Carl from Chicago

Business executive interested in history, economics, taxation and energy policy.

How To Fix the State of Illinois

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In a previous post I discussed the high probability of there being some sort of major fiscal calamity in Illinois in the next two years. Here I propose how to solve the issues in the state. I realize that the chance of any or all of these solutions to be put into place is near zero without unthinkable changes, but in fact they are all obvious and will likely be part of the ultimate solution.

Consolidate Governmental Entities – Illinois has over 8400 governmental entities, the highest in the USA. These entities need to be drastically curtailed and likely should number in the hundreds, and each should have professional management, strict caps on borrowing capabilities, and an inability to sign up for long term unfunded obligations (pensions, retiree health, etc…) without stringent oversight.

Eliminate Pensions and Defined Benefit Plans and Move to Defined Contribution Plans – Illinois’s pension and benefits woes are myriad and well documented and extend through every city and county due to firefighters and policemen and governmental workers. Regardless of the one time pain, strikes, protests, and society-shaking impacts of these moves, these unfunded obligations are an impossible burden on the state and it must move to a 401k-like plan (similar to what Nebraska did)

Reduce State and Local Employee Compensation Pay by 25% or More – The government faces a simple choice between paying its employees what they think they deserve (ever more) and the government’s obligation to provide services to its citizens at a price that does not drive excessive taxation. This deal is broken and a large part of the burden will have to rest on governmental employees. If they do not like this solution they will be free to find employment in the private sector where it is unlikely that they will be able to match the same package of benefits and compensation. We will know that the model is in balance when the turnover rate of government is equal to that of the private sector.

Outsource 33% or More of Governmental Jobs – There are large opportunities for efficiencies in the governmental sector, through use of the Internet, changes in processes, and injection of competition into areas traditionally done by the government. Even within areas that are generally governmental functions (like the police), a significant portion of the functions such as administration could be done by third-party or online vendors.

Reform Purchasing By Use of Modern Techniques and Focus on Outcomes Not Political Concerns – Our procurement systems in Illinois are riddled with favoritism, opaque decision methods, and a focus on aiding politically connected firms. In addition, payment of vendors is very slow which rules out many smaller and less capitalized vendors. We need to focus on market based outcomes (quality of service, cost reduction, speed to market), and reward vendors with consistent and timely payments rather than focusing on political connections and long term relationships which favor a few incumbents.

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Illinois Government, Broadly Defined, Will Have A Major Crisis by 2017

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The fact that the State of Illinois has dire fiscal problems is well documented. If you just type in headlines like “Illinois is broke” into your web browser and you can spend hours reading. One of the best is Illinois Policy.org which brings together articles from various news sources into a coherent theme. We have a new governor, Bruce Rauner, who is wealthy and thus unlikely to be entangled in corruption, who is pledging to take on this giant mess, which is a cause for optimism.

The issues, however, are much larger. It isn’t just the state of Illinois which is in deep crisis – we have an interconnected set of entities all of which are on the verge of facing fiscal woes, who in turn can tip other entities off the fiscal cliff. The city of Chicago also has very significant financial problems, mostly from pensions as well, which it has been papering over for many years with debt and by allowing its unfunded pension issue to get ever larger. Cook County, too, which is one of the largest governmental counties and entities of its nature in the USA, is also facing dire challenges.

Once you get beyond the state, the city of Chicago, and Cook County, you encounter myriad minefields from our plethora of governmental units. Illinois has more governmental entities than any other state, 8400, as you can see from this article. Most of them have various taxing powers, debt they’ve raised, and liabilities like pensions and health care for workers that are not funded. Look near O’Hare, where the (tiny) city of Rosemont has funded huge shopping malls, convention centers, and even a casino by floating debt. In the end this debt is substantially backed by the state whether that guarantee is implicit or explicit; a city of a few thousand residents can’t normally fund this sort of largess.

But the challenges are much deeper than this. These entities, much of which are overseen on a local level, invite vast opportunities for institutional corruption. We saw this on Metra, where the scandals caused the prior president to commit suicide (by standing in the way of a train, no less) and cast a light on the squalid pay-for-play decisionmaking process of a typical entity in our state.

The situation has become so bad that even in a time of record low interest rates, when there are many buyers of debt with any sort of return, that Illinois and the city of Chicago often cannot take advantage of municipally funded debt (which carries a lower interest rate because individuals are not subject to Federal taxes on the interest) because this debt has to be used for capital purposes and can’t just be used to pay day-to-day bills. Thus they are forced to issue “taxable” debt, and pay a higher interest rate. Many of the issues are essentially “scoop and toss” where we just take the entire principal and interest of expiring debt, refinance the whole thing, and just throw it out into the future, growing ever more indebted.

