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Pennsylvania, Illinois Usher In The New Year With Record Budget Impasses
We’ve written quite a bit this year about the fiscal crises unfolding among America’s state and local governments. Illinois became something of a poster child for the problem when, in May, the state Supreme Court struck down a pension reform bid, triggering a Moody’s downgrade for Chicago.
After that, the situation in Springfield worsened materially and before you knew it, the state was paying out lottery winnings in IOUs and missing hundreds of millions in pension payments.
The Illinois high court decision effectively set a precedent. “My reaction was, ‘Yeah, that’s going to play here,’ “ John D. McGinnis, a lawmaker in Pennsylvania, told The New York Times back in May. As the Times went on to note, Pennsylvania “has been diverting money from its pension system, setting the stage for a crisis as more and more public workers retire.”
“The judiciary in Pennsylvania has been solidly of the belief that there are ‘implicit contracts,’ and you can’t deviate from them,” McGinnis said. “If lawmakers in Harrisburg were to unilaterally cut pensions now, they could be taken to court and be dealt a stinging rebuke, like their counterparts in Illinois.”
Those comments underscore the extent to which Illinois is not alone in struggling to deal with fiscal mismanagement.
Indeed, Pennsylvania just broke a record for longest budget impasse in state history. “The current impasse is dragging on as Democratic Governor Tom Wolf and the Republican-led legislature can’t agree on a spending plan for the year that began in July,” Bloomberg said earlier this week, adding that “the delay is threatening Pennsylvania’s credit rating and has investors demanding higher yields on its debt.”
For his part, Wolf blames the evil Republicans. “A historic compromise budget that included the largest increase in education funding in history, reforms in public pensions, and a reduction in the deficit was within reach,” Wolf said on Wednesday, referencing the Senate’s move to shelve a complete spending bill in favor of kind of half-measure that included less funding for schools. “It is deeply disappointing that today the Senate has caved to those same House leaders and extreme interests to continue the failed status quo and harm our schools and children by denying them these critical additional funds.”
Wolf is alluding to the fact that, in a replay of what we’ve seen in Chicago, the partisan stalemate is beginning to threaten the state’s schools. As we pointed out back in August, Pennsylvania schools started the year "minus $1 billion" in funds.
“Tensions in Harrisburg have ratcheted up as warnings from nonprofits and schools that have gone without funding hit a new level,” WSJ wrote on Wednesday. “The head of the Philadelphia public school system, the nation’s eighth largest with 134,000 students, said this month that schools could begin to cancel classes on Jan. 29 if the budget impasse isn’t resolved.”
The Senate defended their "unexpected" move to pass the bill which contains less education funding by contending that it was the quickest way to get the ball rolling. “We were being the grown-ups in the room,” Jennifer Kocher, a spokeswoman for Republican Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, said. “We wanted to get funding out for the schools and this was the fastest way to get something to the governor’s desk.”
Wolf says the Republicans just wanted to go home and sit by the Christmas tree: “It seems that the Republican legislature is intent on continuing the Harrisburg status quo and getting out of town to go on vacation."
Meanwhile, Illinois' long-running impasse is creating a particularly perilous situation for the state's notoriously underfunded pension system. "Only one other state, Illinois, has failed to pass a budget for the 2015-2016 fiscal year," WSJ continues. "There, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner is pushing for curbs to public-sector unions as a condition to raise taxes to meet a projected $5 billion budget shortfall."
Illinois pension debt totals some $111 billion of pension debt which breaks down to $8,000 per resident. Or, visually:
In October, Comptroller Leslie Geissler Munger announced that the state would "postpone" a $560 million retirement-fund payment next month, and could make the December contribution late. "The delay on the budget is definitely delaying anything being done about the pensions," Dan Solender, head of municipals at Lord Abbett & Co. in Jersey City, New Jersey, which manages $17 billion of local debt, including Illinois general-obligation bonds told The Chicago Tribune. "The longer you wait to try to catch up on funding, the worse the situation gets." Here's more:
It's been seven months since the Illinois Supreme Court rejected the state's solution. Justices threw out the 2013 restructuring that took six attempts over 16 months to pass, despite one-party rule at the time. The measure was projected to save $145 billion over 30 years by limiting cost-of-living adjustments and raising the retirement age.
