sell! sell! sell!

[PatsFan1283]

Nice day for btg pats fan.. once the wheels fully come off the everything bubble gold should soar..

Back to 2.93 which was my entry. Went all the way down to 2.16 after so I'll take breaking even since I was down 25% in like 3 weeks.

Gold down about 4% since the post-Syria 1300 highs, and the highs of last week actually.

Does seem like the CB's manipulate the shit out of gold from everything I read. But that is some kook stuff.

 

[tiznow]

Yeah very weird action on gold.. btg continues to act very strong but they've managed to keep a cap on gold itself since fed day.. they gave it a good wack on fed day after they did what was expected... it was breaking out up around 1280 on the bad CPI/retail sales number..

still clueless how they keepimg sverythig bubble afloat..

just a matter of when..

 

[tiznow]

Could have to do with oil too

as lower oil price = lower input energy costs for miners

 

[eek.]

still clueless how they keepimg sverythig bubble afloat..

There's so much capital out there it's keeping itself afloat, like a big pile of sticks on a pond

As long as the Fed doesn't throw an interest rate brick onto it things will hang together

If interest rates start going up the dominoes will start to shake

 

[tiznow]

still clueless how they keepimg sverythig bubble afloat..

There's so much capital out there it's keeping itself afloat, like a big pile of sticks on a pond

As long as the Fed doesn't throw an interest rate brick onto it things will hang together

If interest rates start going up the dominoes will start to shake

That doesn't really matter long term.. valuations will always matter.. no clue about rest of world.. but US stock market on a historical basis has only been anywhere near this overvalued two other times. 2000 and 2007 .. this time will end the same way with a huge decline.. no doubt about it.. just a matter of when..

 

[tiznow]

Think the when is getting close/right now

volatility in tech sector really heating up of late..

 

[tiznow]

Market at all time highs and this the situation in average joe land.. safe to say the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street has never been greater at any point than this in US history.. granted more automation/less need for manual labor is part of that.. but in our case it's more than that.. it's a super rigged game for the elite

maybe the have nots will finally revolt as the next fed fueled bubble pops..

----------

[h=1]Half of Americans are spending their entire paycheck (or more)[/h]By Anna Bahney

Updated 12:17 PM EDT, Tue June 27, 2017

(CNNMoney)Nearly half of Americans say their expenses are equal to or greater than their income, according to a new study from the Center for Financial Services Innovation. And for those 18 to 25 the percentage is over half, up to 54%.
"Half of America has no financial cushion," says Jennifer Tescher, president and CEO of CFSI, which released the study. "They are living really close to the edge."
Of the 25% who say they have too much debt, 96% report being stressed. This kind of financial stress has lasting health effects for those constantly working to cover the nut, says Tescher. "We can't deal with their health problems if we can't deal with their financial health."

​

With one out of every two people maxed-out with expenses, it is likely you or someone you know. "It's your co-workers, the receptionist, the guy mowing your lawn, the woman who takes care of your kids."
Maybe it's you.
Why we're struggling
Perhaps we're overspending? Maybe the gig economy isn't working for us?
Certainly we can all do the hard work of cutting back on our expenses, says Tescher. But she says the results of this study show something more structural than individual spending.
"People are spending a shockingly large amount of income on housing. They have to pay for transportation to get to a job. These costs are going up while their wages stay the same."
Another major contributor, according to the study, is irregular income. Nearly 40% of those who spend as much or more than their paychecks have volatile income, which means it varies from day to day, week to week, month to month.
On average, families experienced income volatility five months out of the year, according to the recent book, "Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty," by Jonathan Morduch and Rachel Schneider, who is also at CFSI.
And in those volatile months, income could range by 25%, meaning $1,000 in income could be $1,250 one month, $750 the next.
How do we get out of the rut?
New financial tools aim to help people manage their money more efficiently. Like Activehours, which allows you to get part of your pay ahead of payday in a way that is not a payday loan. There is also a tool calledEven, which, in addition to helping you budget, does just that: it evens out your pay from high periods and shoots it to you when you have lower periods.
But Tescher doesn't see tech tools as a magic bullet.
"We have a series of structural challenges in this country that require policy solutions," she says. "We need to remove the stigma of talking about money problems and make it clear that a lot of people are struggling."