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The Failure of State Sponsored Capitalism

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It is my assertion that over the last few decades since the fall of communism a lack of understanding of how markets actually work has become commonplace around the world. When it was capitalism vs. communism (or socialism, or even fascism), you generally knew where you stood. To wit:

  • Capitalism said that the free market would provide the best outcome for society, while communism / socialism felt that capitalism had to be tempered and / or that key assets should be owned by the state 
  • Capitalism said that government should be small, and stick to a few areas of logical focus such as security and foreign affairs, while socialism / communism celebrated government and government jobs as a way to employ the citizenry and achieve social goals

Subtly, the growing attraction of jobs that were primarily in the government sector (environmental jobs, education jobs, health care jobs, and outright government work) and the basic thought that you could build a nice, steady career there with assured benefits and pensions while “doing right for the world” became commonplace. These jobs were often seen as “nicer” and “better” than the ruthless corporate jobs that are continually vilified or parodied on television (such as “The Office” or virtually any thriller set in business).

On a parallel scale, the idea that “State Owned Enterprises” (SOE) could be a significant part of the world economy, and compete effectively with private sector companies, became widespread. Let’s leave aside the companies that fell into the US governments’ hands during 2008-9 like the banks and car companies; I am focusing on the world wide companies, often country “champions”, that are in our midst and whose performance has now been hit with the usual causes of failure of these sorts of entities, including:

  1. Politically motivated investment
  2. Forced government subsidies or protectionist behavior
  3. Corruption
The “poster child” for this negative outcome is Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company, which is 64% owned by the state.  Petrobras was briefly the 4th most valuable company in the world after their 2010 IPO; now it is barely in the top 100.  Petrobras hits all these typical failure points with a vengeance.  The government forced them to purchase goods and services from inefficient Brazilian suppliers, subsidized their citizens with Petrobras funds, pushed them to invest in deep offshore finds which were risky relative to the company’s capabilities, and finally just engaged in simple corruption to fund their political party candidates.  All of these actions weakened the company and now a downturn in oil prices and a heavy debt load put the company in a seriously bad state.

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Renting Vs. Buying

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In the 2007-9 real estate boom and debacle here in Chicago there was a wave of newly built condominiums that swamped the market in River North, River East, the South and West Loop, and even Downtown. For a while the new buildings could do no wrong and then that disappeared into a pool of foreclosures and difficult times for condominium associations as they had to deal with vacant units and those that refused or were unable to pay assessments.

In the 2012-5 period, that same area of Chicago has seen an enormous influx in new buildings, but this time it is different – they all seem to be rental units. Everyone seemed to learn the same lesson; condominiums can be hard to unload in a down market and the prices are highly variable (units sold for fire-sale prices during the nadir and condominium developers lost their shirts if they were holding inventory during that time), so let’s go with renters instead, who derive consistent returns for the building owner and lender.

For a bit I even thought I’d try to put my condo on the market since prices have gone up. I figured I’d just rent for a while and not be exposed to future downturns. But as I looked around for equivalent value to my current condo in terms of location, views, bedrooms and bathrooms, I noted that I’d be paying $4500+ / month for an equivalent space, if I could find it at all (inventory of larger condos in modern buildings in good walkable areas was in fact very low). That just seemed crazy.

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25 Stories About Work – Unions in the Service Sector

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I was recently on a plane doodling and thought of some funny / interesting stories from 25+ years of working and traveling. So I decided to write them up as short, random chapters of a non-book with the title of this post. Hope you enjoy them and / or find them interesting. Certainly the value will be at least equal to the marginal cost of the book (zero)…

The Midwest, early 1990s

When I was first starting out as an auditor I worked in Wisconsin at an electric utility. In your initial jobs as an auditor you were given the least interesting assignments, such as plant accounting. Assets like generating plants don’t usually change much in value from year to year so reconciling the plant assets was a job for the lowliest accountant.

At the time the records for this plant were kept on what we called “13 column” yellow paper. I never thought about it until today but 13 columns was obviously chosen so that you had 12 individual months plus a thirteenth column for totals. The client’s records were partially computerized but some items (such as the plants built in the ’70s) were done manually.

The guy who ran plant accounting was old, irascible, and disliked a young kid like myself who asked a lot of questions. They also were frustrated because ever year a new guy (or girl) took a look at the plant accounting records, since it was an entry level job, so they had no continuity and had to re-explain everything (badly) each year.

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