Via Investment Research Dynamics
The biggest problem facing Illinois is the public pension fund problem. I don’t care what the “official” number is for the degree to which it is underfunded. I can guarantee that even without marking-to-real-market the illiquid investments like private equity funds, derivatives, commercial real estate trusts and other assets that do not have truly visible markets, collectively the public pension system in Illinois is at least 60-70% underfunded. Then apply a realistic assumed actuarial rate of return on assets, which would be lower than the current assumption (likely 7.5% ad infinitum) and the underfunding goes to 80%. The problem is unsolvable without a complete and drastic restructuring.
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I was in a Lyft ride today and the driver happened to be from the northwest suburban area of Chicago. There’s a lot bad things happening in that State that are not reported in the mainstream media. All road public road work has been halted except toll roads. The gun violence has worked its way from the South Side up through downtown into the Gold Coast neighborhood and is winding its way north.
He said that his old house at peak prices in northwest burbs was worth over $500k. The current resident has it offered for $250k. Housing and real estate prices are plunging. He has a good friend who consults with Sears and the expectation is that SHLD could file bankruptcy any day (Short Seller Journal subscribers were shown this idea on April 2, 2017 at $11.49 – it’s been as low as $6.20 since then).
It’s not just Illinois. The entire system is crumbling beneath the surface. As long as the mainstream media isn’t reporting the truth, the “truth” can’t be that bad, can it? The truth is worse than any of us can possibly know.
There’s a 1%/99% in this country that’s different than the assumed meaning for that term. For 99% of the population, economic reality and systemic truth has been covered up and kicked down the road for so long that this segment of the populace is willing to believe there may well be a such thing as a “free lunch.” To 99%’ers, it’s inconceivable that the grim-reaper could or ever would show up to collect. Of the 1%, a small percentage not part of the insider elite can see most of the truth and can imagine that the whole truth is far worse than what can be perceived from publicly available information. The balance of the 1% are the insiders.
I stated in 2003, after watching the tech bubble collapse and the housing bubble inflate, that the inside elitists were going to keep the system propped up with printed money and easy credit until they had swept every last crumb of middle class wealth off the table and into their own pockets. I also said that nation’s retirement assets would be last crumbs remaining. Enabling pension underfunding is another form of debt used to confiscate wealth. That’s why the catastrophic underfunding of pensions was allowed to persist.
For purposes of my analysis, anyone who does not have enough money in the form of cash in hand to buy a Federal politician or buy the direct phone number to the Oval Office is “middle class.” There’s plenty of douche-bags running around with assets worth 8-figures but they don’t have enough spare change to buy their way in to the elitists’ card game.
We are at the point where the last crumbs are being swept off the table. It looks like Illinois will be the first to fall but there will be several others that follow. Part of the motivation by the Fed/Government to hold up the stock market like it has been doing is to keep the big State pension funds propped up for proper looting – like a prize-fighter being held up under the shoulders after passing out in order to deliver more punches to the face.
I suspect the time at which the system will be allowed to collapse is not too far off. The only question for me is whether or not the “Mad Max” scenario engulfs the country before the outbreak of World War 3…
“. . . anyone who does not have enough money in the form of cash in hand to buy a Federal politician or buy the direct phone number to the Oval Office is “middle class.” There’s plenty of douche-bags running around with assets worth 8-figures but they don’t have enough spare change to buy their way in to the elitists’ card game.”
Bingo
[img]https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSf3b_6Di9P_RoD0qOevFTW2V118ihxSuZw9n4MP9go19g2E6L0Ojbh_w[/img]
Before this insanity ends, expect global central banks to be printing $5 trillion a year, then $10 trillion, then $50 trillion, then $100 trillion. There is absolutely ZERO political will to stop it. It will take decades for it to implode so long as there is no will. This is the dream racket for the 1%. They can literally create money to buy stocks, literally printing money and giving it to the rich. It isnt even an indirect thing anymore. It is literally printing money and giving it to the rich! They aren’t going to let that racket go. As long as they have this racket, pensions will make just enough to appear somewhat solvent.
How about a few specifics? Name the states that are about to fall and
some statistics to back up the assertions. It seems that raising Illinois as a fear symbol is late and misplaced. The legislature heroically over-rode the near-sighted Governor and took common sense measurers to solve the pension problem for former, current and future public employees. These selfless
public servents have taken care of and are continuing to take care of us. The least we can do is keep them from being impoverished when their work for us days are over.
750 milliblighters.
Am trying to decide whether you are serious or if this is your attempt at sarcasm (if so, = fail).
Going with sarcasm, the fact it is hard to tell earns it a relatively high score on the Blighter scale ( see disqus). To go higher, he/she/xe needs to have the final over the top statement that is missing.
That is either some serious sarcasm level 1000 or cognitive dissonance level 1,000,000.
All in, I pay 48% of “my income” in taxes and required fees, etc. Your “common sense” solution(s) is just stealing more.
The Illinois public servants elect the people who sit across from them at the bargaining table, then screw the rest of the people.
Scott walker, the swine, did the right thing in Wisconsin and eliminated the public unions.
