. . .
K “Who thought the bricks would crumble. The fifty brick house may not survive politically and will not endure economically.”
J “The state of the states is dismal and abysmal. When municipalities fold or water districts dry up, some interior curtain walls are dismantled and the curtains and furniture are sold. Yet they are all just political subdivisions of the state, not a state itself. Until recently, interior curtain walls were relieved whereas now the exterior load bearing walls are under stress.”
K “Pick a metric. If you input a realistic rate of return in calculating the solvency of state pension funds, most of them are not only under water, they are drowned with no chance of resuscitation or c.p.r.”
. . .
K “Puerto Rico is the canary in the coal mine, the guinea pig and the alpha testing ground. Congress concocted Title III’ as part of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) that imports many of the notions of bankruptcy law to address the island’s insolvency.”
J “Up north, the HealthCare of Ontario Pension Fund directed funds it may not have to bail out the Toronto-based Home Capital Group for investments it never should have made.”
K “That seems to be some type of capitalistic synergistic entropy.”
. . .
K “On this Law Day, we should consider drafting and crafting a ‘Chapter 17’ provision to allow a state to file bankruptcy and write the next chapter in the Bankruptcy Code and American polity. A PROMESA on steroids for the states.”
J “The legislation may attract bipartisan support because half of the seriously distressed states are ‘red’ states and half of the seriously depressed states are ‘blue’ states.”
K “Alaska, Kentucky, South Carolina and Louisiana counterbalance Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York among the states that are going. Going states need some way to go.”
. . .
K “State supreme court justices use their position and power to advance their economic interests and protect their pensions. In the court across the street, federal bankruptcy court judges will be forced to distribute a smaller sum of money in a more equitable and efficient manner to all citizens.”
J “This Republic had such great promise.”
. . .
[See the discussion of the Peoples Climate March for climate, jobs and justice in “Climate March Draws Thousands of Protesters Alarmed by Trump’s Environmental Agenda” in “The New York Times” by Nicholas Fandos dated April 29, 2017, “Climate March draws massive crowd to D.C. in sweltering heat” by Chris Mooney, Joe Heim and Brady Dennis in “The Washington Post” dated April 29, 2017 and yesterday’s Doonesbury cartoon.]
[See the e-commentary at “Pensions and Other Entitlements: Pt. 1 (April 14, 2008)”, “Pensions and Other Entitlements: Pt. 2 (April 28, 2008)”, “Outsourcing Pensions? (Sept. 7, 2009)”, “Pensions, Conflicts Of Interest And The Illinois Supreme Court (June 1, 2015)”, “May Day (May 1, 2006)” and other e-commentary under the Category on “Pensions.”]
Bumper stickers of the week:
Chapter 17 – Coming to a state near you
The United States dominates the world not because it is a “City Upon a Hill” but because it shoots, and shoots regularly, from the top on the hill.
e-commentary 