July 31, 2015 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
37:13
3036 The Fall of Chicago. There Will Be No Economic Recovery.
Under a near crippling amount of debt and unfunded liabilities, Chicago lawmakers recently moved towards pension reform - but were denied by the courts who deemed the reforms to be in violation of the Illinois constitution. On May 12nd, 2015, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Chicago’s credit rating once again, which means that in less than two years Chicago’s credit rating has dropped seven notches under the rating agency. Moody’s also announced major downgrades for the Chicago Board of Education and the Chicago Park District debt - reducing the bonds to junk levels. On July, 28th, 2015, Fitch Ratings followed by downgrading the Chicago Board of Education’s credit rating and also noted a negative outlook for the CPS which means that further downgrades are likely in the future. Chicago joins Detroit in the illusive group of major cities with junk bond ratings from major institutions, which carries with it incredibly serous financial repercussions and increases the costs of borrowing. The difference between the two cities is that Chicago’s debt and unfunded liabilities are more than three times higher than Detroit’s were when the city declared bankruptcy in 2013. Chicago is unable to restructure its debt because the state does not allow municipalities to go bankrupt. To put things in perspective: Every Chicago household is currently on the hook for at least $63,800 in local-government debt. If things couldn’t possibly get any worse, the threat of another teachers strike is looming over the Chicago Public Schools with the expiration of the teachers’ union contract. Negotiations have not gone well. Welcome to Chicago. There Will Be No Economic Recovery. | Sources: http://www.fdrurl.com/end-of-chicago
Join me, my friends, won't you, as we sail down to the fine, proud, joyful city of Chicago, once the home of manufacturing, jobs, hope, dare I say, literacy and balanced budgets.
But you see, since 1927, they've gone left.
They have had Democrats rule the city for almost 90 years now.
And let's find out how the socialist Keynesian redistributive welfare taxation policy finances, what it has done to this fine city foreshadow, it's not great.
This is why this presentation is called The Fall of Chicago.
So what's happened recently?
Under a near crippling amount of debt and unfunded liabilities, money that they owe to people in the future that they don't have enough cash to pay for, Chicago lawmakers recently moved towards pension reform but were denied.
deemed the reforms to be in violation of the Illinois Constitution.
And remember, if there's one thing that Illinois is known for, it's a strict adherence to the very highest standards of legal and political ethics.
Blugovitch!
which May 2015, Moody's Investors Service downgraded Chicago's credit rating once again, which means that in less than two years, Chicago's credit rating has dropped seven notches under the rating agency.
Moody's also announced major downgrades to the Chicago Board of Education and the Chicago Park District debt, reducing the bonds to junk levels.
This means, of course, that a lot of hedge funds and big pensions funds are not allowed to buy them anymore, which means that they have to raise the interest rates that they're offering in order to sell them, which means that it's a death spiral.
July 28, 2015, Fitch ratings followed by downgrading the Chicago Board of Education's credit rating and also noted a negative outlook for the CPS, which means that further downgrades are likely in the future.
So at least someone is giving the Chicago Board of Education a failing grade.
Chicago joins Detroit in the group of major cities with junk bond ratings from major institutions, which carries with it incredibly serious financial repercussions.
And increases the costs of borrowing.
So here are the credit ratings desperately trying to pump the brakes as Chicago and Detroit accelerate off a cliff edge carrying a large population with them.
The difference between the two cities is that Chicago's debt and unfunded liabilities are more than...
Oh, are you ready, my friends?
Hold on to your hats.
Chicago's debt and unfunded liabilities are more than three times higher than Detroit's were when the city declared bankruptcy in 2013.
So, if you're in Chicago, run!
Burrow!
Tunnel!
Take a hang glider!
Grab some helium balloons!
Get out!
Chicago is unable to restructure its debt because the state does not allow municipalities to go bankrupt.
Because banning something is a great way of making sure it can never happen.
See?
Raw on drugs, it's clear.
