Illinois Is Broke Dot Com -- Check This Out

Video:  Illinois Is Broke, Bankrupt, Busted

The official website

• IllinoisIsBroke.com

• Check out the excellent infographic

Further Reading:

• SPREAD THIS STORY -- Meet Neil Codell, An Illinois Educator With A $27 Million Dollar Public Pension

• Robert Rizzo Arrested, Charged With 53 Felonies In Bell, California Public Corruption Scandal

• Budget Doomsday Is Here For Illinois

 Honest Abe would be pissed.

Comments

[DailyBail]

The Real Flash-Crash Culprits

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052970203989704575532221047378144.html

[DailyBail]

Currency wars are necessary if all else fails

The overwhelming fact of the global currency system is that America needs a much weaker dollar to bring its economy back into kilter and avoid slow ruin, yet the rest of the world cannot easily handle the consequences of such a wrenching adjustment. There is not enough demand to go around.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8054066/Currency-wars-are-necessary-if-all-else-fails.html

Latest from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

[DailyBail]

Miguel Fernández Ordóñez: The state of Spain’s economy

Testimony by Mr Miguel Fernández Ordóñez, Governor of the Bank of Spain, before the Parliamentary Budget Committee in relation to the draft State Budget for 2011,

Madrid, 5 October 2010.

http://www.bis.org/review/r101008a.pdf

[DailyBail]

LTCM and the lessons of failure

Earlier this week, we heard the news that John Meriwether, he of the infamous Long Term Capital Management collapse and bailout, would be starting his third hedge fund.

http://financetrends.blogspot.com/2010/10/ltcm-and-lessons-of-failure.html

[DailyBail]

John Paulson Throwing Weight Around in DC Against Foreclosure Fraud Inquiries

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/10/john-paulson-throwing-weight-around-in-dc-versus-foreclosure-fraud-inquiries.html

2 Bastard Paulsons

[Frank]

Pension spiker in low income Bellwood, Illinois:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-06-29/news/ct-met-bellwood-0626-20100629_1_village-officials-human-resources-director-finance-director

Pension spikers in high income Highland Park, Illinois:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-07-31/news/ct-met-highland-park-money-20100731_1_park-district-highland-park-parks-officials

[Jack E Lohman]

Budget reform will not happen without first passing campaign finance reform. Politicians spend money because they are PAID to spend money by the Fat Cats that want in our pocket. We are at the mercy of corporations run for profits, enabled by a privatized congress that shares in those profits. Our problem is NOT government, and it is not R's or D's. It *IS* that government is owned by the special interests that want in the taxpayer's pockets.

As a former CEO my company would not have survived if I had a board of directors who took money on the side and gave away company assets in return. Our country can't survive this corruption either.

Nothing is going to change until we have public funding of campaigns. What is it about political bribes do we not understand? They BUY political spending, which leads to deficits and high taxes.

If politicians are going to be beholden to their funders, those funders should be the taxpayers. And at $5 per taxpayer per year it would be a bargain. Even at 100 times that. We MUST lobby our senators and representative to co-sponsor the bill at: http://fairelectionsnow.org/about-bill

Jack Lohman ...
http://MoneyedPoliticians.net

[DailyBail]

@ Frank...

Thanks for the excellent links...public pension spiking and abuse deserves more press...if only i had a few writers to help.

[Frank]

The Chicago Tribune has been looking into pension spiking. Here's an article mentioning some less ambitious spikers:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-07-16/news/ct-met-pension-deals-20100716_1_police-pension-illinois-pension-final-salaries


From NPR:

"Basically, the state of Illinois is upside down on its home mortgage and it's maxed out its credit cards, and it's applying for more credit cards,"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125076655


Here's an oldie from the Sun-Times:

"In winning business from pension funds for city workers, cops, teachers and CTA employees, Robert G. Vanecko said he never told anyone he's Daley's nephew."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/570056,CST-NWS-vanecko23.article

After the media hubbub, Richard M. Daley's completely inexperienced nephew got out of this real estate(!) pension fund.


A connected Chicago firefighter, convicted of moonlighting as an arsonist, had his pension reinstated by a judge who is the son of a former Chief of Police:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-11-11/news/0911100517_1_arsonist-firefighter-s-pension-daley-center



Of course, the pension problem effects the entire state. Here's a downstate article quoting a simplistic solution.

"They just need to sit down and actually talk":

http://thesouthern.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_bbe10fea-b329-11df-892d-001cc4c03286.html?mode=story

After the talking, you can be sure Illinois politicians will be going to Washington asking for "relief from unforeseeable events".
Informed voters are the real solution. Every taxing body should be required to post every expenditure on the web. These expenditures are public information anyway, and they should be freely available 24/7.

The mass media sometimes does a good job covering these issues, but they tend to focus on the hot issues of the day. Their revenue doesn't depend on the anger generated by a tax spike which only effects 2000 people. But, even if only 100 of those 2000 people look into the budget lines and ask questions and ultimately share the results on the web, the local politicians will have some direction beside the usual crooks and cronies.

Frank

[DailyBail]

Thanks Frank....maybe i can find a few minutes to put something together...