It just hits me!!!

It was one year ago today that Rod Blagojevich, who if he's ever mentioned around these parts is often referred to as Ousted governor, was arrested by the FBI. From January 2003 until January 29, 2009 he was the sitting Governor of Illinois. Today his successor and running mate Pat Quinn signed some ethics legislation into law.

I covered this rather heavily at The Sixth Ward from the beginning of the end to it's eventual conclusion. I just want to share this quip just one more time. :P

“Yesterday took part in a sit in, today sitting in jail. I can’t help but wonder what’s going through his head today…”

I’m innocent?

I wrote that over at the CapFax in response to another comment. I thought it was funny and it's a shame that I never showed it here.

A video collage of events (9 minute duration) during the late Blago administration was posted on YouTube by Rich Miller who's CapFax blog was shut down at times during the day of Blago's arrest to the day of his removal from office. Kudos for this video and his coverage during almost two month time frame.

While I rather hoped Illinois could have avoided this humiliation in 2006, we are living in the future that we could've have lived in 2007. Except that Pat Quinn would never have become Governor and Quinn's stewardship of Illinois hasn't been the best of times. At the same time it's great to have an honest man in office unlike the other guy he replaced.

He's still going to trial although there might be some legal kinks to work out but he will face his trial. Blago is still clueless about his legal troubles it seems, but for right now he's still getting attention. What we can say about him is that not only might he continue to deny the charges, but he will only continue to bring attention to himself.

BTW, I got to thinking about this one day. George Ryan may have been old school, but at least we could trust him. He may not have changed with the times and realized that he may one day be held accountable for what he either did or was involved with. At the same time he was effective as a Governor and was replaced by someone who was nowhere near effective and not trustworthy.

Honestly I'm less upset about Blago's corruption than I was about his effectiveness. Corruption should never be tolerated, but let's not forget that being Governor is a job first and foremost. Ethics is part of the job, but so is doing work. Blago didn't seem to work out as Governor and the state legislature found an excuse to get rid of him. Now since he ran afoul of the law the federal government will finish the job by sending him to prison.

The future

I don't remember where I watched this, but there was a segment on visions of the future. It might have been Andy Rooney giving his commentary at the end of one episode of 60 Minutes.

The visions of the future involved bathrooms turning into lounges. What's on my mind at current is the vision of the future where it was expected that workers may have less hours at work and more leisure time. I'm sure there are those of us who really would like that type of future.

I'm not sure if that's the future we're living. In fact there are a lot of us who wishes that was the future we're living in. Surely there are reasons why workers spend a lot of time at work and less time at leisure.

I have been watching C-Span on weekday mornings and there have been callers to Washington Journal who say that they work two or three jobs to make ends meet. A lot of them do this by necessity because they have bills to pay or they need health insurance and the job doesn't provide it or they have children to provide for. One caller in particular said that she wasn't doing well at all with the arrangement of two jobs where the only thing that suffered was her sleep. She didn't even have enough time to sleep.

Surely she would like to see that vision of the future.

In any event, I used to have the view that no one really likes to work. Eventually that view has changed. Why do people work at jobs they may not really care for?

That would be exactly my point. A lot of people do it by necessity and some do it to start their working careers. Not all of us are able to get the dream jobs we wanted after college.

Well my view has gone from people don't like to work to people want to find something satisfying. As far as the world of work goes, I haven't found that yet. I may have missed those opportunity if they were presented to me. At the same time I would like to have less work and more leisure in my future.

Sadly that leisure can only result in less income. Of course another train of thought on this is all about whether or not determining income is more satisfying than enjoying what one does in life.

Hopefully we can all strike that nice balance. I hope we all have the leisure and that we all enjoy what we do for a living in our lives.

Why Congress is Furious at the Fed

This big news recently has been the hearings over whether or not Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will be able to keep his current position. Time magazine takes a look at the reasons Congress is taking a look at the Federal Reserve:

The Federal Reserve system, that mysterious organization with the temple-like headquarters just off the Washington Mall and thick-walled outposts in cities across the land, is under assault. It's "the most serious attack that I have seen on the Federal Reserve in the many, many years that I've studied it as a scholar," says Columbia economist and former Fed governor Frederic Mishkin.