To put things in perspective, every Chicago household is currently on the hook for at least $63,800 in local government debt.
Local government debt!
Not state, not national.
That's just the local government debt.
I don't think they're making quite that much every single year.
And just as if things couldn't possibly get any worse, the threat of another teacher strike is looming over the Chicago public schools with the expiration of the teachers' union contract.
Negotiations, if you can call them that, have not gone well.
On the plus side, given that half of Chicagoans are illiterate, having the teachers go on strike may actually improve educational outcomes in the fine city.
Welcome to Chicago.
There will be no economic recovery from this catastrophe.
Alright, let's look at the expenditures in billions of dollars.
And this is a time when population has significantly fallen.
The neutron bomb, you know, the bomb that kills people but leaves building standards known as left-wing policies, have gone off for almost 90 years in the city.
So the annual expenditures...
All of these will be inflation-adjusted, and of course all the sources, as usual, are below.
$85.4.3 billion.
2015, with a lower population $7.3 billion, of which about $8 to spend on policing, as we'll get to in a moment.
Annual revenues versus expenditures.
This is also known as MC Hammer's Quicken printout.
You can see at the top here, these are expenditures, and you can see on the bottom it's revenue.
You can see in the mid to late 80s, we had a massive spike in expenditures because a socialist mayor, also somebody that Barack Obama admires enormously, the first black mayor got in.
And, of course, went crazy spending, as socialists are wont to do, and this, of course, created a massive set of unfunded liabilities and debts and deficits, because the expenditures are often paid for by deferred spending, known as taxation without representation, known as bonds, known as guarantees of future tax increases to those who did not receive the benefits of the spending.
So that's not a good gap, and, of course, it's widening considerably.
What's the annual budget shortfall in billions of dollars?
Now, we could only go back to the early 1980s.
Before that, I didn't keep records, or the records aren't available, so we'll see.
So the best year was 1984, where there was only a $1.6 billion budget shortfall.
I wonder if you can see when The Socialist came in.
Ah!
It's the ascent to the Elysium of Death known as socialist fantasy spending.
And the worst year, 2015, a $3.8 billion budget shortfall.
Percent of annual budget funded.
So this is your spending versus your funding.
1982, 1983, 62%.
Down to 47.1% now.
So that's not good either.
Now, this is truly astounding.
Number of local governments, top five states.
So Illinois has more layers of local government than any other state in the country.
61% of the state's residents live under three layers of general purpose local government, municipal, township, or county governments.
In 40 other states, residents never have more than two layers.
This doesn't even include special districts, such as libraries, parks, forest preserve, because, you know, so much forestry in Chicago.
Oh, wait, sorry.
That's marijuana gross.
Fire protection, sanitation, transportation, even mosquito abatement districts.
In fact, some areas of Illinois, citizens have up to 16 different local government agencies operating in their area.
Yo, dog!
I heard you like some government, so I got you some government to your government, yo!
I don't say yo like I'm out of Compton.
I say yo like I like yo-yos!
So, when we look at the employment numbers, just remember that Chicago has, like, more layers of government than there are sedimentary layers between your feet and the Paleozoic era.
So, a lot for those of you who didn't geek out on dinosaurs when they were kids like me.
Top five most popular states.
So, local governments per 100,000 residents.
California, also known as the left wing of the left side of the United States.
Only 11.88 local governments per 100,000 residents.
Texas.
Remember, they're so libertarian, they've only got twice Californias almost.
Florida, 8.78.
Illinois, 54.27 local governments per 100,000 residents.
So, it's like the Gulak Apicalago in an infinite layer cheesecake from hell.
So, no trees left in Illinois, sadly, because they decided to print the government phone book.
Boom!
It's the kind of quality comedy you're going to get from this show.
How are the property taxes going?
Because nothing says friendliness like massive property taxes.
U.S. 1.14% of the home value.
New Jersey a little bit higher, 2.01.
Illinois 1.93.
