Today we see that the latest bond offering from the Chicago Board of Education will be priced at over twice what a BBB offering demands. That is brutal. I still won’t touch that with a ten foot pole.
It is inevitable that the State of Illinois and City of Chicago and their organs will be having major financial issues, to say the least, within a year or two. It could be Detroit on an inter-galactic scale.
My question is this – why don’t the Republicans make the Democrats own these massive boondoggles? I understand that in Illinois, many of them are in on the fun – however, the State of Illinois, City of Chicago and Detroit have all been essentially run by Democrats for literally generations – and it is all blowing up.
Is the issue too complex for Joe Six Pack to understand or care about? Are the Republicans afraid to be held to a higher standard? I just don’t understand why they wouldn’t shout from the mountain tops at how much graft, corruption and incompetence it takes to completely tank a city with as much potential as Chicago and a State with so many potential positives as Illinois.
Agreed totally.
This is a disgrace on an international if not intergalactic scale, and it all happened with Democrats in charge.
The GOP seems to want to never win so big they would actually have to do something.
In Illinoisy, too many of the GOP bunch have their noses in the trough too, so they do not want to change it. Making the dhimmicraps own the situation means having to really work for a change and own up to their own sins at the same time.
The most vehement opposition to the “tea party” folks came from these guys. I know there are still several nasty whispering campaigns going on in Republican circles.
I don’t know the answer, but writing it off the graft and pervasive corruption seems reasonable. Let’s not forget that the GOP under Bush was originally behind TARP. That was, IMHO, the largest theft of money from the middle class to the well connected in the history of the world.
In the case of the collapse of Detroit the demographic change from a white population to a black population was by far the most important factor.
In the case of the collapse of Detroit the demographic change from a white population to a black population was by far the most important factor.
You have the causation reversed. The demographics changed as residents who were able to leave, who were mostly white, left. The cause was poor govt, particularly in its response to crime and the 1967 riots.
Jonathan – The crime problem in Detroit was (and is) a black problem.
The average IQ of the US black population is 85. Outmigration of the more able blcks from Detroit means that the city popualation likely has an average IQ less than 85. The cognitive level of the Detroit populatuon cannot sustain a first world economy.
The racial animosity in Detroit went both ways. A competent govt would have suppressed inner-city crime as well as riots and there wouldn’t have been mass emigration by people with options.
On a slightly happier note, now that concealed carry is legal citizens seem to now be taking matters into their own hands
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-uber-driver-shoots-gunman-met-0420-20150419-story.html
Detroit’s problem was not cognitive level, it was criminality. People who are of below average intelligence still respond to incentives. Crime was not aggressively suppressed, people who could flee, fled.
Coleman Young made a career of driving out white voters, He was quoted as telling them to leave.
My understanding of the end of Peter Fitzgerald’s career in Illinois was an example of the Republican circular firing squad. If true, this is another example of how we got Barack Obama. My understanding of his story is that it was like winning the lottery.
California ia not better but the Dims seem to have an equal lock on the state.
It is true that the Illinois Republican party was disgracefully inept in the past.
With Rauner, however, we have someone who isn’t afraid to shake things up.
Agreed that this should be exhibit #1 of terrible governance. The Repubs may be worried because dopey candidate Christie is in only a slightly better financial situation. But screw him, too.
It’s not race, it’s ideology. Injecting this racialism into the discussion only cheapens and misdirects the conversation from real issues to the endless bullshit about “white this” and “black that” and so on for evermore.
The reason the establishment republicans can’t challenge the liberal/progressive line with any authenticity is that they are way too invested in it themselves, and to question or repudiate it would open them to explaining why they went along with so much of it for so long with only feeble protests around election time.
The mess that the progressive, anti-business, pro-state power, pro-welfare, anti-standards of any serious kind, pander to every victim group that can be created, philosophy has wrought is becoming increasingly clear. The current progressive line is to blame everyone and everything other than their own disastrous ideas for these problems, and create as many scapegoats as possible to confuse the issue and mislead the gullible.
The task of any truly anti-statist person, whether publicly or privately, is to refute these misdirections, and relentlessly bring the conversation back to the policies and their effects which have destroyed several major cities, and are leading several states, which should be enormously wealthy, into bankruptcy, and a potential repudiation of the enormously underfunded obligations that progressive giveaway programs have become.
