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Tuesday, June 18, 2013

UPDATE: The Madman blinks. + The in box. Pension reform. What is the moral basis for it? | Fred Klonsky

The in box. Pension reform. What is the moral basis for it? | Fred Klonsky:

Children and hedge fund profits.

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Diane Ravitch wisely chose to feature Ken Previti’s blog post on turning children into profit centers.
Ken, Illinois retiree now living in Florida, is a member of our unofficial Constitution Bloggers Association.
Once people realize that their own children are being experimented upon and used for profits, the greed grab will end. The testing craze, the corporate education reform industry, the for-profit and non-profit charter industry, the online educational programing business, etc. will dwindle and either die out or become minuscule.
The profit margins are estimated, the marketing planned, and the technologies used to lure parents 

Representative Ives’ HB3303. Again with turning our pension into a 401(k)?

Between now and July when the General Assembly again meets to go after public employee pensions, Representative Jeanne Ives will be pushing her HB3303. It is another Republican attempt to turn our defined benefit pension into a Vegas-style gamble.
Last week, Constitution Blogger Association member Glen Brown took on this foolishness.
Don’t be fooled by some Illinois politicians’ saccharine prevarications about stabilizing the public 

The Madman blinks.

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There will be no votes taken on any pension bill tomorrow.
Let’s take a second and review what happened leading up to today.
In the General Assembly session that ended the end of May, nothing happened.
Madigan ordered his House to pass SB1, a pension bomb so punitive to state employees that it would make Alcatraz look like an all-inclusive resort.
Meanwhile We Are One, the coalition of public employee unions, worked out a deal with Senate President Cullerton. It still put the total burden of the continuing pension liability on the employees. However, Cullerton 

The in box. Pension reform. What is the moral basis for it?

The authoritative Springfield observer Jim Broadway.
Prediction: Neither Madigan nor Cullerton will budge. No pension reform bill will be passed and sent to Quinn’s desk. (Did you hear he said he thinks he may have been “put on this Earth” to solve the pension crisis? Wondered what the reason could have been.)
What moral basis? To say, as I have, that Madigan’s plan (or anyone’s plan) “lacks a moral basis” needs to be explained.
A college professor long ago rephrased for me Socrates’ admonition that “an unexamined life is not worth living.” That seems a bit harsh, he said. But he held firmly to assertion that “an unexamined belief is not worth holding.” I found that persuasive.
So I examine my beliefs and therefore hold few of them. Opinions? Oh, I’m full of opinions as anyone can tell you. But opinions can change as new information arrives. Beliefs rarely change. They just get more deeply embedded. People will fight for their beliefs, will die in a clash with those 


Not even toilet paper for schools. Rahm’s bread and circuses instead.

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A hundred thousand protest in Sao Paulo, Brazil. 
I was on a field trip to the Loop when word came that Sao Paulo, not Chicago, would get the 2016 Olympics.
Thousands gathered in Daley Plaza in front of City Hall to hear the announcement.
Sao Paulo lost. They were given the Olympics.
As I looked at the pictures of thousands of protesters in a half a dozen Brazilian cities protesting government austerity, inflation and money going to build fancy arenas, I thought to myself, that might have been Chicago.