So that's the equivalent of on a $300,000 home, $5,790 per year.
So remember, you own your home unless you don't pay the government off, in which case they can kick you out because you don't own your home.
Sales tax.
And top 50 most populated cities from San Jose.
California and San Francisco tie at 8.75%.
Chicago, starting next year, 10.25%.
Over and above everything else that you pay, you get that joyful tax as well right now.
It's 9.25%.
They're going to raise it a percentage point next year.
All their fiscal problems will be solved because you never want to cut government spending when you can nickel and dime your population into turning into economic zombies of endless blood drinking from the last remaining taxpayer in Chicago.
Taxes.
In June, the Chicago Finance Department clarified the amusement tax, and nothing says your taxes are going down like a clarification.
The amusement tax on the personal property lease transaction tax, expanding the reach of those who need to pay an additional 9% tax for the privilege of doing business for Chicago residents.
to concerts and sporting events, but now it, quote, applies to charges paid for the privilege to witness, view, or participate in amusement, both in person and electronically.
Hmm.
So any paid subscription or rental that involves streaming data, such as movies, music, or video games to Chicago residents, will require this additional 9% tax.
And the international companies who distribute these services will be responsible for the tax collection.
So if you're amused by something on the internet, you're going to have to pay tax on it.
Don't be enjoyed!
Don't be enjoying this presentation!
Don't be amused!
No smiling!
Webcams are watching you.
If you smile, you pay.
The personal property lease transaction tax applies to professional services like electronic property databases used by real estate agents.
Apparently, everyone in Chicago is frantically typing in sell, sell, sell into those databases.
Court case databases, lawyers count on financial information networks and much more.
Under the definition of the law, anything which isn't passive, such as the user doing a search or making a request is subject to taxation, So if you're watching a stock ticker, you're okay if you type in a request for a particular stock price.
Aha!
We're going to tax you.
Quote, a lot of these online companies, their whole business model seems to be to get around the tax code.
And to me, that's no business model at all, a government official said.
Reducing costs.
That's not a business model at all.
It's nothing better than taking business advice on balancing your budget from somebody in Chicago.
Hey, I crashed the Titanic.
Want me to drive your boat?
Quote, this is a step towards trying to correct that situation and towards making sure the existing code reflects the realities of the marketplace.
Because they know so much about the marketplace in the Detroit government.
The city expects the clarifications to bring in an additional $12 million every single year.
Now, if you went to public school in Chicago, $12 million will barely make a dent in the superhero Superman costume death set that is known as Chicago Finances.
The Mercator Center of George Mason University released a study ranking 50 states based on whether or not government policies promote fiscal and personal freedoms.
Illinois ranks 45th on the list.
When looking at regulatory policy regarding occupational licensing, property rights protection, labor market freedom, and other related areas, also known as the massive job killers, Illinois ranked 42nd.
Out of 50.
Another category listed general personal freedoms, including tobacco and alcohol regulations, gun control, education policy and civil liberties.
Illinois ranked dead last.
Keep voting Democrat, America!
Illinois could be everywhere!
The study also cites strict gun control laws, very high arrest rates for victimless crimes, and its worst in the nation asset forfeiture laws as reasons for the last place finish of Illinois.
They are the best at being the absolute worst.
Chicago pensions.
So you can't have 9,000 layers of government without incurring some pension liability.
See, the way it works is politicians in power love to give pensions away because pensions arrive long after those politicians are out of power.
So it's free stuff paid for by other people.
And that bill is coming due.
So, the percent funded.
Fireman's Annuity and Benefit Fund, 23%.
Chicago Police Pension Fund, 26% funded.
But it's okay, because why do you need firemen and police?
Municipal employees, 41% funded.
Labor as Pension and Welfare Fund, 64%.
Public schools, 52%.
Transit authority, 61%.
Park district, 46%.
As you can see, they've got their priorities straight.
Because, you know, when you're about to run out of money, and huge amounts of the population are illiterate on welfare, why on earth would you need police and firemen?