 

[PatsFan1283]

Was there ever a time 1/2 of Americans aren't spending everything they made in a week? I find those articles to be a little over the top.

Evwn though i obviously agree with basic premise that lower middle class is being gutted.

 

[eek.]

Was there ever a time 1/2 of Americans aren't spending everything they made in a week?
I find those articles to be a little over the top.

It's a lot like Lady Diana Spencer getting pregnant.
The media used to say she was up the duff about every 60 days

Eventually of course, she WAS pregnant so now they could say "you read it here first!" "We were right!" and stuff like that

The reality was they hadn't a clue but it was probably a good hedge bet

 

[tiznow]

Was there ever a time 1/2 of Americans aren't spending everything they made in a week? I find those articles to be a little over the top.

Evwn though i obviously agree with basic premise that lower middle class is being gutted.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT

savings rate

biggest driver is the fed/getting off pesky gold standard that limited the elites ability to rape the masses by enslaving them in debt..

last 8 years since last bust a complete facade facilitated by ben and lunatic money masters..

 

[PatsFan1283]

Just curious, do those #'s include defined compensation plans like 401, 403s, IRA's which have been on the rise the last 20-25 years.

I'm not saying people shouldn't save more and I know inflation is crushing wages but it does seem like those #'s don't include stuff like that.

And then obviously assets such as housing/stocks have gone up far more from 1985 to present than from 60's to '85ish thus sending people the signal they don't need to save as much.

Since newer generations don't expect to get those returns on asset prices, I've read they are starting to return to more savings.

 

[tiznow]

Just curious, do those #'s include defined compensation plans like 401, 403s, IRA's which have been on the rise the last 20-25 years.

I'm not saying people shouldn't save more and I know inflation is crushing wages but it does seem like those #'s don't include stuff like that.

And then obviously assets such as housing/stocks have gone up far more from 1985 to present than from 60's to '85ish thus sending people the signal they don't need to save as much.

Since newer generations don't expect to get those returns on asset prices, I've read they are starting to return to more savings.

Savings rate definitely includes any retirement saving.. not sure about a 401k company match if they include that too.. it's amazing how little Americans save with all the incentives to do so.. 401k Roth and now health savings accounts.. gotta keep up with the joneses!

also as the article states over half aren't saving anything period and living paycheck to paycheck..

 

[PatsFan1283]

Gotta give the marketers credit too. The psychological buttons they know how to push to get a society obsessed with consumption are very impressive when you look into it. They really have it down to an exact science.

That may be a bubble, who knows? Does seem like newer generations not really taking the bait as much as they see their parents struggling later in life, but I wouldn't count out runaway rampant consumerism just yet. The marketers are pretty savvy.

 

[tiznow]

Bottom line is the baby boomer generation spent americas future.. living beyond their means for way too long .. not just personal.. Illinois close to bankruptcy.. federal government has extended our military industrial complex fueled empire way too far and made so many bad decisions there.. got a huge amount of obese slobs that feel entitled to so many things now..

country is done.. other than for the elite

mexico north well on its way as I've been saying since this thread started before the 2007 collapse

 

[tiznow]

[h=2]Fed Must Acknowledge Slowing Economy[/h]

(DreamsTime)
Monday, 26 Jun 2017 3:11 PM

http://www.newsmax.com/t/newsmax/ar...e/Articles/Template-Main&oref=www.google.com# http://www.newsmax.com/t/newsmax/ar...e/Articles/Template-Main&oref=www.google.com# http://www.newsmax.com/t/newsmax/ar...e/Articles/Template-Main&oref=www.google.com# http://www.newsmax.com/t/newsmax/ar...e/Articles/Template-Main&oref=www.google.com# Join in! 0 Comments