Texas libertarian-Republican-obstetrician-Congressman Ron Paul--a man not known for bipartisan consensus-building--has gotten 313 of his colleagues, more than 100 of them Democrats, to back a bill that would subject the Fed to audits by the Government Accountability Office, and the Financial Services Committee has approved a version of it. On the other side of Capitol Hill, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd is pushing reforms that would strip the Fed of its power to regulate banks.

It has gotten so bad that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has resorted to the equivalent of heavy artillery, taking to the opinion pages of the Washington Post on Nov. 29 to express his concern that these measures "would significantly reduce the capacity of the Federal Reserve to perform its core functions." (For Fedspeak, this is seriously blunt language.)

The most core of the Fed's functions is running the country's monetary policy--that is, deciding how many dollars should be in circulation. Hardly anyone is calling for it to be stripped of this power. Yes, the good Dr. Paul does so in his best seller End the Fed, but this is not what you'd call a viable legislative proposal, which is why he's pushing his audit plan in Congress instead. But Bernanke and other Fed defenders argue that subjecting the organization to more outside scrutiny and taking away its side function of regulating banks would render it unable to manage monetary policy effectively.

To which a skeptic might respond, The Fed manages monetary policy effectively? Could have fooled me. That's one argument for altering the Federal Reserve's current arrangements. The other is that the Fed's current arrangements are really weird. The Fed is part government agency, part creature of the banking industry. This is by design; from its creation in 1913 (to prevent the bank panics that were periodically paralyzing the economy, as in 1907) until the early 1930s, in fact, the bankers who controlled the regional Federal Reserve banks had the upper hand. Congress changed the law in the early '30s to put Washington clearly in charge, and for almost two decades, the Fed was effectively an arm of the Treasury Department. After 1951, when Treasury restored the Fed's independence, it returned to hybrid status, with the presidentially appointed chairman wielding the most power but the president of the New York Fed--chosen by New York bankers--a close second.

OK here's the deal. I was mostly educated on this issue by a friend who is definitely anti-Fed. He like Ron Paul supports a return to the gold standard since American currency is FIAT (meaning that the currency is backed by nothing and essentially is a promise by the federal government that the currency is worth something).

My opinion, well I don't really have one. I haven't educated myself very well on economic issues. Even if I do attempt to follow them on a layman's basis. I tend to stick with taxes especially cutting taxes to economic growth. To be honest I'm not totally clear on monetary policy other than I suppose the supply of gold can only serve to determine how much currency should be minted.

Does anyone out there like to comment on any stories involving the Federal Reserve?

Via Newsalert!

Listening to audio of Dan Proft and Kirk Dillard on WVON this week

You can listen here. Courtesy of the Dan Proft 2010 campaign.

Let me be honest here. I have flirted with outright declaring myself a Republican. You can go back far enough on this blog and there will be some evidence that I have attempted to align myself in that fashion.

It's very unlikely that you will find that these days. I may still hold views that are considered conservative or even libertarian. Most of the time I just attempt to be practical with a certain does of common sense. That's the way to tackle most issues but most look at it with an ideological viewpoint.

Perhaps the reason why I would never go through with being a member of the GOP is the fact that they aren't particularly aggressive in pursuing black supporters. They aren't in the community espousing their message and sometimes their message to the black community may leave a lot wanting. That is what could the Republican Party offer to blacks that the Democrats couldn't offer.

That message is missing. In fact I think I tried to explain that position on a mostly conservative board once and I got shouted down. I became a whiner and a supporter of welfare and I'm the last person who supports that.

Dan Proft is probably close to a message that should resonate with Blacks. His message of reforming the public schools (especially in terms of funding) or otherwise unfixing Illinois to allow for economic opportunity for everyone (especially for entrepreneurial efforts) is a good message for Blacks. The only question is whether or not the Black community could listen, especially to a Republican.

With all due respect to Kirk Dillard, I'm sure black school children are responsive to the history lesson. Ultimately it's their parents who are doing the voting and also whether or not they would listen to the fact that for many years Blacks voted for the party of Abraham Lincoln (who was a Republican). I have my doubts that they would and I would say that state Sen. Dillard and other Republicans should be very mindful of creating a message that will resonate with blacks.

