“METRA…THE WAY TO REALLY (MAKE PEOPLE WANT TO) FLY”

7/18/13

That Metra, the commuter rail system that serves the greater Chicagoland area, is turning out to be a snake pit of corruption should surprise no one who is not as naïve as its former chairman, Alex Clifford.  (See my 7/16/13 post, WE ARE SHOCKED…SHOCKED!...TO LEARN OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE AT METRA and the posts to which it will refer you.)  However, Mr. Clifford’s testimony before the board of the Regional Transportation Authority (“RTA”), which, er, “oversees” Metra, continues to rivet those of us who follow, and pay for, the shenanigans of Metra and its kindred entities.  What is drawing the most attention, and perhaps deservedly so, is Mr. Clifford’s contention that Illinois House Speaker, Democratic Chairman, and former first dad-in-waiting Mike Madigan displayed “an ethical and moral character flaw” in trying to indirectly muscle Mr. Clifford into increasing the pay of one of Mr. Madigan’s minions and hiring another hanger-on. 

A minor point of digression here; is it my imagination, or does Mr. Madigan bear more than a passing resemblance to the current, aging Clint Eastwood?

The “ethical and moral flaw” comment provides plenty of grist for another mill on the moral outlook of people operating in a world of evolving ethics who continue to do what they were brought up to believe was morally acceptable.   Further, those of us who have followed Chicago politics for a long time are, or ought to be, dumbstruck by the thought that what not that long ago would have been considered Mr. Madigan’s going to bat for a loyal political soldier has generated such handwringing, if not outright vitriol.   Not even Mr. Clifford is contending that Mr. Madigan did anything illegal, even by today’s standards.  Yet people are calling for Mr. Madigan’s head in l’affaire Metra.   Good luck with that one.   I’m not defending Mr. Madigan here; times have indeed changed.  But Richard J. Daley must be rolling over in his grave, or expressing shock to the legions of precinct captains in the sky.  I can almost hear the old man now…

“What kind of world do we live in when a nice neighborhood guy like young Mikey Madigan can’t help out a neighbor and a friend  who’s trying to feed his family?  Saints preserve us!”

A further point on this particular digression…

The real scandal within the scandal surrounding Mr. Madigan’s efforts to get his minion Pat Ward a pay increase is the near brobdingnagian amounts of spondulicks Mr. Ward provided to campaign funds controlled by Mike Madigan and/or supporting Lisa Madigan’s erstwhile bids for higher office.   Reportedly, Mr. Ward has donated north of $15,000 to such causes.   That might not sound like a lot of money in the world of modern political pay to play, but Mr. Ward’s salary at Metra was only $57,000.  Even spread out over several years, $15,000 is a lot of dough for a guy making that kind of money to be giving away.  One doesn’t have to be overly cynical to look at this arrangement as a too thinly veiled kickback scheme.   While I haven’t read or heard anyone else bringing this up, perhaps people jaded by years of considering such things just assumed such a scheme was in place and, indeed, is usually in place with public employment in and around the city of Chicago.

Digressions aside, one of the items that jumped out at me as I read of this sad yet tantalizing affair is the $200,000 contract Metra, under then CEO Phil Pagano, awarded to the Target Group.  Target is owned by Joe Williams, who is a partner of Metra Board member Larry Huggins in a separate real estate development company. The Target Group received the $200,000, according to the Chicago Tribune, to “recruit minority bidders for the Englewood flyover” (emphasis mine), a $93 million railroad bridge on the south side.  According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the Target contract was to “certify African-American contractors to work” (emphasis mine) on the flyover.

I certainly hope that the Sun-Times is right and that Target was hired to certify, rather than recruit, minority contractors.   Why in the world would you have to recruit minority bidders on contracts set aside for minorities?  It would seem that if Metra is setting aside contract money specifically for minority contractors, and one were an ambitious minority contractor who was always on the outlook for more business, one wouldn’t have to be recruited to take the government’s money.   If contractors had to actually be recruited, persuaded, or cajoled into taking the work, perhaps those contractors are not the people who should be doing the work.  Wouldn’t the taxpayers be better served by contractors, minority or otherwise, who would actually make the effort to seek the work than by contractors who had to be talked into it?   Not that long ago, such logic would be considered common sense…but our country has gone crazy over the last 20 or 30 or so years.