Illinois enters 2016 snarled in partisan bickering as Gov. Bruce Rauner, the state's first Republican chief executive in 12 years, and the Democrat-controlled legislature can't agree on annual appropriations, much less an overhaul of a retirement system that must withstand an inevitable legal challenge. The state constitution bans reducing worker retirement benefits.
Illinois is set to pay about $7.5 billion to pensions this fiscal year, and another $7.8 billion in the year that starts July 1, according to the Civic Federation, citing preliminary estimates by the retirements systems.
Even with the record budget impasse, about one of every $5 from the state's general fund coffers is going toward pensions, according to a Civic Federation report that cites estimates from Illinois Senate Democrats published on Aug. 13. The state's four plans are only 42 percent funded based on the market value of assets, according to the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability. That compares to 60 percent a decade earlier.
The lack of a budget forced the state comptroller to delay a $560 million November payment to the state retirement system. Illinois's unpaid bills totaled $7.6 billion as of Dec. 18, according to that office. The November retirement payment will be paid in the spring when the state has more revenue from income tax collections, according to the comptroller's staff.
And so, we see what happens with gross fiscal mismanagement meets petty partisan bickering. You're reminded that all of this is complicated by the fact that public sector pension funds are allowed to use absurdly unrealistic return assumptions (i.e. discount rates) which means that the unfunded liabilities are probably orders of magnitude larger than what the official data shows.
Where Illinois and Pennsylvania go from here is an open question, but the sheer absurdity inherent in not having a budget for a fiscal year that started six months ago should be readily apparent to everyone and underscores how divisive American politics has become. Perhaps the good folks inside the Beltway need to start setting a better example because as anyone who follows politics is acutely aware, legislative gridlock is pervasive in Washington.
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Well thank the Lord the Federalies passed a budget.
if you don't get the sarc, drink some more
Well this one's easy. The states need to cc the Fed's budget. After all, the Feds always have gotten it right. Now, back to our second shift sing-a-long...
fuck em, burn it down. I hope this impasse continues in perpetuity. Anything that erodes peoples fiath in this corrupt institution is a good thing. Personally, I love seeing shit like this. The more people see things like this, the lower their approval rate goes. Anything that makes people turn away from thinking government is the answer to everything is a plus, and nothing does that as good as laying their utter incompetence to to bare for all to see.
Sadly, they still vote as they are programmed to do. "if deys a D, I vote fo thee."
FORWARD SOVIET DIEBOLDS!
Pennsylvania land of $100M high schools
$80M elementary
Pennsylvania "a leader in prisons" right from the DGS web site
Prisons, schools--what's the difference?
The students get practically the same education as inmates.
They eat practically the same quality of food.
They join gangs on the inside.
The schools are run by teachers' unions as powerful as prison guard unions.
The pensions for the teachers' unions are as lavish as those for prison guard unions.
Thus, schools eat up a huge chunk of state budgets, just like prisons.
Might as well combine the two systems and destroy one as redundant--actually, isn't that a central left-wing argument? Didn't Bernie Sanders just say that we have to spend more on education (though he meant college), or our kids will go straight into the prisons? "Choose school or prison" is the false dilemma he's proposing.
Funny thing is that the Democrats own both the teachers' unions and the prison guard unions, so they'd never actually force a choice between the two. They'd want to keep both running at full bore, chewing up taxpayer money as fast as they can go...
The prison guards backed Corbett in the PA governor's race. In the GOP efforts to reform pensions they have at every turn tried to exempt nearly 20% of the state employees that include law enforcement and the prison guards who back the GOP in a big way. It's the same crap Walker pulled to keep the law enforcement and prison guards who are state employees firmly in the GOP camp.
ya they really are no different than the dems, especially on this kind of thing. No problem cutting pensions, just not to their favored groups. Just like the left will cut pretty much anything before cutting teacher and govt employee union personnel's pensions. Its all a clownshow. IMO its all moot at this point, doesn't matter much what they do, that which can't be repaid won't be, its as simple as that. Maff is tuff tho, especially for government employees
we puerto rico'd some folks,
living la dolce vita with debt, it works until it doesn't..(so far ma yellen still has her put on debt so nothin to see here)
bond brokers got paid, jews on wall street got bonus'd, kickbacks to pols bought moma that bmw.
all for da chill'n..and those millions of teacher union members, don't forget dem.
all good, the money is for dem teachers to teach dem childrens stuff for a work force that can't use any of the kids, cause well they ain't edumacated in the right stuff..beautiful system of producing welfare cheese eaters in larger and larger numbers..edumacation for the masses.