It's not like it's going to be riots and fires or anything.
Put Mosby in charge again.
All right.
Chicago Pensions, unfunded liabilities in billions.
So they're expecting to make $3.5 billion in 2015.
And the unfunded liabilities for the Fireman's Annuity and Benefits Fund alone, $3.4 billion.
Police Pension Fund, $8.4 billion.
Employees Annuity and Benefit Fund, $7.3 billion.
Public schools, 9.5.
Other, 5.4.
We can just scroll over and there's just an infinity death spiral with the ghost of Bastia choking the life out of the last remaining socialist fantasy.
So you look at these unfunded liabilities and they're like, it's okay because they're going to make $12 million from the amusement tax.
It's a lot smaller.
So it's just a giant sinkhole of incoming reality.
Chicago, total debt and obligations.
Again, revenue 2015, $3.5 billion.
City of Chicago owes $33.1 billion.
That's higher.
Chicago's sister governments, hey, where are the brothers at?
$23.8 billion.
Cook County obligations, $8.7 billion.
It's Greece on the Hudson, what can I tell you?
Total unfunded pension liabilities.
So you remember $3.5 billion coming in?
They still have a few things to spend in the here and now.
2009, $62.4 billion.
And I'm just not going to read off all these numbers.
If you're just listening, go look at the graphs.
It's the stairway to hell.
2014, $111.1 billion.
It's binary and you're toast.
And there's a $48 billion increase in the pension shortfall just since 2009.
Illinois only has $0.39 on every dollar it should have in the bank today to pay for future benefits.
To make matters worse, Chicago depends on significant state funding, which, according to all numbers that we've looked at, cannot realistically continue.
And like in CalPERS, like in the California Pension Fund, my guess is that Chicago has overestimated how much they're going to get back in investment dollars on their investments, and therefore they've been rating that fund significantly.
Let's get to education.
It has a question mark, not just because I'm a valid girl at heart, but because you'll see.
U.S. spends $10,700 per student per year.
Illinois, $12,288.
Chicago, $14,091 spending per student.
And let's see what that looks like.
So Chicago schools cost 32% more per student than the U.S. average.
Are they getting a high-quality education?
No.
No!
If you think so, you don't know the difference between public and private.
In the public sector, when you spend more, things get worse.
For the public sector, money is a drug.
And it's like giving more drug to a drug addict.
Their lives get worse.
How are they doing?
Mathematics, only 28% of 4th grade students and 20% of 8th grade students are proficient in mathematics.
Science, only 2% of 4th grade students and 7% of 8th grade students are proficient.
But because they're so bad at math, they think that 2% proficiency in science is coming in second.
Writing, only 12% of 4th grade students and 23% of 8th grade students are proficient.
Reading, only 20% of 4th grade students and 21% of 8th grade students are proficient.
So, I wonder what it would be like if we gave them 8th grade tests or 4th grade tests from, say, 40 years ago or 80 years ago or 100 years ago.
I wonder what that proficiency level would be like.
According to the White House, almost half of Chicago residents cannot read.
47% compared to an 86% literacy rate worldwide.
It's absolutely shocking and appalling what is going on there.
But they can vote.
Can't read.
They can vote.
In 2013, Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, blamed the city's poor educational performance on rich white people.
Wait a minute.
Underperforming minorities blaming their problems on white people.
First time for everything, isn't there?
She said, quote, When will we address the fact that rich white people think they know what's in the best interest of children of African American and Latinos, no matter what the parents' income or education level?
So, the problem you see is that rich white people have opinions somewhere else, even if these opinions are true, which they're not.
But even if we accept that what she's saying is true, the whole problem with Chicago is that rich white people have opinions somewhere else, despite the fact that blacks have significant control over the government and the educational system and the entire political system.
The problem is the opinions of distant white people, because voodoo, pale albino, magic, evil...
Every Chicago public school teacher is required to join the Chicago Teachers' Union.