This audio was very good because Dillard and Proft talked about a variety of issues. As I type this Proft & Dillard are talking about CTA, certainly an issue that many blacks are keeping an eye on if they don't drive. Either way the GOP should be talking about issues of concern to at least urban Blacks and go from there.

Yeah talk about all the history that is necessary, but also focus on the here and now! If the Republicans can ever do that and eventually gain a foothold in Black communities. Indeed even find ways to elect Blacks as Republicans to office in Illinois they can count me as a supporter one day. At this moment, it's very unlikely.

Also the other Republican candidates, especially Bill Brady who paid a visit to the nearby Chatham Market during the fall on a jobs tour, need to come to WVON and talk directly to the station's predominantly black listeners!

Atlanta Mayor Hopefuls Face Unfinished Vote, Deficit

The Mayoral runoff in ATL was held on Dec. 1st. It appears that the race still hasn't been decided:

Atlanta counted the last ballots today in a tight mayoral election while the leader, former state lawmaker Kasim Reed, sought ways to pay for promised services in a city facing budget deficits.

Reed got 50.4 percent of the votes cast in a Dec. 1 runoff to lead Councilwoman Mary Norwood by 620 of the 84,076 ballots, the Fulton County, Georgia, elections office said. The outcome won’t be final until provisional ballots are counted today and results are certified Dec. 5. Norwood wants a recount.

Both Reed, 40, and Norwood, 57, promised to restore police, fire and other services cut by the current mayor to close a $140 million gap in this year’s budget. Atlanta’s revenue has grown by half the pace of spending in the last five years as the U.S. entered the worst recession since the Great Depression.

“Whoever is elected isn’t going to do a whole lot because they won’t have the money,” said Michael Owens, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta. “It’s going to require a high degree of savvy and policy skill to address the core problems.”

So why do I care? I don't call ATL home.

Well I spent a lot of time there as a student at Morehouse College. Not only that in the lead up to this race it was a real concerned among the black community there about having a non-Black as mayor. There has been a Black as Mayor of the city since Maynard Jackson in the early 1970s.

The chatter I have seen down there in media stories almost resemble how the black community was regarding either the Mayor's office in Chicago or currently the County Board Presidency. I have my doubts that the current Pres. Todd Stroger is either going to be re-elected or is the best person to continue in that position. When he ran the first time (after being appointed by Cook County Demorats upon the incapacitation of his father who also was Cook County Board President) I never thought he was the best person. Unfortunately race and family ties prevailed.

In Job Hunt, College Degree Can’t Close Racial Gap

Hmmm, I try to have some optimism as a college graduate. I know I have some strikes against me as I have finally graduated from college at a much older age than most. I just hate to think that race could be one of those strikes against me in the job market:

That race remains a serious obstacle in the job market for African-Americans, even those with degrees from respected colleges, may seem to some people a jarring contrast to decades of progress by blacks, culminating in President Obama’s election.

But there is ample evidence that racial inequities remain when it comes to employment. Black joblessness has long far outstripped that of whites. And strikingly, the disparity for the first 10 months of this year, as the recession has dragged on, has been even more pronounced for those with college degrees, compared with those without. Education, it seems, does not level the playing field — in fact, it appears to have made it more uneven.

College-educated black men, especially, have struggled relative to their white counterparts in this downturn, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate for black male college graduates 25 and older in 2009 has been nearly twice that of white male college graduates — 8.4 percent compared with 4.4 percent.

Various academic studies have confirmed that black job seekers have a harder time than whites. A study published several years ago in The American Economic Review titled “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” found that applicants with black-sounding names received 50 percent fewer callbacks than those with white-sounding names.

A more recent study, published this year in The Journal of Labor Economics found white, Asian and Hispanic managers tended to hire more whites and fewer blacks than black managers did.

The discrimination is rarely overt, according to interviews with more than two dozen college-educated black job seekers around the country, many of them out of work for months. Instead, those interviewed told subtler stories, referring to surprised looks and offhand comments, interviews that fell apart almost as soon as they began, and the sudden loss of interest from companies after meetings.

Whether or not each case actually involved bias, the possibility has furnished an additional agonizing layer of second-guessing for many as their job searches have dragged on.

Another aspect of this problem is the name thing. I posted it in the excerpt (I hope you read the whole thing, BTW). I hope that I can give my children respectable names they could be rather ethnic, but hopefully names that won't cause anyone to pass them over in the job market.