Certifying, rather than recruiting, minority contracts makes sense, especially in Chicago in which politically connected white guys have for years set up phony minority front companies in order to win contracts set aside for blacks, women, Hispanics, etc.   Certification, therefore, is important, though one wonders why it can’t be done for less than $200 grand.  In this case, the work must have been particularly onerous, because the project ran $70 grand over budget and, according to Mr. Clifford, he was harassed by Mr. Huggins with calls asking why the checks were late.

The “certification” vs. “recruitment” debate is, in all likelihood, moot because the $200,000, rather than being for either minority certification or recruitment, was probably just another instance in which politically connected people were paid taxpayer money to do little if anything.  So it goes in these parts.   The same could be said for the $50,000 that Metra was supposed to pay to the National Black Chamber of Commerce to “monitor” a memorandum of understanding regarding black subcontracting on the Flyover, money that Mr. Clifford ultimately nixed by demanding approval by entire board.  Not even the lackey laden but shame bereft Metra Board would go along with such a scam.

All these shenanigans at Metra are very entertaining, but the entertainment our pols provide has long passed the point at which it got too expensive.   People are fed up.  Talk among people who have spent their whole lives here now often turns to places to which we would move.   That’s too bad; other than the machinations of our pols, Chicago and its environs is a terrific place in which to live.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

PAT QUINN VS. BILL DALEY: “THIS GUY DOESN’T THINK THIS IS A SHOW; HE THINKS IT’S A FIGHT!”

7/16/13

Now that Attorney General Lisa Madigan has opted out of the Illinois governor’s race (See today’s other post, LISA MADIGAN WON’TRUN FOR GOVERNOR:  WOULD YOU WANT THE JOB?), we are left, for now, with a one-on-one Democratic primary race featuring Governor Pat Quinn (no relation) and ex-White House Chief of Staff, ex-Commerce Secretary, ex-corporate bigshot, ex-everything Bill Daley, who also happens to be the son and brother of Chicago’s two longest serving mayors.

Mr. Daley’s chances in the upcoming primary have increased markedly, some might say infinitely (See 6/6/13’s “GOVERNOR BILL DALEY…SENATOR BILL DALEY.   THERE JUST WASN’T THE TIME…”), with Lisa Madigan’s exit, which was more or less forced by Mr. Daley’s entry into the race; again, see today’s other post.   While yours truly would certainly not argue that Bill Daley’s chances of becoming governor are a heck of lot better than they were yesterday, I would not count out Governor Quinn.  (See my 7/10/13 piece, PAT QUINN SUSPENDS  LEGISLATORS’ SALARIES:   FOUR MORE YEARS? and the posts to which it will refer you.)   Don’t misunderstand me; I am not predicting a Quinn victory.  I am simply NOT, for a number of reasons, among those who are saying the man has no chance at re-nomination or re-election.

Cousin Pat (not really, but I like saying that more of late) is the incumbent governor.  In the first quarter, he raised more money than either Bill Daley or Lisa Madigan.   Further, he is running a populist campaign that, while loaded with what some might consider silly, or irresponsible, stunts, like suspending legislative salaries, seems to be striking a chord with the typical voter.  Further, if Mr. Quinn can get the appropriate inspector general off the dime and quickly conduct a review, both of which are big “if”s, he can pull another such maneuver by firing the entire Metra board.  (See another post from yesterday, WE ARE SHOCKED…SHOCKED!...TO LEARN OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE AT METRA and the posts to which it will refer you.)   If you think the voters liked suspending legislative salaries, think how they will react to firing the legion of toadies, lackeys, hacks, has-beens, and wannabes that comprises the Metra board.   And Quinn just might to it.