---

As any market veteran can tell you, those on the sell-side are the second-to-last to concede to a slowdown in economic activity. It’s unseemly to make negative calls when a firm’s main objective is keeping its clients fully invested in risky assets; the two aims naturally conflict.
Hence the surprise when Bank of America Merrill Lynch said autos are headed for a “decisive downturn” that will trough in 2021 at around a 13-million-unit annualized rate, down from last year’s blistering record 17.6 million. A week earlier, Morgan Stanley, whose numbers are not quite as grim, also reduced its sales forecast, recognizing that the best days of the cycle have come and gone.
The U.S. economy is consumption-centric. Growth in the current recovery has centered on three industries that have fed through to consumption in its various forms -- autos, energy and financial services. There’s something almost poetic in finance’s re-emergence, especially for those on Wall Street who’ve profited smartly from unprecedented levels of deal flow.



Have a debt problem? Solve it with more debt. And why not? This system has worked for generations; insatiable demand for debt is why interest rates have staged their historic decline.
Debt lit the fire that ignited the shale revolution. Debt put a floor under and then helped commercial real estate reach for the skies. Debt kept dying retailers alive. And debt made easier back-to-back years of record car sales.
The question so many bullish economists must answer is what debt can do for the economy in the future.
Much to the Saudis’ dismay, the energy industry is as lean and mean as it’s ever been; operating efficiency gains have been magnificent in a do-or-die environment. Energy is growth neutral going forward.
Retailers are now choking on their debt as profit margins implode. Since February, retail payrolls have contracted by 81,000. There are 4.5 million salespersons and 868,000 grocery store cashiers. Draw all the positive conclusions for lower grocery tabs you like as a result of the expedited consolidation catalyzed by the marriage of Amazon and Whole Foods. There’s no reason to think retail will cease to be a drag on growth going forward.
Restaurants now employ 10.6 million people. As furious as the retail righting has been, comeuppance could be even swifter for big-footprint restaurant chains. Nature dictates that many eateries will suffer as malls die. But more importantly, executives are being jolted by the reality that they had better follow their brick-and-mortar colleagues down the path of preemptive paring of locations that will soon be cash-flow negative and/or losing money. As far as this mega-sector pertains to future economic growth, it’s safe to say clouds are forming.
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As for autos, the bad news was baked in long ago as record lease sales laid the groundwork, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Pressures on used car prices is manifesting in slumping new car sales, which have fallen for five straight months. Against this backdrop, record incentives are losing their ability to incentivize.
Adding to the angst, losses on securities backed by auto loans are piling up; all signs point to the 2015 vintage of subprime-auto ABS being a record year for bloodletting. Delinquencies for even prestigious prime-borrower-backed auto ABS are amassing at a rate that has surprised industry followers. Rumblings about fraud at fast-money car lenders have also begun to percolate. So lending standards are tightening after years of laxity.



Layoff announcements have followed. It started with the major car manufacturers announcing temporary dismissals at year-end. But the bad news has since solidified into permanent layoffs. Absent a meaningful rebound in sales, supplier manufacturing and auto dealership pink slips will follow.
Thus there is pressure building under the unemployment rate, even as it recently hit this cycle’s nadir of 4.3 percent, the lowest since 2001. Further evidence is becoming increasingly clear in credit card delinquencies; Experian reported the national bank card default rate rose to 3.53 percent in May, a four-year high. There are even nascent signs that households have begun to struggle to make their mortgage payments.
Peek under the hood of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey and you will see growing anxiety as the number of people who say they expect higher unemployment has bottomed and begun to tick up. Workers in vulnerable industries have started to sense the flip side of the very same good news being celebrated by investors.
Finally, those whose fortunes are tied to commercial real estate have started whispering among themselves. Cycles never end the same way, but old hands can attest to the sheer amount of supply building in the pipeline and its implications. It’s all good and well that strained industries want to extract what value remains from their CRE exposure as part of their exit strategies. But this only works in isolation. If motivated sellers move in tandem, you can bet teetering CRE valuations will be among the casualties, taking many over-exposed mid-size and small banks down with them.



