SWEET HOME CHICAGO, NOT!
Now don't get me wrong. I've enjoyed a great number of business trips to Chicago, I am a huge Michael Jordan fan, Julia Roberts looked amazing dancing to Frank on the river cruise in "My Best Friend's Wedding," and the Blues Brothers wrote the book on "cool." But, Chicago and the entire state of Illinois are seriously vying to unseed California as the most-terribly run government with fiasco economics.
Last month, continuing their labor-corrupt politics the Illinois Supreme Court upheld Chicago's new law that forbids food trucks from being within 200-feet of any bricks-and-mortar food business, therefore mostly eliminating this service from Downtown Chicago. The Court also stated that it is not in violation of the state's constitution to require each truck to carry a GPS tracker in order that the city knows where the trucks are at all times. What? What about the United States Constitution? (see China)(also see JAM VIEWS Post "Licensing is a Scam" to refresh your memory of how entrenched corporate interests and unions, and the politicians accepting their campaign contributions, use ridiculous licensing laws to defeat competition).
JAM VIEWS applauds the gutsy Ms. Laura Pekarik, owner of Courageous Bakery and Cafe, named in honor of her sister's battle with cancer, for pursuing this case for free markets and democracy. She states that the trucks are the "heart and soul" of her business. Sam Barrot, owner of the sandwich company Fat Shallot, claims the majority of restaurants downtown are chains "so the 200-foot rule does little other than support restaurants that can be found anywhere."
Let's hope Ms. Pekarik continues her righteous fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, even against the tremendous procedural and expense hurdles in place to stop her. And, let's also identify this "dumb economics" law as a further, and almost last, nail in the coffin for the budget and economy of Chicago and the state of Illinois.
Both the city and the state are beyond bankrupt and are being kept "solvent" by corrupt politicians and ratings agencies. Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Agency rate Illinois the lowest of all 50 states in credit worthiness, but still have them ranked investment grade. If you believe that, you deserve to have them default on your municipal bonds. Let's remember that these two agencies put AAA ratings on thousands of Collateral Mortgage Obligations (CMO's) which held truckloads of mortgages in which the homeowner never could even make the first house payment! To quote Michael Lewis' great book and movie, "The Big Short," "Who sells a mortgage to someone who can't even make the first payment?!"
Now Illinois, with their last desperate gasp, has legalized gambling and marijuana so they can tax the hell out of them. How quickly your morals change when you see the tax revenue. This would all be a sad mistake if it hadn't been going on for decades. Illinois pension systems, which pay big labor and government retiree benefits, have a reported $162 billion funding hole, and this calculation relies on very ambitious projected rates of investment return, returns which you and I would be indicted for investment fraud for even suggesting. The Wall Street Journal has reported that "independent analysts using more realistic rates of return reckon that the state's pensions may only be about one-fifth funded." That means 80% unfunded.
Remember that the U.S. Government tells you that the National Debt is $22 trillion, but if you honestly report the debt to include the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare, it is over $90 trillion. [Side Statistic: Wall Street derivatives which nearly destroyed the world in 2008 totaled $700 trillion, and as of 2019 now total more than $1.2 quadrillion. Yes, quadrillion. That is a real word!].
So, how can we get Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker to read JAM VIEWS instead of focusing now on changing the state's flat tax to a graduated income-tax system in order to get the last remaining dollars from "the rich," as well as placing a tax on your golden retriever? Shouldn't he be more concerned that the Vice Channel's show, "Viceland," renames his great city as "Chiraq," the unfortunate reference to a war zone? Will the last taxpayer in Illinois please turn off the lights when you leave?
Why must it be so difficult? Why won't the government provide basic economic education to its citizens in public schools, so that history does not continue to repeat itself, over and over and over? Please learn from these examples, and don't go with the crowd, for they know not what they do. Your place is not among them.
"If you can't get them to salute when they should salute and wear the clothes you tell them to wear, how are you going to get them to die for their country?" - General George S. Patton, Jr.
** Thank you very much to the WSJ, Forbes, and Fortune for the above quotations and statistics.
** For more information on Jeff's Books, Blog, and Legal Challenge, please visit www.jeffmartinovich.com.
** To access JAM Views directly please visit jeffreyamartinovich.blogspot.com
This was great! Still enjoy reading Jeff's blogs every week! Keep it strong JM! Happy Father's Day!
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