Illinois = Greece
As the Greek default (and it is a default no matter what they end up calling it) is finalized this week, the consensus seems to be that failure to reach a deal would cause a global financial apocalypse.
That may be true. And if it is, why aren’t we more worried about Illinois? It’s more or less the same size as Greece, its finances are in the same generally catastrophic shape, and its leaders are just as feckless and dishonest. It owes tens of billions of dollars to various investors and stakeholders and will clearly have to stiff many of them at some point. The following article captures the “failed state” dilemma perfectly...
The author then proceeds to break down debt by debt by overdue bill how boned Illinois truly is and makes this observation:
- How a state with a constitutional mandate to balance its budget can do this in the first place — and how an “unpaid bill” can be excluded from the annual budget — is a question for future prosecutors.
There are a whole passel of persons overdue for prison terms over this mess. Unfortunately, uneducated voters lead the pack.
Labels: money questions
posted by SCC at 12:02 AM
22 Comments:
This is what happens when you become a welfare state and very anti business is the results are massive deficits. The only bright spot illinois has that we export food to china.
Can I get some of that flaming saganaki before they go under? And a gyros plate with extra sauce too.
Lateral transfer couldn't come soon enough!!!!
I do believe Chicago has more Greek restaurants than Greece. Does that count?
Cullerton, Madigan, Quinn, Emil Jones, and Giannoilias would be a good place to start. Throw in a Cook County Board member or two, a former and/or current mayor and an alderman or two (Burke for sure), and you'll have the complete set.
Only those with skin in the game should be allowed to vote.
At one time in this nation you had to own at least 40 acres to vote.
Some want to give the vote to illegals.
Could it be watered down any more ?
AS SOON AS 51 % OF THE NON WORKERS vote we are done !
If you believe in pensions....... you probably believe in unicorns.
READY TO FIGHT YET ?
“People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.”
― Eric Hoffer
Madigan is at the top of the list followed by his liver lipped daughter for failing to investigate this shit. Closely followed by quinn and cullerton, burke and the little kingpin of shame himself. Richie (cecil took the test) Daley and his wide eyed down syndrome looking brothers.
Wake up. You are just starting to realize Illinois finances are in trouble?
Where have you guys been? You've been promised more than the state can ever deliver, but you bought off on it.
Same goes for teachers and all the other "government workers". We cannot sustain pensions that are the size of Lottery payoffs.
Have to remember - when you scare businesses out of Illinois with higher taxes, you don't have a lot of "civilians" making good money to pay their income taxes and property taxes.
Raising taxes just worsens the problem. (Good solution by Brain-dead Quinn - not)
The Well has run dry. Dumb politicians have messed this state up beyond repair. Go to them to get your money. I don't have anymore.
A retired friend is looking at moving to Missouri where he can buy a huge house and pay $1,200 a year in property taxes.
Corruption costs money in Illinois and there has to be about a 25%-30% surcharge on everything that is taxed to pay for all the crony patronage.
All pensions that are taken out-of-state should pay 25% back because the "cost-of-living" is that much cheaper.
Cost-of-living can cut both ways. If you retire to a place like Florida or AZ, you don't need as much.
Wait til they add the "cost-of-living" adjustments to out-of-state pensions. It's coming.
It has to.
Welcome to the "Land of Link Card"
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.
These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
No shit.Glad I have my Colt 6920 and 10k rounds of M855 and 50 mags and a few Beta-Drums.
Thanks for posting this SCC. So much blame to go around its not even funny. The only responsible Illinois politician of any import I can remember is Peter Fitzgerald, and he's now a Virginia banker.
The only answer is to stop the handouts at every level, but Illinois politicans won't do this until there is literally nothing left to hand out. That will only happen when iterest rates on Illinois debt get high enough that new debt can't be justified. Not there yet, but getting there I think.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Only those with skin in the game should be allowed to vote.
At one time in this nation you had to own at least 40 acres to vote.
Some want to give the vote to illegals.
Could it be watered down any more ?
AS SOON AS 51 % OF THE NON WORKERS vote we are done !
1/30/2012 04:00:00 AM
What do you mean, Some want to give the vote to illegals? Newsflash..... they already are voting.
There are tough times ahead for our country. When the dust settles, I feel this country will be back to allowing, only people with skin in the game, to vote.
People are fed up with the direction this country is going. Like Allen West just said recently, something about the safety net becoming a hammock.
I thought you might this interesting. You a person named Darrah Micah posting extremely demeaning things about cops at the tribune. It appears she is part of the local machine working against you guys
Here is the article
http://discussions.chicagotribune.com/20/chinews/ct-met-chicago-aldermen-salaries-20120130/10
here is her profile
http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Will-The-Next-Council-Be-A-Rubber-Stamp-118012194.html
"Only those with skin in the game should be allowed to vote.
At one time in this nation you had to own at least 40 acres to vote.
Some want to give the vote to illegals.
Could it be watered down any more ?
AS SOON AS 51 % OF THE NON WORKERS vote we are done !
1/30/2012 04:00:00 AM"
1. Only those with skin in the game should be allowed to vote.
if only those with skin in the game got off their asses and did vote.....
2. At one time in this nation you had to own at least 40 acres to vote.
so the land barons would rule?
3. Some want to give the vote to illegals.
and, if they do, you can be sure they would get off their asses and vote.
4. Could it be watered down any more ?
the only watering down that's been done is by those with skin in the game that don't get off their asses to play the game.
5. AS SOON AS 51 % OF THE NON WORKERS vote we are done !
that's the ticket, keep telling yourself that we're not already 'done', because that's the attitude that inspires those with skin in the game to not get off their asses and vote.
Because, as bad as IL may be, it's not even in the same ballpark as Greece. If you add up the debt numbers in the article, it's $115.5B. Greece is over $500B.
Michael Ruppert predicted Illinois and California to be bankrupt in "Collapse" and explained why. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that reason.
A bunch of people including myself tried arranging a meeting with our Alderman, Marty Quinn. He is too busy to meet with us.
All I can say is that I want to move out of this state. This is not a good environment for so many reasons...
Anonymous
I'd be very interested to know the source of this story about the Econ prof failing the whole class. Sounds like the sort of thing that would get a professor fired at most schools.
Bill-
The Econ Professor flunking the ebtire class is an urban legend. Look it up on snopes.com
Hey Bill, It's a story to make a point. It's a parable to show how socialism fails. You are a douchebag.
Yearly deficit: 500 to 800 million
Unpaid bills: 8.5 billion
Outstanding bonds: 27.5 billion
Owed pension payments: 80 billion
Good luck with that.
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