IL, ME, CT (Hartford’s bonds are now junk, just today). I think there are a couple of other states in trouble as well.
Not going to happen. Yes, they can print all they want, however, long before they get there, the currency they print IN will be worth nothing. Tide laundry detergent will have more trade value.
The only thing RIGHT NOW keeping the dollar mighty is us in America are forced to pay our taxes in it, and those in foreign countries are being forced at gun point (US Military enforcement) to use it. Hence, the reason why SWIFT (the international exchange mechanism for US Dollar denominated transactions) is being sidestepped by Russia (you know, the enemy and all) and China.
However, once the momentum grows outside of our little private Idaho, we call American Exceptionalism (not the race or culture part, but the BS the neo-con douche bags use to force our will on everyone else), the Fed can print all it wants, and you will not be able to buy a damn thing with it. Since we depend on foreigners for everything (thanks globalists), if our enforcement of the dollar monopoly is challenged, we will have to either figure out real quick how to start building things again, or we are going to become the worlds biggest trailer park.
Our saving grace is we have good energy reserves (coal, natural gas) and those industries still can sell to other countries something of value. Maybe sillycon valley has some things to sell as well, but the value is NOT in Fartbook, or the other distractions. But, when it comes to manufacturing of useful goods, we have a BIG problem. And even the industries we have that do still offer something of value to the rest of the world will need a major adjustment to their balance sheets / business plans to make it viable. Example – medical devices. We have some really good medical devices and technologies, however how many other countries do you suppose are going to spend the kind of money that our medical establishment requires for those devices, without the enforcement of the medical monopolies here? Exactly.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/sp-threatens-to-cut-pa-credit-rating-20170706.html?utm_campaign=Philly.com+Facebook+Account&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&cid=Philly.com+Facebook
US currencys (bills, bonds and notes) are borrowed into existence, out-of-thin-air (FIAT) with interest -attached and paid to a privately-owned and operated, foreign, criminal, English-based Cartel. The imposters and parasites practice their deceptions from within the US financial center, in the intentionally-mislabeled, “Federal Reserve”; neither “Federal”, nor possessing ANY “Reserves”. Presently, those criminal imposters have Counterfeit over 1200 Trillions in US Dollars and US Securities (google “quadrillion and derivatives”). Simply put, those imposters and criminal parasites have destroyed themselves and their phony, central banking system- NOT – the American People. The ratings agencies S&P, for example, are complicit in any number of deceptive practices, as it relates to the bogus contrivance that is the 2008 “Financial Crisis” and the hangover that is Counterfeiting US Dollars and US Securities in service to Blatant Banking Frauds of Biblical Proportions. The REMICs are wholly-fraudulent and are better-described as “REMIFs- Real Estate Mortgage Insurance Frauds”. The Clintons deregulated OTC “Derivatives (insurance frauds)”, 2 X and the Clintons suppressed homeowner protections under Bankruptcy and the Clintons, with Gramm, Leach and Bliley suppressed homeowner protections inherent to “Glass-Steagall”; now there are too many criminal banking behaviors to count, the Pensions have been bankrupted and the barking Filth at the ratings agencies are fixing to begin toppling state Treasuries for their banking Filth masters… At what point do We The People begin to rouse ourselves and begin prosecutions, investigations and bank nationalizations as precursor to a redemption of our dignity and willingness to punish those that have long-endeavored to strip US of our Revolutionary Birthright?
The US is under assault and it is a “palace coup” directed against what criminal imposters and parasites describe are “US dollars” and “US Securities”. They aren’t, while, instead, Counterfeit. Article One, Section Eight, paragraph 6, explains in unambiguous language: “The Congress shall have the power … To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United Sates…”.
~ Michael Keane copyright 7/7/17, all rights reserved, please feel free to post on FB, Thank You.
Each side is complicit and taxes are merely a misdirection to divide and disrupt Unity across the spectrum. The Us is sold to a Corporate Indenture to the City of London as an SOS abnegation of the Original Constitution. Taxes, nowadays, are simply the province of tax-dodging elites intent upon embezzlement and a skirting of pre-existing Laws; We The People now pay Corporate malfeasance from our collective tax base while the criminals continue on in Insider Trades and “Corporate-Kleptomockracy”. It is time for banks to be nationalized and investigations, prosecutions and in some instances, executions, to go forward… I frankly couldn’t give a damn these Filth feel they are above the LAW.
Don’t worry, Starfucker has reviewed the Illinois situation and determined that everything is A-OK. All of the voters and businesses got exactly what they wanted in this budget deal and the future is nothing but wine and roses from here on out.
The simplest and least painful way to deal with public pension shortfalls is to raise the age at which one can collect. It is absurd to allow a cop or fireman to ‘retire’ on full pension at 50 or school teachers at 55. Make ‘retirement’ start at 65 or whatever age the system can bear.
The longer it is required that people work, the less room there is at the beginning ofr entry level workers. People have to retire to make room. The problem isn’t only the retirement age but also that many of these as much or more in retirement than while working.
There will be a resolution (not solution) to the financial problems caused by the Chosen 1% and they will not like it.