Free Republic

OFFICE OF THE COMPTROLLER FORECASTS SEVERE FINANCIAL STRAIN BEGINNING IN JULY As Illinois' Chief Fiscal and Accountability Officer, my Office is responsible for managing the state's financial accounts as well as providing the public and the state's elected leadership with objective and timely data concerning the state’s difficult fiscal condition. As you are quite aware, I have been very vocal regarding these issues and the budgetary impasse since assuming office six months ago; however we are now reaching a new phase of crisis. Accordingly, I must communicate to you at this time the full extent of our dire fiscal straits...

Illinois is grappling with a full-fledged financial crisis and not even the lottery is safe – with Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner warning the state is entering "banana republic" territory.   Facing billions in unpaid bills and pension obligations, the state is hitting a cash crunch that is rare even by Illinois standards. A top financial official just warned 100 percent of the state's monthly revenue will be eaten up by court-ordered payments. Rauner is calling a special session of the Democrat-led General Assembly in a bid to pass what he hopes will be the first full budget package in almost three...

Puerto Rico's governor announced that the U.S. territory has overwhelmingly chosen statehood in a nonbinding referendum Sunday held amid a deep economic crisis that has sparked an exodus of islanders to the U.S. mainland. Nearly half a million votes were cast for statehood, more than 7,600 for free association/independence and nearly 6,700 for the current territorial status, according to preliminary results. The participation rate was just 23 percent with roughly 2.26 million registered voters, leading opponents to question the validity of a vote that several parties had boycotted. Gov. Ricardo Rossello shows his ballot at the San Jose Academy during...

When the US territory of Puerto Rico filed for bankruptcy last week, we took the opportunity to identify the most likely candidates among US states to follow the new legal precedents that are now being set by its example. The editorial board of a leading newspaper in one of those states, Illinois, argues that Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy filing represents the “frightening ghost” of that state’s debt-laden future. Here are some excerpts from the Chicago Tribune‘s editorial. They first set the stage: Puerto Rico is the terrifying Ghost of Illinois Future: a worst-case example of what happens when a government no...

Pension plans continue to blame poor market performance for their continuing dire straits of massive underfunding. Irrespective of all time market highs, their actuarial assumption of 8% has been impossible to achieve and continues to be way out of reach. Municipalities around the country are entering the summer season with expectations of violence not seen in several decades. Yet many are cutting back on police and fireman, for lack of money, just at the moment they seem to need them the most. Finally, the repairing of roads and bridges, popularly known as infrastructure, continues to be postponed by the “City...

Former "Dance Moms" star Abby Lee Miller has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison for bankruptcy fraud and for taking $120,000 worth of Australian currency into the country without reporting it. A federal judge in Pittsburgh ordered Miller to pay a $40,000 fine and spend two years on probation following her release. Miller pleaded guilty in both cases last year.

Last week, Puerto Rico took another step in its long, mostly futile attempt to stabilize its economy and budget when it filed for a modified version of municipal bankruptcy. It was the latest chapter in a 20-year struggle that began when an odd coalition of budget hawks, statehood advocates, and critics of corporate giveaways convinced Congress to phase out tax benefits that businesses could garner by locating operations in Puerto Rico. Since then, efforts to make Puerto Rico’s economy more independent and sustainable have come to little, in part because the 1996 reforms were incomplete, leaving in place tax advantages...

Puerto Rico's financial oversight board on Wednesday filed for a form of bankruptcy protection under last year's federal rescue law known as PROMESA, touching off the biggest bankruptcy in the history of the U.S. municipal debt market. The move comes a day after several major creditors sued the U.S. territory and its Governor Ricardo Rossello over defaults on the island's $70 billion in bonds. The request came under Title III of the PROMESA law is an in-court debt restructuring process akin to U.S. bankruptcy protection, as Puerto Rico is barred from traditional bankruptcy because it is a U.S. territory. The...

Puerto Rico is set to file the largest public sector bankruptcy in history after vulture capitalist hedge funds that bought big pieces of the island’s $73 billion in defaulted debt for pennies-on the-dollar refused to take $24 billion haircut.

But don’t blame the oil bust. Commercial bankruptcy filings, from corporations to sole proprietorships, spiked 28% in March from February, the largest month-to-month move in the data series of the American Bankruptcy Institute going back to 2012. They’re up 8% year-over-year. Over the past 24 months, they soared 37%! At 3,658, they’re at the highest level for any March since 2013. Commercial bankruptcy filings skyrocketed during the Financial Crisis and peaked in March 2010 at 9,004. Then they fell sharply until they reached their low point in October 2015. November 2015 was the turning point, when for the first time...

