Join us in South Shore on Saturday, March 30 to talk TIFs in the 7th Ward. We’ll be Illuminating the five active TIFs there. Preview: In 2011 those TIFs extracted $1.4 million from property owners in the 7th Ward.
Details of the event on Facebook.
Editor Emeritus Dave Zweifel has been with The Capital Times since he graduated from UW-Madison in 1962, serving as the paper’s editor in chief from 1983 to 2008. He was president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council for 15 years, served as a Pulitzer Prize judge in 2000 and 2001, and named to the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2011.
The common perception among many Americans is that government simply can’t do anything right.
There are whole books of jokes that feature government as the punch line. See those three guys filling a pothole? One’s working and two are supervising. But, what the heck, that’s close enough for government work.
To be sure, there are lots of inefficiencies in some government programs and because of the sheer size of the federal government, often one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing.
We know about that because in our democracy, government is open. When a government official or a bureaucrat does something foolish or wastes valuable resources or unnecessarily spends taxpayers’ money, there are news stories about it. When defense contracts come in way over budget, it makes the news. When a government official holds a meeting at a lavish resort, it hits the press, as it should. With rare exceptions, they can’t hide their mistakes or misdeeds.
That’s not usually the case in private business. Although the mistakes are just as rampant, just as wasteful, just as irresponsible, it’s much easier to sweep the problem under the rug without anyone except the insiders knowing about it. There is no free press serving as a watchdog on private business, as is its function with government…
For every example of alleged ineptitude in government there’s an example of incompetence in the private sector. There are some things that government, working on behalf of all the people, can do better, just as there are some jobs that only private companies should do.
The challenge for us is to not yield to inaccurate perceptions, but to be able to tell the difference.
From the front page of today’s New York Times:
“State and federal authorities decided against indicting HSBC in a money-laundering case over concerns that criminal charges could jeopardize one of the world’s largest banks and ultimately destabilize the global financial system.
Instead, HSBC announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to a record $1.92 billion settlement with authorities. The bank, which is based in Britain, faces accusations that it transferred billions of dollars for nations like Iran and enabled Mexican drug cartels to move money illegally through its American subsidiaries.
While the settlement with HSBC is a major victory for the government, the case raises questions about whether certain financial institutions, having grown so large and interconnected, are too big to indict. Four years after the failure of Lehman Brothers nearly toppled the financial system, regulators are still wary that a single institution could undermine the recovery of the industry and the economy.
But the threat of criminal prosecution acts as a powerful deterrent. If authorities signal such actions are remote for big banks, the threat could lose its sting.”
You think? First these criminal institutions were too big to fail. Now they’re too big to indict. Sounds like the government is granting effective immunity to banks and corporations to break the law with little effective punishment. If it’s just a fine – well, that’s now the price of doing business. A price that’s passed on to the consumer, which would be us.
Folks, these banks are accused and are guilty of money laundering to terrorist outfits, rogue states and the drug cartels. Aren’t we “at war” with those players? Not to mention tax evasion, criminal fraud, collusion, cover-ups and a pervasive culture of greed and venality. Apparently ANYTHING is OK when there is profit to be made.
Where is the outrage from America’s universities, law schools and business schools? Where is the revulsion and alarm from the columnists, pundits and politicians who have defended the market so unhesitantly?
From Reuters MuniLand Service, reported by Cate Long:
Two major American cities are embarking on large capital programs, but in very different ways. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has a $1.8 billion, five-year plan that he will fund with municipal bonds, while Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is trying to push a $7 billion plan, which will be paid for by private investors, through the city council. It would be hard to find to two more dissimilar approaches to rebuilding America’s urban infrastructure or two more different lists of who will reap the monetary benefit of the improvements.
