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The madness of Springpatch is that pretty much anyone that gets sent there by the voter's "back home" do some really STUPID stuff and the "compromises" that very much have been part of the "combine" or "republocrats" end up enriching literal criminals (like Rezko and Cellini) and robbing both regular taxpayers as well the "rank & file" of state employees whose corrupt union bosses rob 'em.
These facts have very few exceptions. Even people that start out as literal "law and order" types (Thompson was a former prosecutor) get sucked into a kind of protection racket that I honestly believe was baked into Illinois constitutions by misguided academic types (Dawn Clark Netsche) that really had no conception of how more street fighter types tend to enrich themselves and their pals at the public trough.
People forget too that the way that Illinois "simplified" its taxes back in the 1970 constitution locked a flat tax that took POLICY out of the hands of law makers (maybe not a bad thing) and just piggybacked most revenues onto changes in the FEDERAL tax rules. Thus whenever the Feds did change tax rules Illinois' tax receipts also rose or fell. While in that context it MIGHT have made sense to MAYBE once or twice put some kind of temporary lag in pension payments the net result of not just suspending the contributions temporarily to ease cash crunch of tax collections but doing this over and over would be like using a cash advance to pay off a charge card -- once might work, twice will dig you a whole, but by the third time you are setting yourself up for bankruptcy...
Why don't the politician in Springpatch think about this? Why do not acknowledge this will lead to bankruptucy? Well one BIG reason is that when NY also got into a HUGE cash crunch back in the Carter era. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...JVXyj1rjR0gdsw Of course if Illinois had "nobodies" in the congress and senate then odds are we would not get our screwed up finances backed by a Federal Loan Guarantee, but between Rosty and Speak Denny Hastert and Dick Durbin and Congressman / Money Man Rahm Emmanual and Senator now President Obama we have a long history of "guys with juice" in DC...
Is Mike Madigan really an 'evil genuis'? Kinda. He keeps himself by keeping the voters in his district happy through jobs at O'Hare and loyalty to cops, firefighters and other city workers in Garfield Ridge, hand outs to the minorities in other SW side areas. More importantly the "magic" he performs for clients with large commercial real estate keeps his "war chest" fat so he can influence races for any office he wants to. He knows the laws, heck he wrote many of 'em, and not in the namby pamby way of Netsche but the hard-knuckled manner of old fashioned street fighter. Doesn't hurt that the state's chief "counterbalance" on the legal side is his beloved daughter...
I guess that why Kass describes it as the Combine because both parties combined to screw over the taxpayers. I guess my anger is focused on Madigan and the Dems becasue they have been in power for 20 years and I have only noticed small reforms. Kinda like using a band aid when your arm needs to be sewn back on!
Location: Cleveland, OH USA / formerly Chicago for 20 years
4,069 posts, read 7,312,310 times
Reputation: 3062
Quote:
Originally Posted by cubssoxfan
ERS-ONE, is it just me or does it seem like Tony the Tuna is back again with a new username?
From what I recall, although Tony despised hipsters, he was in his 30s, unmarried, and liked to go to bars and drink. So this person doesn't really sound like Tony to me.
Location: Cleveland, OH USA / formerly Chicago for 20 years
4,069 posts, read 7,312,310 times
Reputation: 3062
Quote:
Originally Posted by Link N. Parker
This is a good post. As much as I love living the urban life in Chicago, I scratch my head when I see the people around me who think that the whole city looks like Wicker Park, or Lakeview; they like to say things like "I LURVE SHICAGO; ITS GRAYT" but they live in a bubble; most parts of the city are run down and hurting bad. What these people really mean to say is "I LOVE THE YUPPY/HIPSTER ZONE THAT I LIVE IN! LOOP AREA TOO!" These people never venture out of that zone.
I think part of the problem lies in the fact that, in Chicago, the "yuppie/hipster zone" is very big. So big, in fact, that if it seceded from Chicago it would be a medium-sized American city in its own right. Given the amount of territory it takes up, it's pretty easy to live and move around in that "bubble" and forget that the rest of Chicago even exists.
Compare to cities like Cleveland, where I'm from, where the yuppie/hipster zones are relatively small, often physically isolated from one another, not as self-contained, and still pretty rough around the edges. It's a lot harder to live your entire life in one and never have to venture into "bad" areas.
I imagine it isn't too terribly different than Southeast Illinois.
These Indiana guys are living too close to the corruption and terror that is Chicago. Maybe Kentucky is a better move.
If they hate Chicago so much they won't mind not contributing (more like leeching without contributing back) of the economic wheel that is a major metropolis of the region. Stick it out with Barney Fife in Mayberry and show us City kids you mean business!
Correct. I know my own people, better than any of you do. Nice try folks. It's amazing, all these people trying to tell me I'm wrong about all of my neighbors, friends, co-workers, etc. I know those types of people in the photo, you don't.
Sorry but you're not right. Not right about anything, but thanks for your views, you're entitled to think or guess whatever you want. But I'm closer to the subject.
Next, we're going to have a bunch of C-D internet experts telling us what people on the southside think about their problems and society. Keep your yap shut unless you know what you are talking about.
I know the milieu. You don't.
I know all about Branch 27, look at my screen name. Those people in the photo are not married with kids. Many of them will never succeed in having them, due to various reasons: living in the expensive city, blowing their money on alcohol and consumption, living a disconnected social life, distrust of meeting total strangers at bars near Ashland/Chicago, you have no idea what you are talking about... I love it how these misfits and lost-souls hanging out are somehow deemed better/smarter/clever than some real adults who live outside the hipster/yupster-land. Overgrown adolescents. Darwin would have a field day. Many here don't understand social science or are unable or unwilling to study populations. Universities are "experts" at analyzing far-flung indigenous populations on other continents, but cannot even study the common sense stuff right in their own backyards.