Further, everyone speaks of Bill Daley’s fundraising prowess, but I wonder.  Now that his brother is no longer mayor and thus cannot deliver a near instant return on donors’ investments, is Bill Daley the “prolific fundraiser” that he is made out to be and indeed once was?   One suspects that Mr. Daley would not embark on this race unless he was confident he had the ability to raise a lot of money, so I might be wrong here, but even Mr. Daley has made miscalculations in his career.  Further, people don’t give political donations in this state, or just about anywhere, because they like the candidate or the party to whom they are giving.  They give because they expect a return on their investment, and the return here is not immediately obvious unless the donors are certain Mr. Daley will go to Springfield.  But they can’t be certain of that unless he gets a LOT of money; you can see the chicken and egg problem here.  While this problem is faced by just about all political candidates, it might be especially acute for Mr. Daley, given his background and his reputation as a “prolific fundraiser.”

One person that I have heard nothing about in regard to the governor’s race is the Mayor of Chicago, that idol of the consanguineous media, Rahm Emanuel.  Mr. Emanuel may protest publicly that he is not taking sides in the gubernatorial primary, but, c’mon, Mr. Emanuel staying on the sidelines of any political race?   And if you were Rahm Emanuel, would you want a potentially very strong Bill Daley to be governor?   Wouldn’t you prefer the weaker Pat Quinn?   Don’t try to argue that Mr. Emanuel has, or feel he owes, some sort of loyalty to the Daley family, which went a long way toward making him what he is today on a number of fronts.   Loyalty counts for little for Mr. Emanuel, unless it is to himself.  Ask the Clintons.

So suppose that Mr. Emanuel, secretly or perhaps not so secretly, puts out the word that he would rather not see Bill Daley in the governor’s office.  What will that do to Daley’s ability to raise money?

All that having been said, one can never factor out two things…the electorate’s general level of disappointment with Governor Quinn or the deal making skills of the Daley family.  On the latter, I smell what one might call a rat, or two rats, if I didn’t have some genuine admiration for what some might call underhanded political tactics.  See, for example, chapter 8 of my first book, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics.  What such seemingly malodorous tactics might one be seeing in the upcoming gubernatorial primary?

As of now, the Democratic gubernatorial primary is a two person race.  However, as soon as Lisa Madigan opted out of the race, talk of two other potential candidates started.  The first is state Senator Kwame Raoul of Chicago who is a something of an up and comer among black politicians.   The other is state Senator Dave Koehler, who is from Peoria.  

Hmm…

Pat Quinn’s strongest, most loyal constituency is black voters, primarily in Chicago.   Wouldn’t it be nice for Mr. Daley if Mr. Raoul, who has been known to play political ball, were to enter the race and take at least some, and probably more, of the black vote from Mr. Quinn?

Mr. Quinn is also expected to run well downstate in the primary, not so much because the Governor is so well liked in the “other Illinois” but, rather, because the Daley name is like a pox down there.   Wouldn’t it be nice for Mr. Daley if, say, Mr. Koehler or another downstater were to run and take some of that downstate vote from Mr. Quinn?

I am starting to smell something like current ward of the federal government Rod Blagojevich’s first run for governor in 2002.   His main opponent in the primary, Paul Vallas, had great strength in the black community, largely due to the relatively good job he had done as head of the Chicago Public Schools.   A third candidate, Roland Burris, an at times amiable hack from the south side, emerged to drain Mr. Vallas’ strength in the black community and thus hand the primary to Mr. Blagojevich, who eventually repaid Mr. Burris by appointing him to Barack Obama’s U.S. senate seat when Mr. Blagojevich’s back was against the federal wall, but that is another story.  Did Alderman Dick Mell (See my 7/7/13 and 7/6/13 posts, respectively, DICK MELL USED OUR MONEY TO PAY PEOPLE TO SLEEP: “THEY’RE GONNA SAY…WHAT A GUY!”  and FAREWELL, DICK MELL…SORT OF) have anything to do with Mr. Burris’s entry into the 2002 gubernatorial primary?   Are the White Sox a lousy baseball team?

Similarly, should Mr. Raoul, Mr. Koehler, and/or someone else who is black and/or from downstate enter this race, would Mr. Daley or his minions have had anything to do with his sudden desire to be governor?   Are the Cubs a lousy baseball team?