The names I have ran across especially among black people seem to indicate an ability to create names. I think this could be a problem and these names I would see as ghetto. Of course that is only my opinion. Hopefully I can give my children rather plain names and that the names either I or my "eventual" wife would give are respectable names.

What do you think about this particular topic and "Black" names in general?

Been doing a lot of night time L riding lately

Tonight I ran into a lady who's often been on the L begging. She isn't a bad looking lately but in honing her act to get people to give money to her she may not be able to afford to look good. I noticed that she was dirty especially going towards the cuffs of her jeans and her shoes.

Tonight she was feigning crying. I saw no tears and she was even wiping the "tears" away. Not sure she was crying, since I saw no tears I thought it was all fake.

Also it's been a few years since I saw her begging on the trains. She's been on crutches for years. Not sure if it's just a lingering injury or another part of the shtick.

All the same, people will still give money to her. Those who are unfamiliar with her activity and those who are tired of her act. I won't do it.

I didn't do it tonight, but on the train much earlier I gave a young man a dollar. He was promoting a program that claims that they're young men who are turning their lives around. I don't totally believe that shtick, but I would like to say that I did my good deed for the night. That's only if this young man's shtick is genuine!

The Arabs Have Stopped Applauding Obama

I wonder what this is about?

'He talks too much," a Saudi academic in Jeddah, who had once been smitten with Barack Obama, recently observed to me of America's 44th president. He has wearied of Mr. Obama and now does not bother with the Obama oratory.

He is hardly alone, this academic. In the endless chatter of this region, and in the commentaries offered by the press, the theme is one of disappointment. In the Arab-Islamic world, Barack Obama has come down to earth.

He has not made the world anew, history did not bend to his will, the Indians and Pakistanis have been told that the matter of Kashmir is theirs to resolve, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the same intractable clash of two irreconcilable nationalisms, and the theocrats in Iran have not "unclenched their fist," nor have they abandoned their nuclear quest.

There is little Mr. Obama can do about this disenchantment. He can't journey to Turkey to tell its Islamist leaders and political class that a decade of anti-American scapegoating is all forgiven and was the product of American policies—he has already done that. He can't journey to Cairo to tell the fabled "Arab street" that the Iraq war was a wasted war of choice, and that America earned the malice that came its way from Arab lands—he has already done that as well. He can't tell Muslims that America is not at war with Islam—he, like his predecessor, has said that time and again.
...
Steeped in an overarching idea of American guilt, Mr. Obama and his lieutenants offered nothing less than a doctrine, and a policy, of American penance. No one told Mr. Obama that the Islamic world, where American power is engaged and so dangerously exposed, it is considered bad form, nay a great moral lapse, to speak ill of one's own tribe when in the midst, and in the lands, of others.
...
Mr. Obama could not make up his mind: He was at one with "the people" and with the rulers who held them in subjugation. The people of Iran who took to the streets this past summer were betrayed by this hapless diplomacy—Mr. Obama was out to "engage" the terrible rulers that millions of Iranians were determined to be rid of.

On Nov. 4, on the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran, the embattled reformers, again in the streets, posed an embarrassing dilemma for American diplomacy: "Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them," they chanted. By not responding to these cries and continuing to "engage" Tehran's murderous regime, his choice was made clear. It wasn't one of American diplomacy's finest moments.

Mr. Obama has himself to blame for the disarray of his foreign policy. American arms had won a decent outcome in Iraq, but Mr. Obama would not claim it—it was his predecessor's war. Vigilance had kept the American homeland safe from terrorist attacks for seven long years under his predecessors, but he could never grant Bush policies the honor and credit they deserved. He had declared Afghanistan a war of necessity, but he seems to have his eye on the road out even as he is set to announce a troop increase in an address to be delivered tomorrow.

So the thesis of this op/ed is to say that Obama has great difficulty trying to take sides. At that, he seems to want to be universally acclaimed by friend and foe a like. And even more, he seems very willing to throw the successes of the previous administration under the bus because before he won the presidency he knew that regime was proven unpopular.

What do you think? Do you think the President is nothing more than a much smoother waffler?