Can't hold kids hostage if you don't have a government, educational union.
In 2012, the Teachers' Union went on strike.
The resulting compromise was the lengthening of what was then the shortest school day in the nation, from less than six hours to seven and a half hours, and an average pay raise of 17.6% over four years, which was less than the 30% sought by the union.
It's worth noting that at the time of the strike, the median salary for Chicago teachers was $76,450 a year, plus insane benefits compared to the $53,976 made by the average private sector employee.
The requested 30% raise would have brought the median salary to around $100,000 for a profession that only works 170 days out of the year and helps children become 2% proficient in science.
An income of over $70,000 puts you in the top 25% of earners.
So, with benefits, Chicago teachers are actually making some really good money.
At the time, the high school graduation rate was barely half, 55%, and only 6 out of every 100 kids were predicted to go on to earn a bachelor's degree by the time they were 26 years old.
So, let's give those people a raise!
The three-year contract negotiated in 2012 recently expired, and the negotiations between the Union and the Chicago Board of Education are, unsurprisingly, at a standstill.
CTU President Karen Lewis, she's back!
She said, Chicago Public Schools refuses to budge on our contract proposals that will have no cost impact on the district.
Initially, we thought that we might be close to a deal, but today we have found out that their bargaining rhetoric is as empty as their bank accounts.
What are you, like the ex-wife of the Chicago Public Schools negotiation head?
He's a limp dick.
Anyway, I mean, so basically they're pointing out that they have no money, which means that their previous pay rates have virtually bankrupted or contributed to bankrupting their budget, but they want more.
Unemployment rate.
Chicago versus the United States.
Chicago raised its minimum wage from $8.25 to $10 an hour as of July 1, 2015.
Additional plans to increase it to $13 per hour by 2019.
Because you see, according to leftist logic, there's no amount of economic reality that can't be swept aside with enough violently enforced regulations, right?
I mean, if you kidnap a woman, lock her in your basement, and regularly feed her a diet of chickpeas and beano, she's going to love you because she's nearby, right?
Right?
Coercion leading to virtue is the fundamental premise of the left, and it is just horrendous.
Now, the unemployment rate looks surprisingly low for a place with 5,000 layers of government and a 50% illiteracy rate.
But remember, of course, a lot of people hired by the government props up the unemployment rate or reduces the unemployment rate artificially.
Plus, of course, for 50% illiteracy, I assume those people aren't looking for jobs since they can't fill out job applications.
So they're taken off the list as well.
The actual numbers are much worse.
Let's look at the labor force participation rate and the unemployment rate.
Now, we broke this out by race because apparently the numbers are hugely racist, and we wanted to expose the ghastly racism of these numbers.
Labor force participation rate among Asians, 71%, whites 68%, Hispanics 62%, and blacks 53%.
The unemployment rate, Asians 5%, whites 8%, Hispanics 13%, and blacks 20%.
We've seen the sequence long before.
There are reasons for it.
You can look, of course, this stuff up on the internet.
But we can't mix it all in because the numbers are so disparate by a particular racial group.
Segregation.
You know, the desegregation goal is just crazy, right?
The vast majority of churches are vast majority segregated by race.
Lunch counter tests at schools, prison areas which aren't forced integrated generally segregate themselves.
So almost 75% of black Chicagoans live in a community that's at least 90% black.
The race is often like oil and water.
You know, this integration belief just doesn't seem to work out and no amount of leftist nagging About egalitarianism seems to change the basic tribal nature of the human species, but that's important to understand.
So this is from Census Data.
Michael Dawson, a leading scholar on politics and race, said, quote, The way people get hired is through networks, and most people's social networks are predominantly within their own race, he said.
You get neighborhoods where not only do you not have a job, you don't know many other people who have one and can help you get one, said Valerie Wilson, an economist.
Wilson emphasized that employment gaps and wage disparities in Midwestern cities have been exacerbated by hundreds of thousands of lost manufacturing jobs that went overseas or elsewhere.
