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Dec. 2, 2008
Melanie Phillips: The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world
Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack
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Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?
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Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?
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Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership
Andrea Simantov:
Shades of life
Nov. 25, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence
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by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!
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Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'
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Caroline B. Glick:
Civilization walks the plank
Nov. 20, 2008
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness
The Kosher Gourmet
By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto
Nov, 19, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality
Elliot B. Gertel:
'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?
Nov, 18, 2008
Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason
Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?
Nov, 17, 2008
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason
Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?
Nov, 14, 2008
Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia
Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead
Nov, 13, 2008
Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic
The Kosher Gourmet
by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla
Nov, 12, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers
Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks
Nov, 11, 2008
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?
Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate
Nov, 10, 2008
Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?
Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist
Nov, 7, 2008
Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality
Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy
Nov, 6, 2008
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism
The Kosher Gourmet
By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes
Nov, 5, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors
Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie
Nov, 4, 2008
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law
Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East
Nov, 3, 2008
Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?
Jonathan Tobin:
Was He Wrong About Everything?
March 22, 2007
J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)
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Jewish World Review
Feb. 8, 2007
/ 20 Shevat, 5767
Chicago sheds assets in hopes of gaining residents
By
George Will
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
CHICAGO Eighteen years ago, Richard M. Daley went into the family business, which is the business of being mayor of Chicago. Back then, he hardly could have imagined that he would become an accomplished practitioner of today's new wrinkle in public finance, here and elsewhere.
He says his father, who died in 1976, would approve, but one wonders.
Richard J. Daley, who was mayor from 1955 until his death, was a builder. He thought of urban success the way many mayors then did and still do, as the improvement and enlargement of the city's physical assets bridges, roads, public housing, etc. Today, some mayors and governors are discovering the wisdom of, in effect, cashing in municipal or state assets.
That is why two years ago Chicago became the first city to sell a toll road. Actually, it has leased it for 99 years, which is much the same thing as selling it. The 7.8-mile, six-lane Skyway goes from the Indiana Toll Road (which the state of Indiana last year leased for 75 years to a Spanish-Australian group for $3.85 billion) to Chicago's Dan Ryan Expressway. Skyway was built in the 1950s to bring workers and material to and from the steelworks on the South Side. Most of the steelmaking has gone elsewhere, but Skyway was still a sufficiently attractive investment to have drawn $1.83 billion from the same consortium that leased the Indiana Toll Road.
Now, 99 years is a long time. Ninety-nine years ago the Cubs won the World Series; things change. But that is for the consortium to worry about.
Meanwhile, the city has fewer immediate worries because of the one-time infusion of $1.83 billion. The money has financed a $500 million long-term reserve and a midterm reserve that has (note the carefully crafted noncommitment) "mitigated the need to raise taxes over the next eight years." "Mitigated," indeed.
Some of the $1.83 billion has been used for city services, and some has been used to retire city debt which has caused the three major credit rating agencies to upgrade the city's rating to its highest level since 1978. This makes it cheaper for Chicago to borrow money, thereby increasing the value to the city of the lease arrangement.
The city also has leased, again for 99 years, four underground parking garages for $563 million $61,342 for each of the 9,178 parking spaces.
What probably will be next? Midway Airport, which is used by 11 airlines and almost 18 million passengers a year.
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Daley believes that Census figures are evidence of what will happen if he wins his wager on forgoing some future revenue streams in order to put money to work immediately. Chicago, like many other cities, lost population in the 1950s. And the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. But in the 1990s it gained at least 112,290 residents, a 4 percent increase. (Daley believes the Census undercounts African-Americans and Latinos, who together are a majority of Chicagoans.) By selling future revenue streams, Daley believes the city can ignite a virtuous cycle: Buying improvements "as quickly as possible" in education and infrastructure can lure people back into the city, thereby improving the city's tax base and cultural vibrancy, which enables further improvements that attract still more residents.
Unfortunately, Daley's theory that it can be better to get a sum X immediately, rather than getting over many years a sum Y that is substantially larger than X assumes something that cannot be assumed. It assumes that governments will prudently husband sudden surges of revenue from the lease or sale of assets. Still, his theory has adherents downstate, in Springfield.
The state government is hoping to lease the state lottery for at least $10 billion. The purchaser would get most of the lottery's revenues and profits for up to 75 years. Last year, the lottery made $630 million on revenues of $2 billion.
Daley stresses that the assets sold are not "core competencie" of the city government, such as public safety and education. Actually, what competencies are really "core" is debatable. Leasing privatizing some cities' school systems probably would make the systems more competent.
Perhaps the moral of Chicago's story is that what government can shed, it should shed.
This lesson was illustrated exactly 50 years ago by Murray Kempton, the finest practitioner of the columnist's craft, when he heard the great defense attorney Edward Bennett Williams deliver his successful closing argument for Jimmy Hoffa's acquittal. Kempton's conclusion: "To watch Williams and then to watch a Department of Justice lawyer contending with him is to understand the essential superiority of free enterprise to government ownership."
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