Sobering Statistics From The Land Of Lincoln

Like semantics, details of personal hygiene, and references to Fox News, statistics can serve as attention scarecrow. Ever see click bait with a numerical theme? "You haven't seen Bureau Of Labor stats in thirty years? What they look like now will amaze you!"

Our national debt numbers are so grim that they result in collective numbness. Pile on unfunded federal entitlements, college debt that exceeds a trillion and one can understand why one would rather view current pics of the surviving members of The Manson Family. The economic forecast is so bleak as to  make one ask, "What could be worse?" 

Statistics usually come in 2 sizes: Bad and Worse. As bad as our national numbers might be, they are much worse in Illinois:

Unfunded state and local government retirement debt is more than $260 billion and rising. 

Unfunded pension liabilities for the nation’s highest-paid government workers (overtime starts at 37.5 hours) are $130 billion and are projected to increase for at least through the next decade. 

Nearly 25 percent of the state’s general funds go to retirees (many living in Texas and Florida). 

Vendors are owed $9.5 billion. 

Every five minutes the population — down 1.22 million in 16 years — declines as another person, and an average of $30,000 more in taxable income, flees the nation’s highest combined state and local taxes. 

Those leaving are earning $19,600 more than those moving in. 

The work force has shrunk by 97,000 this year. 

There has not been an honestly balanced budget — a constitutional requirement — since 2001. 

The latest tax increase, forced by the legislature to end a two-year budget impasse, will raise more than $4 billion, but another $1.7 billion deficit has already appeared.

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There has not been a balanced budget despite a constitutional mandate. A lesson for all of us, I think.

The stats come from an interesting article from "Los Angeles Daily News" website about the Illinois reformers battling The Blue Mafia.

The Impending Public Pension Disaster

I believe in doing that which is right and lawful. Even though I will never receive a public pension, I believe that we should (or should have) done all that we could to ensure that public pensioners receive all that they are entitled.

I am passionate that people receive that for which they contracted. I do not believe in changing the terms later for the sake of expediency or worse, for "fairness." On political issues, I am most passionate about fiscal matters. Profligacy can destroy a civilization faster than an army of foreign invaders. Chicken Little is right about some things and this is one of them.

During the Obama years I found it interesting but frustrating that every public pensioner I knew, supported Barack Obama. I tried to make the point that reckless spending threatened their financial foundation. In retrospect, I feel a bit stupid for futilely protecting the interests of those who voted against their own self-interest. They will reap what they sow but they will be too damn stupid to make the connection.

For rest of our lives, we will suffer the abuses of the Obama Administration. Not just the doubling of the national debt (with NOTHING to show for it) but the inflation of student loan debt (now exceeding $1 trillion) and perhaps most significantly, the impracticality of federal bailouts when each taxpayer already owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to Uncle Sam.

The next big bailout effort will be state and local pensions. Even if there is an appetite for someone in rural America to fund the retirement of a Chicago school administrator, the preexisting condition that is our national debt might make everything moot. This is not entirely a red state vs. blue state phenomenon. Newly red Kentucky has a massive pension problem.

Blue cities in red states, like Houston for instance, complicate the melee. Do you think that all those suburbanites whose families abandoned the dysfunctional city long ago will want to pick up the tab for someone back in the hinterland? I doubt it very much.

With the cacophony of bogus news, the "pension tsunami" has gotten little exposure. It might be too soon for the MSM, too close to Obama's occupancy. In good time this can be pinned on Donald Trump or The Freedom Caucus.

A few muted voices are whispering about the oncoming disaster. The appropriately named Pension Tsunami covers this subject in chilling detail. The ever-alert and always worthy, Zero Hedge, has contributed an eyebrow-raising article. These are both good jumping-off points.

This will get ugly. While we might snicker at the idiot who built a mansion in a flood basin (and who now demands a new mansion) there will also be countless victims who are more innocent. It would be good and noble and just to help those who will not receive that for which they worked hard and devoted their lives. Unfortunately, Pelosi, Reid, Boehner, McConnell and yes, Barack Hussein Obama, might have already burnt that candle at its other end.

We reap what we sow, even if we are too stupid to realize it.

An Immodest Proposal: Let Us Establish A National Holiday To Honor Charles Ponzi

Charles Ponzi is perhaps the most influential economist in history. His financial innovations would shape the policies of everyone from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama and every big city mayor of the past fifty years. The loyal Democrat donor, Bernie Madoff, would devote his life to honing the skills Ponzi contributed to the world. Our Social Security system, as well as our public pensions, owe their existence to Ponzi's unending wisdom.

To be fair, the Republicans have been every bit as loyal to Ponzi's principles even though they sometimes badmouth them in public. Ponzi's broad public appeal would insure that monuments honoring this innovator would never be desecrated. Let it be noted that Carlo The Great's humanitarian accomplishments were limited to the financial realm.

From Biography.com:

When he was released from jail, Ponzi got involved in yet another criminal venture, smuggling Italian immigrants across the border into the United States. This too landed him in jail—he spent two years behind bars in Atlanta.

Charles Ponzi was Democrat's Democrat whose life would shape public thinking to this very day. Want to see the soul of the Democratic Party? Google Charles Ponzi.  From Mauldin Economics:

The website Pension Tsunami posts scores of articles, written all across America, about pension problems. We find out today that in places like New York and Chicago and Cook County, pension funds have more retirees collecting than workers paying into the fund. There are more retired cops in New York and Chicago than there are working cops. And the numbers of retirees just keep growing. On an individual basis, it is smart for the Chicago police officer to retire as early possible, locking in benefits, go on to another job that offers more retirement benefits, and round out a career by working at least three years at a private job that qualifies the officer for Social Security. Many police and fire pensions are based on the last three years of income; so in the last three years before they retire, these diligent public servants work enormous amounts of overtime, increasing their annual pay and thus their final pension payouts.

This article is worth reading in its entirety:

We all know that there is a pension crisis, yes, a pension tsunami brewing in places like Puerto Rico and Chicago. We know it's bad but we probably do not grasp just how bad the situation really is. We know the crash is looming but we probably think it is later rather than sooner. We might not be able or willing to grasp the complexities of the situation but we can all understand that when pension recipients exceed contributors, when ex-cops exceed working cops, the time has come...Time to pay tribute to Charles Ponzi.