Posted on 03/02/2015 4:01:35 PM PST by raptor22
ities: The problem with socialism, Margaret Thatcher once noted, is you eventually run out of other people's money. In progressive Chicago, that's hit home as Moody's has cut its credit rating to two grades above "junk."
Chicago's finances are staggering under the weight of an unfunded pension liability that Moody's Investors Service has estimated at $32 billion, eight times the city's operating revenue.
Chicago has a $300 million structural deficit. And Illinois law requires the city to up its 2016 contributions to its police and fire pension funds by $550 million.
"This is an unfortunate wake-up call for anyone still asleep over the fiscal cliff facing the city of Chicago," said Laurence Msall, president of the Chicago-based government finance watchdog, the Civic Federation.
The steady financial decline of the nation's third-largest city prompted us recently to say that Chicago was well on its way to becoming the next Detroit.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Good analysis; I worked in Chicago for years and it was a beautiful city with a lot of business advantages. The leftist fools running the city (and the even further left fools who want to replace them) have no idea about classic economics. You raise taxes, you hike the minimum wage dramatically, you keep open schools whose student population has greatly diminished, you refuse to do anything about outlandish public employee pensions and what do you have?? An economic desert which means that a receiver ends up getting put in charge of the city, bypassing the elected government and imposing the cuts that have to be made.
I guess they’ll be forced to raise the cigarette tax.
CME has their servers (at least the backup) outside Chicago already, somewhere in the 'burbs, probably outside Crook County.
They could just go out to Lisle. I believe one of them had mentioned Indiana.
Hard to do when Chicago borders Indiana :-)
Plus you get nickled and dimed and ripped off by the city every which way from Sunday (City Stickers, parking fines and fees, licensing, inspections, yadda, yadda, yadda).
Plus the business income and property taxes in Illinois are crushing-- I've seen adds for commercial space saying, "just pay the taxes".
No one in their right mind would open a business in Illinois, let alone Chicago.
The state border of IN/IL is one solid strip of gas stations, fireworks stores, and tobacco emporiums.
Obama could move the border patrol and drones from the Mexico boarder to the Illinois/Indiana border. They'll be allowed to do more than catch and release up there.
From 160 miles away, I’ve never understood Chicago.
High COL, lousy weather, and crowded.
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You forgot to mention Cabela’s and other firearm dealers :-)
If Gary were a reasonably-run city, it would be a no-brainer. Maybe they'll relocate to Lafayette or South Bend.
Now that the Texas economy has cooled off a little, Dallas would be a good place to move the exchanges.
“The way they make money on parking fees and enforcement, Chicago ought to be as wealthy as Dubai.”
Except Chicago no longer owns the parking meters. Daley sold them. The Skyway, too.
L
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Unions: Killing America generations after generations.
If rahmen noodle doesn’t run again, you’ll know why he has chosen this.
But the states cannot.
- former Chicagoan
I travel back to Chicago to see my Mother. The amount of road construction (mostly federally supported) is amazing.
That’s how the feds transfer money to the states and the unions.
This is why the Fed can never raise rates again, and why Wall Street bailouts will continue in the future
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