In the course of that discussion, quite naturally, it is possible to discuss the similar situation at the federal level, and even international level, which the endless resource consumption of the endlessly expanding progressive state has created.
The legacy of the progressive model is bankruptcy and economic impoverishment anywhere in the world where it has been put into practice. The most critical issue now is to make the case as clearly and directly and persuasively as possible so that the true culprits and their ideology are held responsible, and the endless scapegoating of the progressive disaster mongers is thwarted.
“The legacy of the progressive model is bankruptcy and economic impoverishment anywhere in the world where it has been put into practice.”
Yes, but this has to be explained to a population that has no experience in running a small business or even managing a household budget, I sometimes listen to the Dave Ramsey radio program driving home since the local LA station dropped Hugh Hewitt. He is going a lot of good work with young families. Even Megan McArdle credits him for her recovery from debt.
I also like that Fred Siegel book as the best explanation of 20th century politics I have read. I sent a copy to my left wing daughter, the one who is reasonable and can be talked to.
Predictions of inevitable financial catastrophe rarely come true. I’ve heard this over and over for fifty years. Almost never happens.
Maybe Illinois will get a chance, now that Rauner is governor, to learn what Wisconsin conservatives learned about the left.
Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking. She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram.
>It’s not race<
yes it is. from the top down.
>Almost never happens<
stay safe pollyanna
I’m sure the justice department will get right on that Wisconsin case.
Re: “a population that has no experience in running a small business or even managing a household budget,”
One might add that the population, to a too large degree, is without the cultural background, the upbringing, to hold down a job or recognize the worth of making a buck by serving others. A good community organizer helps the disadvantaged with the sort of training in his community, I’m sure.
True for Chicago and Detroit. Not true for Illinois.
Illinois had Republican governors from 1977 to 2002; also 1941-1948, 1953-1960, and 1969-1973. That is, 46 of the last 74 years. Republicans have controlled the state legislature as well, as recently as 2001-2002.
The fact is that Illinois Republicans are deeply complicit in the state’s financial mess.
Predictions of inevitable financial catastrophe rarely come true. I’ve heard this over and over for fifty years. Almost never happens.
Except when it does. Continental Illinois Bank and Trust Company of Chicago ring a bell?
Lexington Green – The low academic performance of Detroit public school students indicates that low cognitive level is a very large part od Detroit’s problems. Low cognitive level is also associated with high rates of crime.
To Veryretired – There have been many highly repressive governments that failed to create anything like Detroit. North Korea certainly has a highly represive government – compare Pyongyang with Port au Prince. Stalinism did not turn Moscow into Detroit. To create places like Detroit one needs a low IQ population.
To Veryretired – If you look at places like Hiroshima or Nagasaki one sees that even being nuked is less disastrous in the long run that having a low IQ population.
Jim, what do you propose?
Jim—apparently, you believe I must engage you if you keep directing posts at me repeating your racial opinions as if they had some validity. They don’t.
Racialism, however used, is a dead end trap which inevitably leads to the rejection of individual rights and responsibilities, and replaces that critical perspective with a collectivist classification system in which all important questions are evaluated by the racial composition of the various participants.
The racial argument is a form of determinism similar to Marx’s economic class argument, and is equally spurious and degrading of any significant intellectual or moral analyses of these important cultural questions.
It is ideas that lead to certain consequences, generally in relation to how they conform to the reality of how things actually work, as opposed to the collectivist process of asserting some ideological position, and then contorting all evidence to either force it into the ideological model, or denying its relevance or existence at all.
You are engaging in the collectivist process now with these repeated attempts to turn everything into a debate on racial characteristics instead of examining ideological constructs and their consequences when applied in the real world.
My contention is that any political entity which enacts progressive/collectivist proposals into the laws which control it’s development will end up at the same impoverished and repressive dead-end place.
As evidence, one need only look at the numerous collectivist experiments during the 20th century, and continuing into the current day. Regardless of the racial or cultural composition of the political entity, the results were uniformly disastrous, and litter the globe from Europe to Asia to the Americas.
The dramatic differences between North and South Korea, or East and West Germany, are obvious and glaring examples, and have absolutely nothing to do with the racial compositions of their populations.
This is the only time I will bother with this racialist nonsense. I have no further interest in you or these meaningless assertions about race instead of truly significant factors. They are pointless and futile.
“Low cognitive level is also associated with high rates of crime.”
So is the warrior gene which is higher in certain populations.
