Chicagoania

Crazy Chicago Weather

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Earlier this year when I was laid up I bought an indoor / outdoor weather station called Netatmo and wrote about it here. It is a lot of fun and I recommend it highly. It is likely that some of these temperatures are impacted by the sun (although I went to a lot of trouble to keep it out of direct sunlight) although this shouldn’t impact the lows which generally occur at night.

I was struck when I looked at the temperature for October – December. I have lived in the midwest my whole life (traveled a lot) and have never seen this many typically cold months so unseasonably warm. We haven’t had any days below 20 degrees (or at least not on my balcony). This aligns with my experience at the Bears games, which have almost all been nice and warm (and home losses).

We had one day recently with high winds and blowing sleet that was terrible – it felt like I was being sandblasted. We still have snow and big chunks of rock-hard ice on the ground that haven’t melted yet. But that was the exception, and it is likely to all melt away this week.

Not to say that the weather hasn’t been rough in other ways – Illinois and the whole midwest faces flooding from continuous rainfall and my parents’ basement has been inundated numerous times after being mostly dry for decades.

Cross posted at LITGM

Gridlock

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I remember when I first joined companies I assumed that the executives in charge knew what they were doing and wouldn’t do something ridiculously stupid. After a while I came to learn that this wasn’t the case.

In Chicago recently an effort is underway to increase the use of bikes and create additional lanes for safety. At the same time they are attempting to create a bus corridor in the loop.

The net result, sadly, is utter and complete gridlock. I have stopped taking the bus unless the weather is horrendous because many of the intersections between River North and the Loop are facing gridlock, where cars are in the intersection after the light changes and no one can move. This was already the case on Thursdays and Fridays after work as everyone moved to exit the city at one time.

They are also building a lot of new high rises, particularly near the Merchandise Mart / Wolf Point. It is incredible that they are able to pack more high rises into that area because traffic is unbelievably bad at that location, already. There is a Brown Line stop nearby but that only is useful for those on that train line and most of the wealthy folks that live / work in that location will likely drive frequently.

On the other hand, it is good for the “steps” that I track on my iPhone. Since taking a cab or even the bus is mostly pointless I am walking to work more often. When the weather gets terrible I will likely just sit on the bus and read my iPhone like everyone else while sitting motionless in traffic.

Cross posted at LITGM

The Most Important Story No One Is Talking About – Puerto Rican Debt

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Dan and I go back and forth on the relatively arcane topic of municipal debt. As we all know, the state of Illinois is awash in debt. The situation is so bad that:


1. The State of Illinois is operating without a budget

2. The city of Chicago is proposing a massive property tax increase

3. Cook County just raised our sales tax (one of the highest rates in the country, already) and is proposing additional fees

4. Chicago Public Schools face a major deficit and without some sort of massive state tax relief is likely going to face significant layoffs and a likely teachers strike

5. Note that we are one of the few states and cities to be in such dire straits that we issue TAXABLE debt instead of MUNICIPAL debt which is generally exempt from Federal taxes and some state taxes. This is due to the fact that you generally cannot issue muni bonds to pay off operating expenses (like payroll and legal settlements)

The long term most indebted players have been Detroit, Puerto Rico, and the State of Illinois / City of Chicago. We saw how the Detroit bankruptcy occurred, with bondholders generally taking it on the chin and unsecured pension holders in fact emerging in a relatively better situation.

Now Puerto Rico is up to bat. They have massive, unpayable debts of many varieties (some secured by full faith and credit, some secured with revenues, some bank loans, etc…) and their governor basically said so out loud. All of this is inevitable as their island’s best talent has fled to the mainland USA and the remaining population is more and more reliant on government aid to survive. They also have failed to modernize their power infrastructure and / or build new industries outside of tourism which erodes their ability to compete against the mainland USA that in turn has much higher productivity.

The real issue – long term – is whether or not the Federal government will back up the states. This is essentially the “long game” of the State of Illinois and the city of Chicago – waiting to see whether or not the Federal government is really going to stand by and let us go bankrupt or not. If the government is ultimately going to pick up our debts, it is “business as usual”, and the corruption, back-scratching, and non-competitive behavior can just continue indefinitely, with taxpayers across the nation picking up the debris rather than forcing the citizens of Illinois to clean up our act.

Today Puerto Rico and the treasury announced that they are working to backstop the Puerto Rican debt with some sort of Federal umbrella per this article.

Puerto Rico and U.S. officials are discussing the issuance of a “superbond” administered by the U.S. Treasury Department that would help restructure the commonwealth’s $72 billion of debt, people familiar with the plan said.

And what a great name! A “superbond” means that all the US citizens will pick up the “super” obligations of our corrupt, crony-laden, inefficient city and state. That’s super!

This is the path out for Illinois and the city of Chicago. Play brinksmanship with Federal government and receive a backstop. Puerto Rico leads the way!

Cross posted at LITGM

Midwestern Drinking

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Dan and I and Gerry often joke about Midwest drinking and how people from other parts of the country simply have zero concept of what the midwesterner’s relationship with alcohol is like. We often go to sporting events together and watch massive drinking binges playing out to the left and to the right.

Recently I was out in Wrigleyville which is just packed with new bars and drinkers as far as the eye can see. The plaque below was at a bar called “Stretch”. For best results, click on the photo and read the individual “merit badges” that have been earned.

Here are some of the “highlights”

8 shots of Bacardi 151 in 22 seconds

Wow that much alcohol that fast is crazy. Dan and I were at a bar with some of the heaviest drinking I’ve ever seen and some crazy guy tried to buy us all shots of Jagermeister (there were 6 of us standing around) and no one would drink them so he just took all the shots and poured them into 2 regular drinking glasses and downed them in a couple gulps. That was so nuts I had to ask Dan the next day if we really saw it.

15 shots and 6 beers in one hour

This sounds about like “Mayor Daley” the merry idiot immortalized at Drunk Bear Fans. That guy was just probably trying to get loaded before going to a Cubs game. The best part about this is that I’d bet that guy drinks like that all the time and someone just had the foresight to document it for history’s sake. When you are on the clock you need to make the most of it, I guess.

The biggest differences occur when someone from another city is just plunged into the madness that we take for granted here in the midwest. A “normal” citizen who walks into Wrigleyville or game day near Madison or any midwestern city on a Friday night in the summer really can’t believe what is happening and thinks it is something special – it can’t be like this every day, can it? Oh yes it can. We are old now but I saw with my own eyes an entire new drinking class at Wrigleyville last night and they cover most of River North at 2am and beyond.

It is nothing to be proud of but it is reality here. You have to see it to believe it. Or just put up a plaque.

Cross posted at LITGM

Number Gut, Continued

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Years ago, Shannon Love did a series of posts on these pages about “number gut”. From this post:

A number gut is an intuitive feel for the possible magnitude of a particular number that describes a particular phenomenon. A good number gut tells you if the results of some calculation are at least in the ball park.

My number gut (or b.s. detector, in this case) went off today when I saw this story. Here is the money:

Chicago Public Schools officials on Monday proposed a $5.7 billion operating budget for the upcoming school year…

Holy crap that is a lot of money. There are 396,000 students in the CPS. $5.7bb / 396k = $15,447 per student. Really.

From this article from 2014 about the most expensive private schools in Illinois, it looks like all of the students could go to Loyola Academy, and can almost all go to St. Ignatius College Prep for that kind of money.

Just sayin’.