Call it a confluence of factors that bodes ill for the economic recovery, even as optimists hope the growth streak can stretch into a 10th year. By the way, leading the optimists’ charge is the Federal Reserve itself.
Central bank policy makers’ expectations for future growth indicate the current economic recovery will unseat the record holder, the expansion that finally flamed out in 2001 after enjoying a life of exactly 10 years. But then it is the Fed that’s the very last to capitulate, to say nothing of forecast, a slowdown in economic activity.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Danielle DiMartino Booth, a former adviser to the president of the Dallas Fed, is the author of "Fed Up: An Insider's Take on Why the Federal Reserve Is Bad for America," and founder of Money Strong LLC.
It's

 

[tiznow]

[h=1]Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road[/h][h=2]Gold shaped our country’s monetary policy—and Americans’ fantasies of wealth—for nearly four centuries. James Grant reviews “One Nation Under Gold” by James Ledbetter.[/h]By
James Grant

June 16, 2017 4:09 p.m. ET
It’s no work at all to make modern money. Since the start of the 2008 financial crisis, the world’s central bankers have materialized the equivalent of $12.25 trillion. Just tap, tap, tap on a computer keypad.
“One Nation Under Gold” is a brief against the kind of money you have to dig out of the ground. And you do have to dig. The value of all the gold that’s ever been mined (and which mostly still exists in the form of baubles, coins and ingots), according to the World Gold Council, is a mere $7.4 trillion.
Gold anchored the various metallic monetary systems that existed from the 18th century to 1971. They were imperfect, all right, just as James Ledbetter bends over backward to demonstrate. The question is whether the gold standard was any more imperfect than the system in place today.
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098)]

Republican William McKinley, who campaigned for ‘sound money,’ signed the gold standard into law in 1900. Photo: Library of Congress


[/COLOR]
[h=4]One Nation Under Gold[/h]By James Ledbetter
Liveright, 380 pages, $28.95


