they vote for it over, and over, and over again. NO BAILOUTS for these cities that have deliberately gone into Massive Debt with the full consent of their citizens. They own it.
Chicago Police budget is almost half of the city budget
Louisiana led the nation last year in feature-film production, according to a 108-film survey by a Los Angeles nonprofit think tank studying the impact of California’s loss of such projects.
Eighteen of those live-action movies, with spending estimated at $750 million, were filmed primarily in Louisiana, according to FilmL.A. Inc.
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While Louisiana led the 108-film survey with 18 movies produced in 2013, Canada and California tied for second at 15.
I wonder why the entertainment and other industries stay in liberal cities, when they could relocate to cheap conservative cities?
I wonder where your cave is. Do you not read the news about the "entertainment industries" leaving California and moving to a less toxic Tax environment?
Having lost 200,000+ citizens between 2000-10 and now faced with a population level last reached in 1920, raising taxes is always the first 'strategy' to be utilized in the playbook of your typical tax-and-spend-liberal.
Can't say I'm surprised whatsoever; somebody fire up their old Victrola and start playing the theme from 'Exodus' by Ferrante and Teicher as part of their 'tribute' to Emmanuel's typically boneheaded liberal response.
Having lost 200,000+ citizens between 2000-10 and now faced with a population level last reached in 1920, raising taxes is always the first 'strategy' to be utilized in the playbook of your typical tax-and-spend-liberal.
Can't say I'm surprised whatsoever; somebody fire up their old Victrola and start playing the theme from 'Exodus' by Ferrante and Teicher as part of their 'tribute' to Emmanuel's typically boneheaded liberal response.
Will libs ever learn Economics 101?
Rahm is no liberal, and he's not going to double property taxes, he's just using this as a technique to drum up resentment against unions.
Chicago is definitely losing population. It's population peaked in the 1950s at around 3.6 million. Today fewer people live in Chicago then lived there in the 1920s.
We have a difference in tense. Chicago's population peaked in 1950. The greatest loss occurred in 1980, serious decades before the pension crisis. Population grew briefly in the 90's , before another sustained decline.
Families with school- aged kids moved to the suburbs. Employers moved to the suburbs to avoid head taxes. The largest decline occurred within the black community- a reverse migration to the south, as manufacturing jobs were outsourced or eliminated by technology.
More recently, population has stabilized and grown modestly. The city has become whiter and younger. Once kids approach school- age, families remain inclined to move to the suburbs, unless the family can afford private schools or are able to get into a charter or magnet school. Chicago Public Schools are only 9% white and no school is majority white.
Chicago remains the third most populous city. Houston will likely push Chicago to #4 by the end of this decade.
Who is Tinkerbelle? Are you referring to Rahm Emanuel?
The pension mess has been a long time coming thanks to the 22 year reign of Richard M. Daley & Co.
Yes, as a nod to his days as a ballet dancer (which lasted into his college years). His abrasive attitude in the White House was a sharp contrast to all those years he spent rockin' the tights. Lol.
The pension mess HAS been a long time coming, but something tells me it will be unraveling in a hurry. I forsee a shrinking Chicago in the next decade, as people flee the crime, taxes, and weather associated with this city. It's a few decades away from being the next Detroit, but if the status quo isn't completely blown up, it's almost a certainty that it will one day look like Detroit. Midway through 2013, there were 34,000 vacant homes in Chicago.
The next decade should be interesting, but it's hard to feel sorry for Chicago. They continue to elect politicians that redefine the word corruption, and even managed to export one to D.C.
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