This is going to be a far more interesting race for governor, even without Lisa Madigan, than most people think.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

LISA MADIGAN WON’T RUN FOR GOVERNOR: WOULD YOU WANT THE JOB?

7/16/13

As I said yesterday (LISA MADIGAN IS NOT IN THE RACE,BUT THIS POST IS FAR FROM MOOT, 7/15/13), the Mike Madigan/Metra scandal had little, if anything, to do with Lisa Madigan’s decision not to run for governor.   What is new about Mike Madigan sinking his tentacles into another state agency?  As I put it yesterday

In other words, if people were going to vote for Lisa Madigan because they have bought into the mythology surrounding her and/or they make their voting decisions based on 30 second commercials, Mr. Madigan’s machinations at Metra will make minimal, at most, difference.   There is simply nothing new here that would influence her decision or the voters’ opinions regarding her.

So why did Ms. Madigan decide not to run for governor?   Yours truly can come up with a number of reasons that don’t conform to the groupthink that permeates the Chicago media.

First, this was going to be a very tough race for Lisa Madigan.   Any genuine three way race, and especially any three way primary, involving any incumbent would be tough for any challenger.  One’s hat has to be off to Bill Daley in this regard who, perhaps tired of waiting for Lisa’s Hamlet act to conclude, entered the race, making life very difficult for Lisa Madigan.   Do you think for a minute that if Bill Daley were not in the race, Lisa Madigan would have stayed out? 

Some will argue that Mr. Daley was not necessarily displaying any courage by getting in the race, that he somehow knew that Lisa would not get in and/or cut a deal to keep her out.  If this is the case, it is testimony to Mr. Daley’s craftiness, ability to cut deals, and covering all the bases, not at all undesirable qualities in a governor of any state, but especially of this state.  On the other hand, if Mr. Daley genuinely had no idea what Ms. Madigan was going to do and entered the race anyway, he showed some real courage and sense of mission.   As I wrote on 6/6 (“GOVERNOR BILLDALEY…SENATOR BILL DALEY.   THERE JUSTWASN’T THE TIME…”)

Yours truly finds it hard to believe that Mr. Daley is so concerned about our state that he would throw political considerations out the window and charge ahead despite the long odds against him defeating both Mr. Quinn and Ms. Madigan in the Democratic primary.  That’s why I still think he will only run if he somehow knows Lisa Madigan will stay out of the race, which I can’t see happening.  

If I’m wrong, though, and Mr. Daley runs despite the near impossibility of winning in a three way race, I would give him more credit than I already do.  Though we’ve always had our differences (politically and ideologically, not personally; I don’t know Mr. Daley and have never met Mr. Daley, which is unfortunate for both of us, but I digress), I’ve always respected Bill Daley.  He is smart, hardworking, imbued by his parents with some great values, and knows the art of politics which is, after all, bringing people together to get things done.   He’s consequently been quite effective in whatever he has attempted.  He is the kind of guy we should want in public office. 

Either way, Bill Daley comes out of this particular episode looking smart and/or courageous.

Still, though, Lisa Madigan, had she entered the race, would have been the front-runner, given her $5 million campaign fund, her immense largely bi-partisan popularity, and her being the only woman in the three way race.   On the other hand, Lisa Madigan, after an initial tough race for Attorney General in 2002, has won every contest for reelection in a cakewalk.   She has therefore developed a very Daleyesque aversion (until recently, apparently) to running in elections that aren’t mere technicalities.  See my 6/6/13 post, “GOVERNOR BILL DALEY…SENATOR BILLDALEY.   THERE JUSTWASN’T THE TIME…”  This one would have been more than an exercise in going through the motions.

There is something to the argument that Lisa dropped out because of perceptions of her father, but not much.   Let’s translate her statement of yesterday…

"Ultimately, however, there has always been another consideration that impacts my decision. I feel strongly that the state would not be well served by having a governor and speaker of the House from the same family and have never planned to run for governor if that would be the case. With Speaker Madigan planning to continue in office, I will not run for governor."

