Posted on 02/14/2011 6:24:49 PM PST by RobertClark
As another day passes, we get another confirmation that that racist, unpatriotic, communist traitor Meredith Whitney is absolutely right in claiming that US states are beyond rescue. Illinois, which was supposed to deny all the naysayers, by successfully issuing $3.7 billion in bonds and purchase a few months of breathing space for its insolvent pension funds, courtesy of an underwriting syndicate that includes Morgan Stanley, Goldman, Sachs & Co and Loop Capital Markets on Thursday, has just announced this, uh, isn't going to happen. Reuters notes: "Illinois' sale of $3.7 billion of pension bonds has been delayed until next week to give potential buyers time to go over Governor Pat Quinn's fiscal 2012 budget, a spokeswoman for the state budget office said on Monday." And the validation for the delay just takes Goebbels to a whole new degree:
"We are receiving a great deal of international interest on these bonds. It is only appropriate to give investors time to digest the governor's budget speech which is Wednesday," said Kelly Kraft, the spokeswoman.
Could one inquire where this international interest is coming from: Greece? Portugal? Spain? Ireland? Italy? Egypt? Tunisia? Algeria? Libya? Bahrain? oh wait, it must be Saudi "on the verge of revolution" Arabia, or Ch"we just changed our food CPI weighting"ina, or Bang "stock market is down 10% for the 4th time in a month" ladesh, or, best of all, bankrupt Japan? Inquiring minds really want to know.
The logic goes that since the rest of the world rescued Illinois a year ago, before the world itself was bankrupt, the broke state can pull it off again. Uh, no.
Illinois is turning to pension bonds for a second year in a row to raise money for its payment to state employee pension funds. A $3.46 billion bond sale in January 2010 was oversubscribed and attracted buyers from Europe and Asia, according to state officials.
Since then, however, the state's deteriorating financial condition led to bond rating downgrades as Illinois ended fiscal 2010 in "the worst fiscal position in its history," according to the state comptroller.
Last month state lawmakers passed a hefty increase in income tax rates to stave off a projected $15 billion deficit heading into fiscal 2012, which begins July 1.
Perhaps if Illinois has a huge snow storm between now and next week, when the bond sale is postponed again, the state treasurer can use that good, old (anti)climatic mainstay. In the meantime, we can all just bash Whitney for telling the truth...
What is so difficult, we cannot afford to pay you these pensions, medical benefits, negotiate cuts or we will file for bankruptcy. Anyone with a set of balls out there.
Beyond words.
When the bond sales start failing, the real trouble starts.
The arbiters should be the ones to suffer the most. The taxpayers are paying more in pension benefits to each individual state employee than they themselves are receiving.
File for bankruptcy and let the chips fall where they may.
Stop spending. Pull back the extreme pensions and so forth. Stop kicking hard decisions down the road. This the ultimate child abuse. DIMs/LIBs hate children. Kill them through abortion or ruin their future through some combination of abhorrent debt, inflation and absence of o0pportunity. Thanks LIBS, you asshats.
Remember the old days when states and municipal entities only issued bonds for capital improvements! Bonds are the new credit cards of states and municipalities.
The San Jose Mercury News has a letter to the editor today decrying Republicans as hating all women and children because they are going to cut their benefits. There is a large swath of America that just doesn’t get it — and probably never will, until there is wholesale collapse of the US and anarchy. It is inconceivable to me how these idiots think this gravy train can just run on and on forever.
St. Pete Florida: 50% of the city’s payroll cost is pension payments.
Sh*t, meet fan.
Geez, when is anyone in government going to realize that long term borrowing to finance current operating expenses is like leaping into a financial meat grinder.
These people are criminals and ought to be thrown in jail.
Easier said than done. In most, if not all cases, these are contractual obligations (for those already retired). About the only way I know of to get rid of them is through bankruptcy and then quit making those absurd promises in writing.
...........the question for our federal gov’t apparatus (544 humans)is this: are we capable, i.e. all 544 of us, of fixing this debt bomb mess without blood in the streets??
answer: NO
it is going to take an outside force, not controlled by the Federal Goverment to “trigger” a complete default by the federal government and thereby create a situation where there is simply no money. By stealth, each day, we’re moving to that situation where the US will no longer be the world’s reserve currency. When that happens, the feds can’t print money anymore and the bomb blows up. At that point, all our troops around the world will have to come home to maintain order here until the gov’t figures out how to live within it’s on revenue. I submit that until that day comes, it is “politically” IMPOSSIBLE TO rectify what 50 years plus liberal spending has wrought!
ping! This is a good one for you...
Last November, we had a number of talented Republican candidates for Illinois House and Senate, who ran on platforms proposing pension reform, Medicaid reform, and pro-growth policies.
Mike Madigan and the Illinois Democratic party spent over 9 million dollars demonizing these candidates, calling them gun-loving right wing extremists who want to take away a woman’s right to choose, etc.
Naturally, Illinois voters were appalled, and re-elected the same corrupt Democrats who gave them 11% unemployment and a state on the edge of fiscal insolvency rather than those horrible right wing Republican extremists.
True to form, Illinois Democrats rewarded voters for their naivete by raising their income taxes by 67% last month.
Indiana is starting to look attractive in its own folksy Hoosier way.
Your correct. IL voters have gotten just what they have voted for.
Bankruptcy sounds good. This is unsustainable.
Pay-per-view death cage matches will solve this. Throw two fat union hogs in the cage. Whoever wins draws the pension, and the loser gets buried to the strains of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” Repeat until the budget is balanced.
Use the proceeds from viewing to build an exclusive, elite one-way train track to the bottom of Lake Michigan that politicians must ride upon election. Call it the “Dead Fish Tour Express.”
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