Anita Ekberg died this year.
God she was a sexy minx.
She discovered Fellini you know.
They keep both running at full bore simply by encouraging and subsidizing the reproduction of the least fit members of our society who also have a high propensity towards crime. Then they inflate the costs of education so they've got you enslaved either way, unless of course you come from a family that can and will pay for your education. Welcome to the great race to the bottom, you'd better enjoy today cause it's all downhill from here.
Schools, prisons, drones, war on terror, war on gangs, war on homeless, war on the middle class, war on climate - whats the difference?
Answer: What neighborhood you live in. Divisive politics. Time to regroup.
The US is either going to be a Brazil light or a Mexico heavy when our economy crashes.
A lot of the states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
A lot of lifelong Dems in Chicago are waking up to the fact that 2+2 doesn't equal 5 as they are being told. Rauner is no saint but he is a helluva lot more transparent than the other side.
Teacher's unions in Chicago going to strike soon. More mayhem to follow.
Drinking is not a game anymore.
Hopefully I can outrun the inevitable tax hike in store for me by my pa. Now the question is what state do I run to? Maybe I'll buy a Winebago, and . . . .
Hey Oklahoma passed a buget and only 900 million buget shortfall for next year. We were pk till oil prices hit bottom and they blame opec lmao fools we havr a washington senator woman running our state into the shitter
The shale revolution put tons of stupid money into PA tax coffers.
Until it didn't.
Changing governors is like swapping your underwear with somebody else. No gain. Everything still stinks.
I note that Wolfie didn't comment on the tax increases he thinks he needs to fund "education", I mean pay off the union pensioners that elected him. Like all good statists, he thinks education pensions and education are the same thing.
Exactly right. Very few people realize how much of education spending is tied up in salaries and benefits for school employees. And its not just teachers, but administrators who add little or no value which sucking up the $$. And, yes, the salaries of most school employees are inflated. I have a neighbor who is a teacher and the bitch is constantly lecturing me about how hard she works. Meanwhile, she leaves after me in the morning, comes home before me at night, and gets lots of time off, including summers. Plus a pension. I'm not sure what her salary is, but she drives a BMW, so I'm thinking at least $80k/year.
Not only summers off but more and more school days off. When I was in high school we had one week off for Christmas. Now, my brother needs to find a babysitter because my nephew has 2 weeks off for Christmas, and I don't know how many times he has said there is no school due to a 'teacher's day'.
Day off or day in school, what difference does it make in the quality of the "education?"
Every school teacher I know in NJ has a second full time job - they are self-employed, performing special services and bagging good money. This is possible because many can operate their businesses from their cell phone during school hours.
Just run the pension funds to zero then borrow. Then let the judiciary geniuses figure out how to pay.
Yellen's move is clear: encourage pensions to move into equities (check), then print like mad (TBD). Pension funds become fully funded and pay pensioners in worthless FRNs.
Easy peasy.
Which reminds me of this Greenspan gem from 2005:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqUzQjXNliU
Add New Jersey to the list. Along with probably a few more states.
The judges & police are all part of the pension fleecing. So they will collude to tax you out of your home and get your money at gunpoint so they can retire at 50 with a six figure pension with health care. But it's not just the police. It's the Schools, water dept, everything in these Democratic party owned disaster areas
and the VA dietician bull shit degree 30 years "service" automatic raises.
she retires at 55... at 95% of her top pay. free healhcare her and hubby for eternity.
the annuity value of this deal over $3M that's $80k x 30 years $2.4m no risk
This is why Hillery will most likely get elected. There's literally millions of these gubmint people who will fight viciously not to lose one penny of their multi-million dollar fat benefits.
It's the dying private sector that mostly supports Trump.
I really do not think these people are smart enough to be aware how dire the situation is with their pensions. In their minds Obama fixed the economy, and the stock market is at all time highs, so everything must be A-OK. The discussion that "pensions are in big trouble" is still a few years out for the mainstream political discussions. So whoever wins the next presidential election cycle will probably be the scapegoat for these state pensions needing a federal bailout.