Once we eliminate the lies that come as naturally as any politician as swimming comes to any fish, what Ms. Madigan really was saying

I feel strongly that MY RACE FOR GOVERNOR WOULD BE MARGINALLY MORE DIFFICULT IF MY FATHER REMAINED SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE; THEREFORE,. with Speaker Madigan planning to continue in office, I will not run for governor."

As I said yesterday, and back on 6/19/13 (MIKE ANDLISA MADIGAN:   WHAT’S A DAD TO DO?), this talk of Mike Madigan hurting his daughter’s chances at becoming governor is preposterous once one looks beyond one branch on one tree.  Simply put, where would Lisa Madigan be if her father were not Mike Madigan?  As a friend of mine said yesterday, she might be working in the Attorney General’s office, but she wouldn’t be Attorney General.  To which I would add that she never would have been a state senator and would be largely unknown outside her circle of friends, let alone be considered a strong candidate for governor.  Talented and smart?  Yes.   But lots of people are at least equally talented and smart and would be at least as good in the offices she has held, holds, or aspires to hold…but never got the chance because their fathers were not Mike Madigan.

Further, just a few weeks ago, Lisa Madigan said her father would not have to step down as Speaker were she to run for governor….

“He wouldn’t have to (quit as Speaker).  He wouldn’t have to step down.”

This much ballyhooed public disdain for Mike Madigan may not be as intense as the press would have you believe…either that or the voters are incapable of registering that disdain in the voting booth.   Note that Mr. Madigan, despite a well (okay, maybe decently) funded Republican “Fire Mike Madigan” campaign for the Illinois House last year, achieved a supermajority in the aforementioned chamber while Mr. Madigan’s, er, colleague, Senate President John Cullerton, achieved a supermajority in his chamber.   To give you an idea of how intense the support was for Messrs. Madigan and Cullerton, in 2012 DuPage County elected its first Democratic state senator in, I think, history.   How much hating of Mr. Cullerton and the Democratic Party he controls is going on here?

Admittedly, a race in which a person named Madigan is running for the highly visible office of governor provides an easier method of registering one’s disgust than a little followed House or Senate race, but one would hope that the typical voter would know that when s/he is casting a ballot for a Democratic state representative or senator, s/he is voting for Mike Madigan.  But perhaps that may be my starry-eyed optimism regarding the high, er, information level of the typical voter getting the better of me.

So it wasn’t Mike Madigan’s remaining on as Speaker, which didn’t seem to matter a few weeks ago and, at its core, wasn’t hurting Lisa nearly as much as it has helped, and would continue to help her, that dissuaded Ms. Madigan from running.   Incidentally, Mr. Madigan’s remaining as Speaker, which might look somewhat selfish from a distance, was absolutely the right thing to do.   As I wrote on 6/19/13

Mike Madigan, being a good dad, might resign from the Speakership, or even the House, if Lisa becomes governor, and promise to do so during the campaign.   In the opinion of yours truly, however, he would be crazy to do so.   For Mike Madigan, the Speaker’s office is a permanent, lifetime job.   The governor’s office, on the other hand, holds no such employment security.   If Ms. Madigan does run and win, and both are still highly likely, she might serve for eight years; Even if she manages to match Jim Thompson’s 14 year tenure, that would leave her in power only half the time her father has been Speaker. 

The governor’s office is temporary; the Speakership, at least for Mike Madigan, is forever, or as forever as anything can be in this earth.  Thus, trading the Speaker’s post for a go-around in the governor’s job would be a bad trade for the Madigan family.  Mike Madigan is not invincible (as I get the feeling may become more apparent in the near future, but I digress within a digression), but he rarely makes a bad trade.   But I digress.

So what did dissuade Ms. Madigan from running?  I don’t know, of course, because I know no one even remotely close to the Madigans and, even if I did and learned something, I would not disclose what I was told; that’s not how I operate.   But I can come up with a good reason and a better reason for Lisa Madigan to remain Attorney General.

The good reason is Bill Daley’s wise and either gutsy or artful political move in entering the race and thus making Lisa’s path to a promotion for more problematical.  Lisa wanted a coronation, not an election.  Bill Daley made it a fight.