Boston approaches its infrastructure needs with a rolling five-year schedule of projects that is updated on an annual basis. This allows for more controlled expensing and planning. In contrast, Chicago’s Emanuel announced his infrastructure privatization plan in January with very few details and buy-in only from the private investors who will benefit from their involvement. The Chicago proposal gives control of infrastructure decisions to a panel of four private citizens and one city council member with no ability for the city council to have oversight on projects and contracts. Chicago has a terrible history of leaving taxpayer money on the table in its privatization efforts. In 2008 the city’s parking meters were leased out to private investors for a tiny sum…
I was on the soapbox (again), this time at the Newberry Library’s annual Bughouse Square Debates in Washington Square Park. Prepared for hecklers, I inveighed against the privatizing crooks and back-room deals that have ripped us off and threaten to do worse. But the crowd warmed to my reminders of the Monroe Street Parking Garage, Skyway Bridge and Parking Meter rip-offs and really appreciated my blasting of Mayor Emanuel’s Infrastructure Trust. Listen to the speech (9 minutes):
The August issue of “Chicago Magazine” has a feature on how to make Chicago even better. They selected six Big Ideas. Mine was #5. It’s about establishing a public bank for Illinois.
“THE RATIONALE: A state bank could help Illinois reduce its budget deficit and make more credit available, thereby boosting the economy.
THE PROPONENT: Tom Tresser, cofounder of Illinois Citizens for Public Banking and a former teacher who coorganized the opposition to the 2016 Olympics
HE SAYS: “Illinois has more red ink than any state but California. It owes $34 billion in principal on its bonds; pension debt stands at $76 billion, the highest in the nation; and it pays a ton in bond interest and fees, not just because it has a poor credit rating but also because it also uses big out-of-state banks and investment firms to do the deals.
“Contrast that with North Dakota. Since the economic downturn began in 2008, North Dakota has had a budget surplus every year. It has no state debt, excellent credit, and the country’s lowest unemployment rate [3 percent]. While student loans in Illinois carry interest of 8 to 12 percent, in North Dakota it’s 4 percent.” Read the full story.
I presented at TEDxIIT on Saturday, April 14, on the south side campus of IIT. I talked about The Gift Economy and created one among the attendees. 82 of the 100 attendees actually offered something to their fellow attendees!
Here is the presentation:
Click on the player below to listen and click on the Slideshare viewer to watch the presentation.
From the great investigation team of Joravsky & Dumke:
“Everybody’s talking about Mayor Emanuel’s proposal to create a “trust fund” that would use private money to build infrastructure, though nobody seems to understand how it would actually work. But that’s not stopping aldermen from getting ready to approve it as soon as next week.
Of course, utter ignorance has never kept the City Council from adopting sweeping policies at the mayor’s behest. Remember the parking meter sell-off?
In case you’ve somehow forgotten, the parking meter deal gave private investors control of our streets and untold billions in future revenue for a bundle of cash up-front. Aldermen signed off even though they hadn’t read the information about it that Mayor Daley gave them a couple hours before they voted.
The difference with the infrastructure trust fund is that Mayor Emanuel has provided virtually no information for the aldermen to avoid reading. In Chicago, that’s called reform.
Let’s review what we know—or think we know—about the trust, and what no one has been willing or able to explain.
WHAT WE KNOW: Chicago’s infrastructure is crumbling. And if it’s not fixed, we’ll slip into the lake. On that everyone agrees.
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW: Why Mayor Emanuel didn’t start by conducting and sharing a formal analysis of what needs to be fixed, how much it will cost, and what are the best ways to pay for it—you know, to make sure it’s done fairly and efficiently and all that.
WHAT WE KNOW: The city’s going to have to borrow money to finance projects to fix the infrastructure.
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW: How the mayor’s going raise the money to fix the infrastructure, who will profit, and what’s to stop the taxpayers from getting soaked.”
Alan B. Krueger, Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told us all in a speech on January 12 what we have all experienced – namely, that income inequality in America is at all-time high.
“My theme in this talk is that the rise in inequality in the United States over the last three decades has reached the point that inequality is causing an unhealthy division in opportunities, and is a threat to our economic growth.” You think?
It’s never been better to be in the 1%. Here’s the slide deck – review it for yourself.
The Rise and Consequences of Inequality in the United States: charts
How about a public bank for Illinois to make our money work FOR us and restore a little fairness and equity to our economy?