Sure....lots of references in the Gospel that getting drunk, smoking tobacco, and living unpiously is promoted. These hipsters are way further from being Franciscans or monks than is some family guy in Indiana or the suburbs. Being a Christian takes discipline and effort, something the family guy exhibits, not the nihilist. Many of the hipsters still think they'll write that book or screenplay or jingle someday, and get rich. Only the selfish blow their money on personal consumption into their 30's and 40's like overgrown, spoiled, immature children. Only a small fraction of them will achieve their urban hipster dream of getting rich on some hipsterdom biz....the rest of them are in the middle of the bell curve and they will not, esp. in East Village, they know it deep down, are in denial, so they get drunk and try to convince themselves they are "better" than the majority who reject their choices. They're in classic denial. They lack humility, as do some of the posters here.
Wow, so your basic argument is "You're wrong. I know everything, and you know nothing." Stellar logic with amazing evidentiary support.
Can you actually back up any of the crap that you're spewing out with some real substance like the demographic, psychological, and anthropological studies you refer to? News flash: No one in here is looking down on anyone for their lifestyle choices but you.
You want to have kids and live out in the burbs? Great! Go for it! Nobody cares. Do what makes you happy. Take care of yourself, your family, and your own responsibilities; and stop worrying about whether others wish to get married and have children or not.
Having kids is not some accomplishment like you describe it. Any moron with the working biological parts can do it, and frankly, too many of them do.
The people in the photo look like my neighbors, friends, and coworkers too, and I know the milieu quite well despite what you think you know of me. To be fair though, I don't expect anyone with your inflated sense of omniscience to accept that.
Being a Christian takes discipline, but it also takes humility, tolerance, and understanding.
Dunes National Shoreline, Dunes State Park, Miller Beach, Ogden Dunes, Beverly Shores, Michigan City, Long Beach, you name it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rparz
Go there during the winter after a fresh snowfall. When you see how fast it turns black because of the proximity to the dirty industrial pollution of the refineries and steel mills -- you'll be turned off.
I'm not saying it does or does not turn me on or off. I'm just saying it's chock full of Illinois residents, same as Michigan -- Possibly even moreso, due to proximity.
I think part of the problem lies in the fact that, in Chicago, the "yuppie/hipster zone" is very big. So big, in fact, that if it seceded from Chicago it would be a medium-sized American city in its own right. Given the amount of territory it takes up, it's pretty easy to live and move around in that "bubble" and forget that the rest of Chicago even exists.
Compare to cities like Cleveland, where I'm from, where the yuppie/hipster zones are relatively small, often physically isolated from one another, not as self-contained, and still pretty rough around the edges. It's a lot harder to live your entire life in one and never have to venture into "bad" areas.
Why stop at the south and west sides then? What about they Harveys, Ford Heights, Cal Cities, Doltons, and Robbins of the area? Don't they deserve the help (maybe more) as much as the south side. As their municipalities aren't even solvent. The affluent areas of the city can keep the south and west sides afloat, these burbs are on their own.
There's always going to be problems to fix somewhere, and not going to some of these places doesn't make someone ignorant.
Okay, maybe it does, but if I never go back to or pass through, or even think about Gary Indiana again, it's a-okay by me. If this makes me ignorant, I'll wear that badge. F-Indiana and everything that goes with it. The NW corner of the state is nothing but a bunch of Chicago freeloaders who don't contribute anything to the society or infrastructure that gives their area purpose.
Chicago and IL should charge a toll to enter the state from Indiana. (Refund it when you cross into WI or Iowa) Otherwise jam it to them. If they don't like it, don't come. No sweat off our back. Feel free to move to greater Cook County and avoid these fees though.
Thanks, but I learned to diagnose it in my doctoral program and do so fairly often in my work, as well as teaching it to grad students. You probably don't want to know which comments on this thread come closest to meeting criteria, but others such as nap and jwaiter figured it out pretty quickly.
Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security are not "welfare leech" programs. They are promised benefits that the recipients PAY INTO earlier in life, thru payroll deductions. A lot of retirees move to red states (such as AZ) and this makes it look like there is higher "federal spending" in those states (and, technically there is), but again, these types of programs are not welfare mooch programs.
This is in addition to the military bases, that are necessary federal spending (national defense).
The infamous "red state welfare mooch map" is a clever lie that liberals like to throw out there, to make it look like welfare bums are all GOP-voting mouth breathers. It is a distortion and every time a libpuke vomits it up on a forum, I shoot it down.
You are calling it a "lie" because you've inserted your own judgements to define what is "necessary" spending. I believe that the Pentagon is capable of defining what is "necessary", and they want many more bases shut down than Congress does. Military spending is intensely political, and benefits the states that get it.
You could also look at this from the other side of the equation - how much does each state contribute per capita to the Federal Government? That avoids any issues on spending, and actually matches pretty well with the GOP's current "job creator" and "47% moocher" philosophy. Based on that criteria 8 of the 10 lowest contributing states voted for McCain in 2008 and 8 of the top 10 contributing states went for Obama. The comparison holds up very well even when you remove defining "necessary" spending from consideration.
Based on your obvious political biases, I would guess you define "welfare mooch" as Federal welfare recipients. It's a bit hard to break that out, since states also pay into welfare programs, but Food Stamps are probably the best indicator of Federal spending, since the criteria that make someone eligible for food stamps also qualifies someone for many other Federal programs. As this map shows, the South and Southwest (predominantly Red areas) have the highest percentage of people enrolled in Food Stamp programs.
Oh - and where are those links "debunking" the "liberal lie" that you promised earlier?
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