I agree 100%, most have no idea. Its funny too, at least at the state level, if these people agreed to, say, a small, 15% cut now, it would probably allow the can to be kicked long enough for a lot of them to die and not care what happens, but they will demand to be paid in full right up until bankruptcy, and in the end they will get nothing. And ya, if whoever wins the next election gets the usual 2 terms, it is inevitable they will be sitting in the WH when "it" happens. I feel like that person whould be bernie sanders sometimes. Its socialism that got us into this mess, might as well have a socialist sitting in office when it happens, that way everyone can point to him and say "see, I fuckin' told you people this shit doesn't work. Look- sure enough we ran out of money, and people like him who promise you endless amounts of "free" stuff with no way of actually paying for it are the reason we are in this mess".
Right after the election the Muni Bankruptcy Reform Act will be approved - the Bk's state by state will shed contracts galore to include pensions and public employment. The costs will be reduced 40% at least probably more.
Penn / NJ / Ill. / etc will be massive rush to the window - the property tax / sales tax base cannot take the pressure - retail is dead from the internet / single family requires diminishing income to pay the taxes - not sustainable.
The jackals in DC in the house and senate are unusually quiet for some time - once Peterson ignites the smoke bomb the propaganda will require only one solution
One can only hope your prognostication is correct. Otherwise, at least in PA it will be more free money (most no doubt going to Philly schools) extracted from the worn out taxpayers:
http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/issues/detail/wolfs-crushing-46-bi...
Tid-bit from Takimag:
Women, young people and visible minorities comprise 81% of the US electorate.
I found the above to be bit depressing, though it certainly helps explain the reasons behind a lot of "public policy".
"the annuity value of this deal over $3M that's $80k x 30 years $2.4m no risk " except state bankruptcy
doomed
The U.S.S. America struck the iceberg way back. We are taking on water at ever increasing rates. We know the end to this adventure. And the band played on......
The beat goes on, beat goes on
Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain
La de da de de, la de da de da
Sonny & Cher
You were screwed with Corbett. And you are screwed with Wolf. You are screwed no matter who is lying to you. This thing must collapse. MUST !!!
Pennsylvania and Illinois need a people's bank, a Public Bank. Like outlined here: http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org and here: http://www.publicbankingpa.org.
That would be a real shame. The learning that would be lost would be literally staggering. That generation of students would not would not know how to dial up the state help-line for filling out food stamp applications, or how to file for permanent disability.
Naw, there will an app for that.
don't have to know how. They have paper pushers, translators, you name it. Just show up with 6 whining kids, park em around you and the government welfare socialist will fill out the papers for you.
Sign with your X and wait for the checks.
Calling HP, Calling HP, HP we are going to need some more toner.
School spending is always a boogieman paraded out to pump up the unions and all the mommy votes.
But never discussed is the massive administrative overhead and the pension and healthcare perks layered on the unions (who in turn help finance the campaigns of their political benefactors) - bennies that the vast majority of taxpayers will never see from their years of toil in the private sector but have to pay for* with these politically coddled backscratchers. (*At least until these states go bankrupt under the unpaid load as boomer unioners retire. Out of the ashes of bankruptcy - they will still have to pay both the settlement as well as the junk bond status they will carry for years after bankrupcy.)
Oh BTW, it's for the chillin's - don't cha know.
Oh and let's not forget this half-billion++ dollar High School out in the People's Republic of Ca. under written by...deficit spending...
LOS ANGELES -- Next month's opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will be auspicious for a reason other than its both storied and infamous history as the former Ambassador Hotel, where the Democratic presidential contender was assassinated in 1968. With an eye-popping price tag of $578 million, it will mark the inauguration of the nation's most expensive public school ever.
Yeah...you get to pay for what you never agreed to in the firstplace - for the chillin's. After all, every kid needs a half billion HS to learn...what??? Marxist-socialism?
And in words of the virgin mary, "come again?"
Corbett got voted out because he cut school funding all while getting nothing done with the pensions and property tax reforms. Wolf gets voted in by saying he wanted to tax the Marcellus shale drillers and raise more funds for education and lowering property taxes that are killing people in certain parts of the state.
Wolf caved very fast into the budget on the shale tax even know he spewed this shit out nonstop so the libtards in Philly and Pittsburgh would see that he wanted to tax the man. They bought it up and he caved super fast on that. Most elected Democrats just don't get that pension reform is a must as it's not sustainable and they are killing senior citizens in many parts of the state with the never ending property taxes. The big chuck of these taxes are for schools that have multi million dollar stadiums for average sports teams.
Then you have school districts doing bad investments that cost the tax payers 4.5 million & 6.5 million. See Here & Here
Garbage in-Garbage out every election. They are fucking screwballs from the top down and the cycle will repeat, rotating from the asshole Demarcate to the asshole Republican who fuck us all over. Fuck'em all they can all be hanging from the fucking gallows for all I care.
