Posted on 05/02/2015 8:00:06 AM PDT by george76
Chicago has a simple financial choice: Stay in frying pan or get in the fire.
That in simple terms is what Moody's Investors Service said in a report today about the difficult options the Emanuel administration faces over the city's woefully underfunded pension funds. The city must cut spending and raise taxes now or the risks of becoming insolvent will grow, forcing even harsher decisions later.
The credit rating agency offers a sobering reminder of what's at stake in the eight-page report, which focuses on the pensions problems.
...
A CUT ABOVE JUNK.
Moody's, typically the most conservative of the major credit ratings agency, reduced its rating on the city of Chicago to just above junk-bond status. The Emanuel administration did not hire the firm for its most recent bond offering.
Even so, the picture is bleak.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagobusiness.com ...
Politicians will ALWAYS kick the can down the road so somebody else takes the blame. Don’t expect any solutions or even discussion about solutions, until the first time they miss a critical deadline.
Chicago’s a democrat city in the process of becoming a hellhole...
Politicians almost never act. Politicians react
They can’t act to solve the problem but can react by not paying the pensions because the money is all gone
Yeah..raise taxes and drive even more business out of the city and crook county. That’ll work just fine.
There are no good solutions for the mess they are in..except maybe bankruptcy. Why anyone would buy their bonds is a mystery to me.
They would do much better to give vouchers to kids and allow private schools to take over education.
Everywhere else in this country, when there’s a problem, the first thing that happens is they look for someone to sue. These big cities are in the toilet, and they won’t sue the Democrat Party.
Why not?
Liberal elites think the city's too big to fail - that they'd be bailed out. My suggestion to these dreamers is to act before Obama leaves office - 'cause a Republican President ain't gonna bail 'em out.
Don’t worry, keep kicking the can down the road, by 2017, Hillary will bail you out. Trust me. Keep kickin the can.
Maybe the $hitcago politicians need to foment a riot? It shouldn’t be hard, considering the demographics. Then they can get tons of free federal money.
Here's an example from my old neighborhood: Public Outcry Staves Off Mirabell Closing ... For a Week: May 9 Is Last Day
The owner is decamping for Texas and says "The schools are brand new. The cost of living is 70 percent less. I'm going from a dump to a mansion in terms of housing and saving nearly $50,000 a year in business taxes"
“In the last four months, I’ve had two good weekends,” he said. “I need a good weekend every week.”
and
“He and Perez were part of a core group of regulars who called Mirabell home every Saturday, starting at noon and hanging out sometimes until 7 p.m. or 8 p.m.”
Maybe that’s part of the problem. Unless those guys are sucking up pricey beers, they are tying up a table or two for seven or eight hours. Not a good turnover rate and I’ll bet the serving personnel for that station are not happy over the loss of tips.
It’s not sobering to me. I have no reason to live nor travel through there. Same for any filthy big city.
They get the thieving governments they deserve.
I caught that.
#11 I ask, ‘When did you stop coming?’” Heil said. “A woman told me, ‘When the city took away your parking.’ That was 1995. You haven’t been here in 20 years.”
‘When the city took away your parking.’
Cities put in parking meters, raise the price, add no parking signs, have obscene fines and do nothing to help business thrive.
Actually, they’ll cut back services even more and private enterprise will step in. U of Chicago has it’s own private police force and they patrol into the neighborhoods for about 6-8 blocks all around. They respond promptly and enforce the law fairly.
Keep in mind that by law if the Chicago Transit Authority abandons a route no one can replace them. Change that law and you’d have all kinds of transportation options.
Urban locations are ripe for this kind of free market innovation. If only we had a dozen Giulianis.
Public choice analysis?
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