So massive taxes, massive regulations, functionally illiterate population, people who get paid enormously through welfare and other benefits do not work.
Of course, manufacturing jobs have gone overseas.
Manufacturing jobs were such a big part of the economy, and when those jobs left, there were a limited number of opportunities for people who may have had a high school diploma or less.
Illinois employees in thousands.
So manufacturing from 1990 has gone down from 900K to under 600K, while, of course, the government has remained relatively steady.
Illinois manufacturers such as Caterpillar Inc. have been moving facilities out of the state and opening new facilities elsewhere for years, citing Illinois' business policies and fiscal problems as the cause.
Yeah, I mean, if you look at what's happening with Greece, where businesses are collapsing and doctors are fleeing the country, you can see the writing on the wall.
You don't become a business executive by only looking at the next eight minutes.
For that, you need to be an Illinois politician.
Am I still in power?
Am I still in power?
Great!
No problems!
Chicago population, as we pointed out, it peaked in the 1940s and 1950s, 1960s, and then began to decline significantly.
Chicago's lost nearly 200,000 people since 2000.
They've even checked under the couch, meaning there are fewer taxpayers left to pay up the city's growing burdens.
And...
Based on the 2010 census, Chicago is 45% white and 31.7% non-Hispanic white, 32.9% black, 5.5% Asian, 2.7% from two or more races, 0.5% American Indian, and 13.4% are from another race.
As a whole, Illinois is 71.5% white and 14.5% black.
So a lot of blacks in Chicago.
So, here are the demographics from 1900 to 1990.
In 1900, it was 98% white.
And in 1910, because everybody was playing a very extended game of freeze tag, 1920 starts to dip.
1930, 7%.
1940, 8%.
So in the 1930s, there was, under the Democrats' policies, endless policies designed to supposedly solve the problems of the Great Depression, which has made everything worse, they set aside a bunch of public housing projects in Chicago.
This started blacks moving in.
As blacks move in in general, the whites start to move out.
And you can see this really happening further down.
And...
This, of course, are not mixed neighborhoods.
The neighborhoods begin to isolate within racial demographics in general and as a whole.
So, Chicago white flight.
Sorry, this is going to be a graphic one.
So, this is 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950.
As you can see, whites are beginning to leave particular neighborhoods.
1960.
Yellows are the blacks.
1970.
1980, you see Whitesurf almost left the city as a whole.
1990 and 2000.
And this would have continued if we'd had more data.
So, Chicago versus the U.S. In Chicago, it's 45% white, 72% in the U.S. as a whole, and falling fast.
White non-Hispanic, 32% in Chicago, 64% in the United States as a whole.
Blacks are 33% in Chicago, 13% in the U.S. as a whole, 29% Hispanic or Latino.
16% in the U.S. as a whole.
6% in Chicago.
Asians, 5% U.S. as a whole.
How is this affecting crime or the poverty as a whole or mismanagement as a whole or demographics as a whole?
U.S. 1.09 per 1,000 robbery.
Chicago, 4.36.
Burglary is just a little higher, 6.1.
U.S., 6.55%.
In Chicago, theft, 18.99 in the U.S. as a whole.
Chicago, 24.5.
Motor vehicle theft in the Motor City.
Detroit is bad as well.
Chicago, 2.21% per 1,000 U.S. as a whole.
4.65 in Chicago.
So Chicago is safer than 11% of the cities in the United States.
What is the murder rate per 100,000?
Well, coming in first is Detroit.
And then Chicago comes in.
There has been a decline, of course, since the 90s.
There's been an uptick very recently.
And there's a lot of wide variety of reasons for this.
Some people say abortion, of course, results in fewer criminals down the road.
Video games have been associated with reductions in tendencies towards violence.
There has been increasing lockups in various areas of America.
Which keeps Trump criminals off the streets, but as you can see, the U.S. as a whole, far lower than Chicago in particular.