That system features monetary oversight by former university economics faculty—the Ph.D. standard, let’s call it. The ex-professors buy bonds with money they whistle into existence (“quantitative easing”), tinker with interest rates, and give speeches about their intentions to buy bonds and tinker with interest rates (“forward guidance”).
You wonder how the Ph.D. standard came to eclipse a system whose very name, “gold standard,” is a byword for excellence. Addressing a national television audience on Sunday evening, Aug. 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon announced the temporary suspension of the dollar’s convertibility into gold. No more would foreign governments enjoy the right to trade in their greenbacks for bullion at the then standard rate of $35 to the ounce. (Americans had long since relinquished that right; indeed, as Nixon spoke, they could not legally own gold.) Roughly a half-century later, the temporary suspension is beginning to look permanent.
Up until the Nixon edict, paper money, under the law, was a kind of derivative. It derived its value from the metal into which it was convertible. Today’s dollar is inconvertible. To be sure, you can exchange Federal Reserve notes for gold coins or bitcoins to your heart’s desire, but the rate of exchange is whatever the market will bear. Under a gold standard, fixedness was the great monetary virtue. Nowadays, adaptability is the beau ideal. As George Gilder observes, money has been transformed from a measuring rod into a magic wand. Anyway, the Hamiltons or Lincolns or Grants in your wallet owe their value to the government’s fiat, not to its gold.
Mr. Ledbetter’s book is a chronicle of the American people’s fascination with gold. He is mystified and bemused by it. He rolls his eyes at the gold rushes and the gold-centered orthodoxies of yesteryear. Whatever were our forebears thinking?
His well-spun narrative spans the better part of four centuries. He takes us from gold mining in North Carolina during the administration of John Adams to the Founders’ monetary protocols, which defined the dollar as a weight of gold or silver; from the California Gold Rush to the late-19th-century politics of inflation, featuring William Jennings Bryan and his unsuccessful campaign to inflate the gold dollar by substituting abundant silver; from the formation of the Federal Reserve in 1913—the dollar was still as good as gold—to the shockingly improvisational dollar policies of the New Deal. One fine day, Mr. Ledbetter relates, FDR raised the gold price by 21 cents because it seemed to the president that three times seven was a lucky number.
Next comes the patchwork gold regime of the 1950s and 1960s, the system known by the place at which it was conceived, Bretton Woods (N.H.). No more was gold the gyroscope, or flywheel, of the international monetary system, as Lewis E. Lehrman has written. Now the metal sat inert in vaults. Central banks might demand the right to convert their dollars into gold, and vice versa, but few exercised the option.
Mr. Ledbetter breaks some historical news by uncovering the existence of Operation Goldfinger, a secret government project in the time of Lyndon Johnson to extract gold from “seawater, meteorites, even plants.” By the late 1960s, America’s foreign liabilities were growing much faster than the gold available to satisfy them. For better or worse, the run on finite American gold continued, and Nixon cut the cord.
On, now, to the great inflation of the 1970s, along with the rise of the goldbugs, the cranks (Mr. Ledbetter’s interpretation) or visionaries (as others might style them) who predicted the collapse of the dollar and the rise of double-digit inflation in the Jimmy Carter years. In the mid-1970s, as Mr. Ledbetter recounts, the long fight to restore the right of American citizens to own gold—a right that FDR’s administration had extinguished in 1933—was finally won. The author concludes his story with a survey of the contemporary rear-guard movement to expose the failings of today’s monetary nostrums and reinstitute a gold dollar.
As if to clinch the case against gold—and, necessarily, the case for the modern-day status quo—Mr. Ledbetter writes: “Of forty economists teaching at America’s most prestigious universities—including many who’ve advised or worked in Republican administrations—exactly zero responded favorably to a gold-standard question asked in 2012.” Perhaps so, but “zero” or thereabouts likewise describes the number of established economists who in 2005, ’06 and ’07 anticipated the coming of the biggest financial event of their professional lives. The economists mean no harm. But if, in unison, they arrive at the conclusion that tomorrow is Monday, a prudent person would check the calendar.