A version of the monoamine oxidase-A gene has been popularly referred to as the warrior gene.[17] Several different versions of the gene are found in different individuals, although a functional gene is present in most humans (with the exception of a few individuals with Brunner syndrome).[18] In the variant, the allele associated with behavioural traits is shorter (30 bases) and may produce less MAO-A enzyme.[19] This gene variation is in a regulatory promoter region about 1000 bases from the start of the region that encodes the MAO-A enzyme.
The frequency distribution of variants of the MAO-A gene differs between ethnic groups.[19][20] 59% of Black men, 54% of Chinese men, 56% of Maori men, and 34% of Caucasian men carry the 3R allele. 5.5% of Black men, 0.1% of Caucasian men, and 0.00067% of Asian men carry the 2R allele.
To Jim,
“There have been many highly repressive governments that failed to create anything like Detroit. North Korea certainly has a highly represive government – compare Pyongyang with Port au Prince.”
Excuse me. With all due respect are you really trying to take *North Korea* and hold it up as an economic role model? Really, Jim? Really??? o_O
“Stalinism did not turn Moscow into Detroit”
In point of fact Stalinism made Moscow into something much worse then Detroit. I’m afraid your examples aren’t doing you as much good as you think they are. :P
[i]Except when it does. Continental Illinois Bank and Trust Company of Chicago ring a bell?[/i]
Last I checked Chicago Board of Education, State of Illinois, Cit[ies] of Chicago and Detroit aren’t corporations.
Such predictions about governments—at any level—are usually wrong. Unless California and the federal government have gone bankrupt many times over since 1965 and I missed it (which is possible. I sometimes I have life).
[i] compare Pyongyang with Port au Prince[/i]
One I don’t want to visit, the other almost certainly would not let me visit, if they knew who I was. (Dalrymple visited by pretending to be communist.) Or worse, would not let leave. Last I checked, comparison favors Port au Prince.
Veryretired – Regarding the effect of ideology. China was ruled for a long time by Mao, a rather marked ideologue. But after Mao’s death China changed rapidily and began to experience rapid economic growth. In China’s long history Maoism is a pretty minor thing. The casual effects of Mao and Maoism are trivial compared to the casual effects of the polynucleotides in the Chinese population.
Jim, I’m sorry, but you seem unable to comprehend that I am totally disinterested in racial theorizing as an explanation for major cultural/civilizational developments. You can count nucleotides til doomsday and they will not explain millennia of poverty, ignorance, superstition, and endless warfare, all across the globe, regardless of race.
China, per your example, was inhabited by a highly intelligent racial group, according to your racial measurements, and yet suffered from a repressive and impoverished authoritarian government and a superstitious and repressive culture for many centuries, only to fall victim to the most bloody charlatan in history during the last century, and see millions die from famine and repression, all ideologically inspired.
Recently, as they emerged from that nightmare, they have embraced a more practical, less ideological, approach to their social affairs, and their lives are improving.
Why? Have they suddenly evolved racially into some higher form that is suddenly able to see that liberty is better than slavery? No. They have adopted a more successful approach to regulating their country’s affairs because the evidence could no longer be denied.
The same can be said for several other cultures, supposedly superior in some mystical racial sense, who spent centuries under repressive systems, adopted some form of totalitarian ideology as a revolutionary step toward what they believed was reform, and suffered unimaginable horrors of war, famine, repression, and uncounted deaths. It was not genetics that either brought these events about, or, in some cases, at least, caused some of these cultures to attempt the path of a freer, more open society.
Once again, these racial fantasies are meaningless. Liberty is the key. Respect for individual rights and an uncorrupted rule of rational law means more, for any group of people, than any theory of genetically determined outcomes could possibly predict.
And that is absolutely it for me. Direct your fantasies somewhere else. I am not interested.
Jim is a racist troll.
I made the mistake of feeding the troll.
We should all stop doing so.
Veryretired – The high level of civilization in China goes way back to 2000 BC long before Western ideas of liberty even came into existence. Do you think that Western ideas of liberty had anything to do with the Tang dynasty? Western ideas of liberty are epiphenomenal.
Lex—I agree. I’m done with him.
A joke I heard in Forbes Magazine on the plight of Greece – Greece in America is spelled Illinois
“Western ideas of liberty are epiphenomenal.”
Wrong word. You mean ephemeral. And you’re wrong, not that any of us will live long enough to tell.
No I mean’t epiphenomenal not ephemeral.