Robbery rates per 100,000 U.S., of course, declining since the 90s, and Chicago spiked in the early 90s and then has been declining ever since.
Detroit, you win again!
Property crime rates for 100,000, 85 to 2012.
Detroit again on the top.
Chicago below it and the U.S. below that.
New York City, after a lot of lock-up policies under Republican mayors, went down.
That's shortly, I'm sure, to go back up.
With increasingly stressed budgets, police manpower has declined in Chicago over the years.
Yet surprisingly, Chicago has seen an impressive drop in overall crime.
Something's too good to be true, and therefore it is.
So let's look at the actual stop.
Drop in Chicago crime statistics.
Some of the drop is a reflection of reduced manpower.
It's reported often it takes hours for an officer to respond to a 9-11 call and identify the bodies of the people who called.
quote, it sucks, but it's true, noted a patrol officer.
There may be only one car freed up for the entire district that can answer jobs.
If nobody shows up to take a report on paper, the crime didn't happen.
If a tree falls on a pregnant woman in a forest and she dies and nobody's there to hear it, did it actually happen?
woman in a forest and she dies and nobody's there to hear it did it actually happen if that isn't disturbing enough recent investigative journalism by chicago magazine's david bernstein and noah isaacson has rocked the foundation of chicago law enforcement they meticulously detailed and illustrated the chicago pd's reclassification of crimes and manipulation of on paper numbers to give the illusion of a massive crime decrease which isn't grounded in reality throwing carpets over the blood i see contents concerned about the number of murderers no problem
If that isn't disturbing enough, recent investigative journalism by Chicago Magazine's David Bernstein and Noah Isaacson has rocked the foundation of Chicago law enforcement.
we just reclassify murders as a general death investigation while the decrease in numbers looks good for the politicians it can have severe and dangerous real-life consequences classic Classifications impact whether victims or their families receive compensation for crimes that have been committed and also impact sentencing and court decisions.
Also, of course, if you don't arrest people, they'll often commit more crimes.
So here's an example.
The decomposing body of Michelle Manalanson, a 29-year-old student, was found stuffed inside an air mattress in the apartment of Faramars Bakshi.
The two had been dating for several years, and when the body was discovered, the suspect had already been gone for several weeks.
Despite the incredibly suspicious circumstances, the police classified the deaths as a non-criminal death in death investigation because it's real easy to stuff yourself inside of an air mattress, right?
I mean, we've all tried it.
You'd think an arrest warrant would be issued for Bakshi, but that didn't happen.
Instead, an investigative alert...
Was issued, which gave officers probable cause to stop and question the suspect, if found.
You know, if you trip over him or he wanders into your donut shop or whatever.
You'd think finding a likely murderer who killed and stuffed his girlfriend into an air mattress would be a higher priority.
That's not how Chicago works, you know?
Weeks later, Bakshi was arrested for a drug-related felony in Southern California and came up as a wanted person in Illinois, because nothing says criminal mastermind like stuffing your dead girlfriend into an air mattress and then going getting arrested for a drug-related felony.
Upon arraignment, Bakshi voluntarily signed a waiver of extradition to be transferred to Chicago, but the Cook County State's Attorney's Office declined the extradition order.
Man!
That's like work.
I'm a cop.
I mean, I can type with two fingers slowly and painfully.
Why would I want that?
The other question is, why did this guy, why was he so desperate to go and be tried in Chicago?
Does he know something about the Chicago justice system?
I think he does.
Quote, when we initially reviewed this case for extradition, we did not have any notice that Bakshi was the person of interest or a suspect in a missing persons investigation as opposed to him being the actual person who was missing.
Excellent paperwork, everyone.
Good job.
Chicago PD didn't even send any detectives to question him, even though California's nice weather compared to Chicago.
Had the case been classified as a murder rather than a death investigation, surely that would have been different.
It took over a year and some...
Ankle-poking high-profile journalism for the case to be reclassified as a murder.