I downvote anyone who uses the word libtard
Libtards always stop listening to my conspiracy theories when I start saying there really are waaaay too many stupid people breeding and useless eaters as the elite talk about who just use them as cannon fodder.
I was talking to one guy at a shoe store and his kid employee millenial looked like he was frantically trying to find a safe space.
Needless to say, trying to wake up the sheeple is quite possibly the most pointless thing a person can do.
Reality rape!
Why not FORCE THEM to be responsible like we forced the Greeks?
No more deficits allowed.
Downpayment of the debt by about 10% per year.
And if they don't comply, let the owners of America take over control untill everything is paid for!
THOSE LAZY PENNSYLVANIANS NEED TO LEARN!!!
And all control should be handed over to the banks, all assets from the people should be confiscated, a bank assets grab should be done.
Lazy lazy pennsylvanians, why didn't anybody take any responsability!!?!
Those people need to be learned a lesson!
Cancell all pensions, take their money!!
Surrounded to the East , by Urban New York mindset and New Jersey in general, we never stood a chance.
We all don't stand a chance in the west and we'll all face the greek missery in less then a decade from now.
People who still believe we'll get a pension in 30 years from now are plain crazy.
Sure most say they know that, but they don't realize what it means and how hard life will be once they're there.
Somehow they all still believe that they'll be the exeption and that their pension plan is different for those that are badd that extra 80 euro contribution above the normal pension savings plan payments will promise them to live in prosperity.
This week I asked a guy who is 40 years old how much he tought he'd get as a pension when he would retire.
He tought he'd get about 2000 euro's net a month....
When I told him that witht the current numbers, that number would go down to 1100 euro's a month, he looked at me and stopped believing me.
And that's 1100 euro's if the pension systems don't break down.
In 2040, there will be more retired people in Europe then young people.
Young people now, can't find the type of jobs we found at that age. And they all make a lot less money.
And his house?
That won't be enough to live off for another 30 years. And when the old people outnumber the young, those homevalues will drop like a rock.
And his house?
His house will be occupied by a family or two of Islamic refugees on welfare and his pension will be zero.
Fukin yankees
The most overpriced overtaxed conglomeration of worthless tools the world could have shat out of its slimey anus(/vagina)?
"The state constitution bans reducing worker retirement benefits."
That's like saying the state constitution bans more than 10 inches of snow per day. IDIOTS!
We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
Or perhaps America breaks up regionally into 5 or 6 new nations?
"
Or perhaps America breaks up regionally into 5 or 6 new nations?
"
Or maybe the south breaks up with the north, again?
I would personally like to drive thorough Robert E Lee's former plantation with a large israeli caterpillar spewing god damn traitors to the constitution out of their caskets hither and yon.
You have 2 options:
1. Shrink gov't to reflect economic activity.
2. Raise taxes, destroy the tax base, be forced into economic reality.
And of course they'll choose tent city for the majority that aren't public employees. Thanks fkheads.
For the second year in a row, PSERS’ investment manager fees have declined. PSERS’ investment expenses decreased by over $103 million, from $558 million in FY 2013 to $455 million in FY 2015,
It seems like the common line of thinking with education these days is that throwing more money at the "problem" will fix it. However, if many don't want to learn and/or don't see the utility in it you're just throwing good money after bad. I educate myself for free at my library and by pirating ebooks. I just like to learn, unfortunately I haven't yet learned how to make a decent living in this dystopia we call the USA.
depends on your definition of "decent living"...much of the world sees three meals a day as decent living. in the west we forget that at our peril, and the elite are busy getting ready to teach us again.