I remember the Bozo show

On the morning of Thanksgiving when normally I would either be watching Jerry Springer, Hawaii Five-0, or even Steve Wilkos there was a special on the Bozo show on WGN. It was very good seeing the evolution of a classic Chicago produced children's program. I would have had no idea there were two Bozo's as I watched the program during it's waning years.

In fact on mornings before I went to school I would often have the TV on WGN and watch "Bozo's Circus". Thankfully I often had the luxury of not having very far to go when it was time for me to be in class. More often than not I was late, however, it may well have been that I wasn't very enthusiastic about school in those days. Daytime TV was more often than not a treat to enjoy especially since more often that not I was going to school.

Sometimes I miss these more children's oriented programming that aired in the mornings or the afternoons during the week. Things change unfortunately and as a result these days we see more news, talk shows, court shows, or even reruns on any given time during the day. Some of that seems almost like pollution with no given value to the viewer other than something to watch. I would especially direct that statement toward the talk and court shows as in the past decade there has been a proliferation of such programming.

Bozo was funny but the humor just wasn't doing it for me anymore at some point. Cartoons well I miss those the most whether it was WGN or FOX 32. You don't really see either Looney Tunes, Woody Woodpecker, Popeye, or even Tom & Jerry anymore. I don't even watch Cartoon Network if they even have those programs on the schedule.

All this to say that while there are those who can go WAY back with what used to be on TV during the day, I've witnessed the tail end of those days. Sometimes times do change, and it's often a good thing. At the same time I long for the days where I could watch those programs during the day that I used to enjoy!

Dump the dollar! Buy gold!

You know I have been seeing more of these commercials lately urging us to invest in more Gold, especially on Fox but that's not exactly the only place you can find them. You might see a commercial with either G. Gordon Liddy or Dan Florek (you might know him from Law & Order as Capt. Don Cragen).

Anyway this article is about Chris Pia, this article talks a lot about his background in trading and then offer's his picks on both the US Dollar and Gold:

The dollar: Down 10% vs. euro

Pia predicts that the dollar will take a double hit: First, China and other Asian exporters to the U.S. are already maxed out on dollar reserves from the ever-rising sales of their exports and the interest on the Treasuries they've been buying with their dollars. In addition, those exporters will diversify into gold and the euro as they fret about U.S. inflation.

Gold: To $1,300+ an ounce

Pia now sees gold as a smart play during both market crises and booms when investors think stocks are overvalued. Other drivers include central banks' decreasing their dollars as a reserve currency in favor of bullion (as India did in early November), and gold's populist appeal: "Joe Investor understands gold much better than, say, IBM stock."

Oil: $70 - $100 a barrel

Cheap oil no longer equals a healthy economy: "Oil now goes up with stocks, and prices rise with growth," says Pia. He predicts that oil will swing between $70 and $100 a barrel, so investors should buy it toward the low end of that range and exit as soon as prices hit triple digits. "At $100," says Pia, "rig and pipeline construction booms. New oil supply comes out of the woodwork, and prices fall sharply."

I added oil just because. I hope that I can own some gold. Well there are many that hopes that the US Government will once again adopt the gold standard. Even better, I think I should be able to make purchases with gold. We'll see.

Most effective President

I was watching this 10 year old C-Span video of a call-in segment where callers who discuss who they believed was the most effective President. This was sort of a conclusion to a series where C-Span explores the lives and careers of the 41 Presidents of the United States. In fact you can visit their website @ http://www.americanpresidents.org/. There you can see most of the segments and this series was produced before the end of the Clinton Administration thus there are no programs for Presidents Bush and Obama's presidency is so young, yet!

The answers from callers ran the gamut from Ronald Reagan, Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln (but, of course), George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower, Thomas Jefferson or Richard Nixon. Those answers weren't very bad answers, btw. In fact I would agree with most of them.

My answer, well most of the Presidents of my lifetime I couldn't necessarily see as very effective. I don't think Clinton was very effective. George W. Bush was probably more effective especially in terms of national defense and the fight against terrorism, but he wasn't without his problems. I know a lot of people like Reagan, but he also wasn't without his problems. He may have spurred economic growth and took the fight to the Soviet Union, but it's difficult for me to place it's eventual downfall as a result of his policies.