In the meantime, the suspect was arrested three, count them three different times, for charges ranging from grand theft to home burglary.
The suspect has since been charged with Mandel Lansen's murder.
This is one of many examples, and it's clear the political class are putting lives in jeopardy for the sake of their public perception.
Lower the crime rate!
It's called the racers.
It's how Atlanta gets such great students.
Chicago resident Michael Smith said in 2013, You can say our statistics are down, said resident Sarah Gotsman, but that doesn't mean the crime didn't happen.
So...
Four of Illinois' last seven governors, or 57%, have been convicted and imprisoned on charges ranging from corruption, racketeering, bank fraud, and bribery.
Chicago lawmakers are likely to push for amendments to the Illinois Constitution, which would allow them to reform their pension system and even possibly declare bankruptcy in the future.
In the meantime, of course, instead of cutting spending, they will continue to increase taxes, nickel and dime in Chicago residents to financial destruction, driving away businesses and any and all citizens who have even a remote semblance of career options elsewhere.
The institutionalized union, specifically the teachers union, will aim to remove additional pounds of flesh from the body politic through contract negotiations.
But Chicago is a skeleton.
You can't get blood from a skeleton.
Chicago unions are notoriously corrupt, notoriously powerful, notoriously destructive, and vampires, really, on the future.
The overall cost of borrowing will greatly increase because municipal bond credit downgrades will raise the price of borrowing money.
And since the city has run a massive budget deficit every single year since at least 1980, the snowball will only gain momentum as it rolls downhill.
More borrowing to keep the lights on, more debt, lower credit rating, greater borrowing costs.
Eventually, one of Chicago's municipalities will miss a bond payment and the whole house of cards is going to tumble to the ground.
You push off reality, the longer you push off reality, the worse reality hits you.
Reality is like this big, giant, elastic wind-up toy.
You push it further away, backlash is even worse.
This is a huge ripple effect that's going to run through the American economy when one of America's largest cities defaults on its debt.
And it's going to have a huge impact on the municipal bond market.
So what's the solution?
Well, the solution is love.
Love, baby love.
The solution is love.
Look, there are a lot of idiots in Chicago who are voting for stupid stuff, who are denying basic reality.
The fact that they're illiterate is really, really tragic.
But you can teach yourself how to read.
A lot of these people have time on their hands, and there are public libraries that are free and have a book in them.
And so...
They could teach themselves.
So a lot of people who voted, well, they're responsible for the disasters that they have brought upon themselves.
What is really tragic, of course, is the degree to which this financial impending Chicago implosion of financial catastrophe is going to affect kids.
The kids are not responsible.
They're stuck in these terrible schools.
People aren't fighting the unions.
They don't love their kids enough to fight the unions.
Chicago unions have made it virtually impossible to fire the worst conceivable teachers.
The fact that parents have no control over the educational system that is literally disassembling the minds of their children is truly tragic.
But you need to love your kids enough to fight the hard fights to make the world a better place for them.
If you love your kids enough, you will protest debt.
Can you imagine?
Massive amounts of people in Chicago 30 years ago thronging the streets, chanting signs, No more debt!
No more debt!
We love our kids.
This would have averted this kind of problem.
Can you imagine them voting out politicians who promised them something for nothing?
Anybody who promising you something for nothing is simply warming up the stove to offer you a nice meal of children's kidneys fritters.
Because it's the children who are going to have to pay for your greed.
It's your kids.
Do you love your kids enough to push back against the national debt?
Do you love your kids enough to push back against the crappy teachers unions?
Do you love your kids enough to fight for school vouchers and other ways of improving the school system?
Do you love your kids enough to make sure that they're not exposed to the toxic brain rot of bad teaching?
In Chicago, no.
No, they don't.
And when our love of children overcomes our love of power, when our love of children overcomes our greed for trinkets, When our love of the world that our children will need to live in will help us build the foundations of that world in the present, when we resist being bribed for the sake of our children's futures, then we will see an economic recovery.