Mr. Ledbetter makes a great deal of today’s gold-standard advocates, more, I think, than those lonely idealists would claim for themselves (or ourselves, as I am one of them). The price of gold peaked as long ago as 2011 (at $1,900, versus $1,250 today), while so-called crypto-currencies like bitcoin have emerged as the favorite alternative to government-issued money. It’s not so obvious that, as Mr. Ledbetter puts it, “we cannot get enough of the metal.” On the contrary, to judge by ultra-low interest rates and sky-high stock prices, we cannot—for now—get enough of our celebrity central bankers.
What was the gold standard, exactly—this thing that the professors dismiss so airily today? A self-respecting member of the community of gold-standard nations defined its money as a weight of bullion. It allowed gold to enter and leave the country freely. It exchanged bank notes to gold, and vice versa, at a fixed and inviolable rate. The people, not the authorities, decided which form of money was best.
The gold standard was a hard task master, all right. You couldn’t devalue your way out of trouble. You couldn’t run up a big domestic budget deficit. The central bank of a gold-standard country (if there was a central bank) was charged with preserving the convertibility of the currency and, in a pinch, serving as lender of last resort to needy commercial banks. Growth, employment and price stability took their own course. And if, in a financial panic or a business-cycle downturn, gold fled the country, it was the duty of the central bank to establish a rate of interest that called the metal home. In the throes of a crisis, interest rates would likely go up, not down.
The modern sensibility quakes at the rigor of such a system. Our forebears embraced it. Countries observed the gold standard because it was progressive, effective, civilized. It anchored prices over the long term (with many a bump in the short term). It promoted balance in international accounts and discipline in domestic ones. Great thinkers— Adam Smith, David Ricardo and, yes, John Maynard Keynes himself in the wake of World War I—extolled it.
The chronic problem in gold-standard days was the one that continues to bedevil us moderns: how to maintain a stable currency when lenders and borrowers run amok. President James Buchanan, Lincoln’s immediate predecessor, addressed the question in his first State of the Union address in the wake of the Panic of 1857. The story of American finance, he contended, was the story of paper credit subverting sound money: “At successive intervals the best and most enterprising men have been tempted to their ruin by excessive bank loans of mere paper credit.” A not-so-distinguished president, Buchanan made the monetary point that Mr. Ledbetter skirts: Excessive lending and borrowing subverts the stability of money. It’s the cause of panics under monetary systems both metallic and paper. Which is to say that we earthlings will never achieve financial perfection. It seems that the trouble (or, at least, one trouble) with money is credit and that the trouble with credit is people.
The gold standard, perhaps above all, was a political institution. It flourished in the age of classical liberalism. It was the financial counterpart to the philosophy of limited government. The Ph.D. standard is likewise a political institution. It is the financial counterpart to the philosophy of statism. The policy that some banks are too big to fail—that they must be treated almost as wards of the state to prevent their failure—is a hallmark of the modern age. The policy—indeed, the law—that the stockholders of a bank are themselves responsible for the solvency of the institution in which they hold a fractional interest was a hallmark of the gold-standard era.
Mr. Ledbetter is on a mission to set the historical record straight and head off an unprogressive movement away from paper money. He writes: “To avoid gold’s false paths, we need to argue with the past, to test the assumptions that are too often and too casually passed uncritically.”
I expect that before very long we will be arguing with our immediate past—demanding to know why the public debt has doubled since 2007, second-guessing our collective belief in the mazy doctrines of “quantitative easing” and “forward guidance,” and tuning in to watch congressional hearings into the causes of some future stock-market crash. Mr. Ledbetter has told some good stories. He hasn’t made his case.
—Mr. Grant is the editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer.