Nixon as one caller mentioned was effective, however he also wasn't without his problems. Those problems may have lead to his downfall in the middle of his second term. But he was pretty good in diplomacy especially in seeking relations with Communist China. Who knows Nixon's skills are missed in terms of figuring out how to deal with Muslim nations and on the situation in Afghanistan as things are heating up once again in that nation.

And finally let's point to Lyndon Johnson. He was very effective in domestic policy, whether you agree with it or not. He got a lot of things done in that area, however, his problems were in the area of military policy and foreign affairs. President Johnson before he left the Presidency was unable to secure the peace in Vietnam. It seems Vietnamese Communists were some very resilient adversaries and it wasn't so easy to defeat them. Any president who might have had to deal with them might have been kept up late at night by any persistent fighting. So whatever accomplishment Johnson might have had in domestic policy, it was sort of shoved aside by his activities in Vietnam.

Who do you think was the most effective President?

China cold open: Obama gets blasted by SNL

I saw this on Washington Journal this morning (or was it C-Span Newsmakers?) either way they showed this from last night's episode of SNL. This is kind of a slam at the cliche that we're only owing China more money for our debt. Especially since the current administration is spending money on stimulus and seeking to take on the health care system.

On finances in the states

Almost a week ago I ran across this Wall Street Journal column at Instapundit regarding the dire straits of state finances in both Michigan and California. Both of those states have well reported problems. In Michigan we see some evidence of how well that state is doing by looking in part at Detroit as we did on Friday.

I wasn't going to excerpt, but let's look at California:

As of July 2009, California's budget shortfall was 49.3% of its general funds. States have considered drastic options to fill such gaps.

"I looked as hard as I could at how states could declare bankruptcy," said Michael Genest, director of the California Department of Finance who is stepping down at the end of the year. "I literally looked at the federal constitution to see if there was a way for states to return to territory status."

There were no bankruptcy options, and the legislature chose to cut back sharply on education and health care to fill the gap. Mr. Genest already predicts the 2011 shortfall will outpace the projected $7 billion gap. It is a smaller deficit than this year's gap, but the choices will be more difficult because so many cuts have already been made.

Mr. Genest estimated that, eventually, 40% of the state's budget would go to the state Medicaid program, 40% to education, 10% to debt service and 6% to retiree medical services and pension—leaving little left for anything else, such as the state's corrections system.

You know I've heard this a lot of states are putting a lot of money into Medicaid or Medicare and it's literally eating budgets.

What about Michigan:

Mr. Bean described a similarly depressing scenario for Michigan, which could end the recession with 25% fewer jobs than in June 2000 and a total of one million job losses. Michigan's unemployment rate in September was 15.3%.

He suggested that strict term limits often lead to political gridlock that prevents large-scale changes, such as overhauling the tax code so it is broad-based with lower tax rates. Mr. Bean said lawmakers will likely have to trim the budget at least 12.5% this year after closing a $2.8 billion gap last year.

"Citizens don't quite understand yet the implications of some of the cuts that we've made," Mr. Bean said. "A lot of it has fallen on local governments. I am very concerned that we're going to have a lot of insolvencies in local governments."

Via Newsalert there was a Rasmussen report on how New Yorkers view their budget deficit:

New York voters aren’t very optimistic about the financial solvency of their state, but they're also sending their elected representatives mixed signals. They oppose budget cuts in a couple key areas but are against tax hikes even more.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state finds that 56% of voters say it is at least somewhat likely that New York will be bankrupt by the end of the year. Twenty-one percent (21%) say it is very likely.

Thirty-seven percent (37%) believe that outcome is unlikely, but only nine percent (9%) say it is not at all likely.

An overwhelming 81% of say the bigger problem in New York State today is not that voters are unwilling to pay enough in taxes but that politicians are unwilling to control government spending. Just eight percent (8%) think the bigger problem is voter unwillingness to pay enough taxes.

Sometimes it's great to look at what other states are doing to work with this current economic environment. There are some states who are managing better than others, but it's also important to note the political conditions.

We see some evidence of that in Michigan, term limits lead to gridlock according to that state's finance director. In California, it may be state leader's unwillingness to do anything about their generous public pensions.

To be sure public pensions are an issue here. Illinois is either too generous with the pensions or it's underfunded. Of course that's not the only issue here. The bottom line is politicos this could be any state or even in the Federal government are unwilling to make the very difficult decisions.