The filing, signed by HelioPower President Maurice Russo, says that despite borrowing nearly $3 million from its parent company Sierra Nevada Solar (SNS) over a period of years, its current revenues are not enough to keep up with its debt obligations. In fact, HelioPower has borrowed $182,218 from SNS so far in 2017 just to meet its payroll obligations.

Solar company Suniva Inc. filed for bankruptcy Wednesday after receiving millions in government subsidies to manufacture solar panels. Suniva blamed its bankruptcy on competition from cheap Chinese-made solar panels, but the company received about $20 million in support from federal and state taxpayers, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “For many years, Chinese manufacturers of solar cells have benefited from favorable, state-sponsored financing and lower labor costs, allowing them to flood the United States market for solar cells and modules with cheap imports,” David Baker, the company’s restructuring officer, said in a statement. “This has negatively impacted manufacturers based in the...

Sungevity’s sudden and startling fall from grace came to a quiet end yesterday after a Delaware bankruptcy court approved the sale of its assets to Northern Pacific Group for $50 million.

Two weeks after laying off 131 employees without notice and closing its module plant in Michigan, one of the largest U.S. solar manufacturers has filed for bankruptcy.

Texas had high hopes for the southern segments of SH 130, a 41-mile stretch of the high-speed toll road east of San Antonio. The state had put off building that stretch of road until a pair of investors stepped forward and offered what sounded like a great deal: Texas would get a big check for turning the rights to build and operate the toll road over to a private entity, a move that would give the state a new highway and a share of the tolls. The state would own the road and rake in revenue, but wouldn't have to...

Bankruptcy for Puerto Rico is looking ever more likely as the clock ticks down toward a May 1 deadline to restructure $70 billion in debt, ramping up uncertainty for anyone betting on returns from the island's widely held U.S. municipal bonds. When U.S. Congress last year passed the Puerto Rico rescue law dubbed PROMESA, it froze creditor lawsuits against the island so its federally appointed oversight board and creditors could negotiate out of court on the biggest debt restructuring in U.S. municipal history. The freeze expires on May 1, however, and an extension by Congress is "not going to happen,"...

Shoe chain Payless ShoeSource has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, becoming the latest retailer to succumb to increasing competition from online rivals like Amazon. The Topeka, Kansas-based retailer said Tuesday that it will be immediately closing nearly 400 stores as part of the reorganization. It has over 4,400 stores in more than 30 countries and was founded in 1956. […] Shoppers are increasingly shifting their buying online or going to discount stores like T.J. Maxx to grab deals on designer brands. That shift has hurt traditional retailers, even low-price outlets like Payless. …

With each passing day, more compromising of national security, self-serving and self-enriching behaviors, frauds, scams and general malfeasance on the part of Hillary Clinton come to light via new Wikileaks data dumps. But the news media’s obsession with things Donald Trump has said consistently overshadows things Hillary Clinton has actually done. Revelations have now surfaced that Clinton backed the Puerto Rico Debt Relief Bill, a plan to help the financially struggling U.S. commonwealth deal with a $70 billion debt it managed to rack up, after a top Clinton fundraiser –who just happens to be a lobbyist for the Puerto Rican...

Excessive penalties and poor customer service at the E-ZPass electronic toll collection system have put some Marylanders on the path to “toll bankruptcy,” Sen. Roger Manno told the Senate Finance Committee last week.“Folks [are] exasperated because they’ve been caught in a system that is not working,” Manno said.Broad enforcement powers enacted in 2013 to address toll violations have led to wage attachments, financial hardship and non-renewal of vehicle registrations at MVA, witnesses testified. Sen. Roger Manno “The penalty structure that we set several years ago in the General Assembly was not intended to be punitive,” Manno said. “It was not...

Seeking to spread some cheer, President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government has set aside its distaste for consumerism and sent a small army of bureaucrats and soldiers to force more than 200 retail stores in Caracas to hold Christmas sales. "Our worker-president has ordered us to guarantee fair prices for the people, and we are complying. These economic hitmen can't take away our merry Christmas," said William Contreras, head of the National Superintendency for the Defense of Socioeconomic Rights, known by the acronym Sundde. The government accuses the owners of the targeted stores of jacking up prices by 300 to 500...