Currency Buys Unrealized Gain/(Loss) Sells Unrealized Gain/(Loss) Euro $ 251,588 $ (906) $ 2,289,025 $ 26,764 British pound sterling 152,820 912 1,307,577 (34,253) Japanese yen 111,106 425 1,396,701 (23,285) Australian dollar 109,548 (1,376) 473,944 (2,207) Canadian dollar 96,932 (1,084) 637,493 2,994 New Zealand dollar 39,460 (1,303) 81,090 4,048 Swedish krona 37,599 (197) 187,052 215 Brazilian real 32,138 245 50,330 (68) Polish zloty 20,668 (409) 11,252 129 Norwegian krone 12,187 (20) 50,613 666 Romanian leu 6,909 (6) - - Philippine dollar 6,526 (76) 83 - Swiss franc 5,535 24 483,605 3,211 Russian ruble 5,348 (273) 13,168 727 Singapore dollar 1,358 11 85,102 (549) South Korean won 44 - 5,349 (15) Hong Kong dollar 29 - 176,277 (7) Danish krone - - 95,058 1,441 Israeli shekel - - 34,999 (567) Turkish lira - - 5,517 (98) Other non-US currencies 17,155 (84) 11,368 (11) Total $ 906,950 $ (4,117) $ 7,395,603 $ (20,865)
Pau then $455,000,000 to loose money. Brilliant
We are all hobos and drifters and vagabond prophets ...
We are all living off of the detritus of some diseased paradigm ...
Accept your scum bag lot and prepare to be bored out.
REAMED!
(pay day is coming)
Net position is one way of measuring the health of the Commonwealth’s finances. An overall surplus is reported for Governmental Activities, however, the majority of the surplus is related to net investment in capital assets which are unavailable to utilize in satisfying the Commonwealth’s day-to-day expenses. Other significant items to consider relative to net position include:
the state being a corporation cannot use certain assets to satisfy the dat-to-day operations. How convenient. Just raise taxes, I guess.
I'm in PA. Our tax rate has been stuck at 3% for decades. Tax me a little more.. it's ok.
Fucking Brilliant
Hope you're speaking for yourself, asshole, because my property taxes are $9300 per year. These fuckers take a huge chunk of my yearly income. They, AND YOU, can go fuck yourselves, I ain't contributing more.
Get your checkbook out and write the check dickface. Leave the rest of us out of your stupidity.
Was reading up on pension funding last night - defined benefits vs defined contributions, multipliers defining monthly pension payments, and of course the rate of returns expected in a fund (for states, predominantly 7% to 8%) as well as the unwillingness to repair shortfalls. Didn't make me expert, but now I have an inkling of various State's problems.
The latter seemed to come down to a fear of funding shortfalls would require *extra* expense, when it is not. Simply put, it would require the will to stop "kicking the can down the road". Perhaps separating new employee plans from the old, also, due to the contract between existing pensioners and the state.
Obviously, current rates of return on Gov. Bond issues exacerbates the problem.
Parasites have overwhelmed the host. She'll go kaboom soon.
The whole country is in denial pretending debt to be wealth. The revenue stream has dried up due to the off shoring of 'dirty' manufacturing and the well paying jobs that paid the country's bills. Illegal migration compounded the problem as many were off the system not paying taxes, while jumping on the government freebie bandwagon programs and schools that employ most of the government parasites who are now upset about the likelihood of losing it all. If this isn't bad enough all the free trade treaties that eliminate tariffs on imports, lower corporate taxes paid reducing revenue streams even more.
Then add today's Security Complex, Prison Complex and the ever growing Military Complex to the mix and the recipe for disaster is complete.
The problems were temporarily solved with additional debt and good ole robbing Peter to pay Paul but those days are closing fast. It's curtains for government finances. Market(s) manipulation might slow the train but won't stop it. Only thing left for the crazed parasites is a war to hide their economic disaster. Of course at the beginning of all wars the perp always believes they will be victorious. Problem is, this war will be fought to protect the status quo and not the freedoms of the people which have already been usurped, nor invasion as the borders are already wide open, nor economics as the economy has already been killed. Leaves very little incentive for the common man to fight for. They know this and is why they're trying to make Vladimir the goto guy.
Are you ready to die so these parasites can live in luxury? That is what it is coming down to. Barring divine intervention,,, America and the dream of a free mans nation are toast.
Note: Common man,,, Free mans nation includes women,,, it's just a phrase............. live with it.
The whole country is in denial pretending debt to be wealth.
A marker of one of many clueless factions circling above the dying carcass hoping to be the benificiary of the next fiasco after the reset.
I've got more in common with a homeless person than I do with a Wall Street banker. Time to regroup.
Forty two percent of retired teachers in my elementary and high school districts are making more in pension than they were in their last four years of work. That what cannot be sustained will not be sustained.
Fuck 'em. Let all the states and commonwealths go bankrupt. Start fresh. Teachers to hookers program.
Sadly, most of the teachers who taught me would make very ugly hookers. (shudders in disgust)
TD ought to give us an equally in depth look at the Russian economy just to show how much better Russian's manage things.