 

[tiznow]

Think we have finally come to the end of the long road for the latest fed fueled bubble..

tech vol heating up.. 3 days in a row of 1+% moves.. assume that hasn't happened in a very long time..

 

[eek.]

It's summer Tiz. The rich are all away on holiday until September/October

(That's why October is scary time)

 

[tiznow]

U.S. +
[h=2]How Illinois became America's most messed-up state[/h]By Matt Egan June 29, 2017: 1:57 PM ET


Politicians are notorious for making promises they can't keep. But they really outdid themselves in Illinois -- and now the state is paying for it.
Illinois is on the verge of becoming America'sfirst state with a junk credit rating. The financial mess is the inevitable result of spending more on pensions and services than the state could afford -- then covering it up with reckless budget tricks.
After decades of historic mismanagement, Illinois is now grappling with $15 billion of unpaid bills and an unthinkable quarter-trillion dollars owed to public employees when they retire.

​

The budget crisis has forced Illinois to jack up property taxes so high that people are leaving in droves. Illinois may soon have to take the unprecedented step of cutting off sales of lottery tickets because the state won't be able to pay winners.
It will get worse if lawmakers can't reach a budget compromise by Friday. This would be the third year in a row that America's fifth-largest state has failed to pass a constitutionally required budget.
"Illinois got to this financially treacherous place by ignoring the long-term consequences of short-term decision-making," said Laurence Msall, the president of Civic Federation, a budget watchdog organization.
The budget crisis has crippled social services that survive on state money, hurting everything from mental health services and Meals on Wheels for homebound seniors to domestic violence support centers.
"The most vulnerable citizens in Illinois are being hurt the most severely," Msall said.
Related: Illinois could soon become America's first 'junk' state
$251 billion pension time bomb
While the budget impasse is throwing a spotlight on Illinois's dire financial situation today, the fiscal problems go back at least to the 1980s and involve politicians from both parties.
The most glaring evidence is the enormous pension crisis. Rather than dealing with the problem, Illinois continued to reward the state's powerful unions with more generous benefits.
The problem festered for so long that Moody's estimates Illinois has unfunded pension liabilities totaling $251 billion. To put that into context, that's more than the combined market value of four major Illinois companies: Boeing (BA), Caterpillar (CAT), United Continental (UAL) and Allstate (ALL).
"The massive pension liability results from a chronic tendency to defer difficult decisions," said Ted Hampton, who as a senior credit officer at Moody's will help decide whether to downgrade Illinois into junk.
Hampton said Illinois treated the pension fund as a "financial cushion" that could be relied on to provide fiscal relief. He also pointed to a tendency to delay paying bills and chronically underestimate spending needs.
"All of these problems are governance and management weaknesses," Hampton said.
That's a polite way of saying the political leaders broke the system.
Related: Illinois lottery winners may have to wait to collect their spoils
Missed opportunity in 1995
Experts said the turning point may have been 1995. At that point, Illinois already had one of the worst-funded pension systems in the United States. State leaders took action by adopting a 50-year plan to get the pension plans 90% funded.
But that plan turned out to be badly flawed. The initial contributions were too modest, and Illinois didn't make the politically difficult choices of tax hikes or spending cuts to get the budget on a sustainable path.
"It was one of the greatest pieces of chicanery ever pulled by a political system," said Ralph Martire, executive director at the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a think tank that promotes social and economic justice.
Instead of reform, the compromise "codified the practice of underfunding the pension" and "intentionally" grew the shortfall by $45 billion, Martire said.
Illinois is also notorious for using one-time financial tricks that masked the scale of its growing fiscal problems.
"Republicans and Democrats would stand up and say they passed a balanced budget, but it wasn't -- and they knew it," said Diana Rickert, vice president of communications at the Illinois Policy Institute, a free market-oriented think tank.
Rickert said either the politicians knew what they were doing, or they "don't know how math works."
Lately, Illinois has been unable to reach a budget deal at all. Illinois has the distinction of being the first state ever to operate without a budget for more than a year, according to Msall.
"Unfortunately, the gimmicks that have worked in the recent past are not sufficient enough to make up the gaping hole that exists now," Msall said.
Problems could 'snowball' from here
Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner said on Thursday that if lawmakers fail to send a "balanced budget package" to his desk by Friday he will have "no choice but to keep them in session until they get the job done."
That threat may not be enough to prevent Illinois from becoming America's first "junk" state. Moody's and S&P Global Ratings have indicated that failure to reach a budget deal will likely trigger a downgrade of Illinois's debt below investment grade. That means a downgrade could come any day.

Getting cut to junk could make things even worse because it signals a heightened risk of default. Illinois's borrowing costs would probably go even higher, which would only make the budget problems worse.
There's always the chance of a last-minute credible deal, but few are holding out much hope.
"I don't know that Illinois is going to get its act together in days after literally decades of being irresponsible," said Rickert.
June 29
NEW YORK

 

[PatsFan1283]

It's possible they could get a fed bailout being the first state in this predicament. Probably better to be the first than the 10th I'd think. Connecticut is in pretty bad shape too. MA got some bad #'s but they just screw over the current workers now and economy still growing so crisis averted for now.

When you see austerity measures with pensions it seems like it is usually at a more local/city level because it isn't screwing over as many people. If you're gonna cut pensions in half, you need to do it slowly and state pensions not really equipped for that since the #s so large. I don't think there have been state pension cuts to retirees on a grand scale yet but could be wrong.

Dallas/Houston had big cuts for police/firefighters, teamsters in NY had some cuts few months ago, nobody mentions it if it is small ball.