The better reason is not quite as political but very simple:   Would you want to be governor of Illinois right now?   This state is in a hell of a mess, with bankruptcy looming over the fast approaching horizon.  In all likelihood, nothing will be solved before the next governor takes office.  One does not blame an ambitious pol like Ms. Madigan for not wanting to tie her dinghy to such a sinking ship.  It would be much easier, and conducive to obtaining that big job that every politician ultimately wants, to become a U.S. Senator, and that job may become available, albeit not necessarily for the asking, in 2016.

Still, though, yours truly suspects that Lisa Madigan has hurt herself politically by not taking the governor’s job.  After having repeatedly put her toe in the water for higher office and declining to take the leap every time, she is starting to acquire something of a boy who cried wolf quality about her.   Further, I’ve been watching politics long enough to realize that stars tend to burn out quickly and that those whose stars are currently ablaze would do well to strike while the proverbial iron is hot.   Yes, everyone loves Lisa now, but there is always a new kid in town and politics quickly becomes a game of “What ya done for me lately?”   (How’s that for stringing together a series of expressions that have been overused to the point of banality?)   There is a good chance that even Lisa Madigan may have had her chance…and blew it.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

LISA MADIGAN IS NOT IN THE RACE, BUT THIS POST IS FAR FROM MOOT.

AS I WAS WRITING THIS, I GOT THE NEWS THAT LISA MADIGAN WILL NOT RUN FOR GOVERNOR, WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN A SHOCK A MONTH AGO BUT ISN’T NOW.  WHILE SOME MIGHT ARGUE THAT HER ANNOUNCEMENT RENDERS THIS POST MOOT, IT MAY, INSTEAD, RENDER THE POST EVEN MORE INSIGHTFUL, SO READ THIS POST!

NOW WE HAVE A DALEY/QUINN ONE-ON-ONE AND ONE MIGHT REASONABLY SUSPECT THAT JOHN KASS, AND OTHERS, WERE RIGHT IN EARLY JUNE WHEN HE/THEY SPECULATED THAT DALEY SOMEHOW KNEW THAT LISA WAS NOT RUNNING.  WE WILL NEVER KNOW, HOWEVER, AND, AFTER ALL, SOMETIMES A CIGAR IS JUST A CIGAR.

WHY DID LISA DROP OUT, OR NOT DROP IN?  AGAIN, WE DON’T KNOW, BUT I SUSPECT THE “DADDY MADE ME (NOT) DO IT” THEORY, WHICH WILL DOMINATE THE SPECULATION, ISN’T RIGHT; READ THIS POST.

7/15/13

It’s amazing how quickly the conventional wisdom changes.   A month, or even a few weeks, ago, it was understood that Attorney Lisa Madigan was going to run for governor this year.   Now the conventional wisdom seems to be that she won’t run.   Why the change?   A number of plausible reasons have been advanced:   Bill Daley wouldn’t run unless he somehow knew that Lisa Madigan was not going to run (See my 6/6/13 post, “GOVERNOR BILLDALEY…SENATOR BILL DALEY.   THERE JUSTWASN’T THE TIME…”), Mike Madigan’s near absolute power in the state would dissuade voters from backing his daughter (See my 6/19/13 post MIKE AND LISA MADIGAN:   WHAT’S A DAD TO DO?), or that Mr. Madigan’s problems at Metra (See today’s post, WE ARE SHOCKED…SHOCKED!...TO LEARN OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE AT METRA) will make it impossible for his daughter to win.

Unlike much of the punditocracy in this state, I have no idea whether Lisa Madigan will run for governor.  If I had to bet, I would say that, yes, she’s in; she’s raised a lot of money, has made a lot of noises about running, and would look indecisive, at best, if she were to once again silence the sirens of higher office.   But I don’t know Lisa Madigan, Mike Madigan, or anybody remotely close to either of the two.   And even if I did, and they were comfortable enough to share such things with me, I would not repeat things told me in anything remotely resembling confidence; it’s who I am and the way I operate.  So my guess is maybe as good as yours regarding Ms. Madigan’s future.   But a few points are worth making.

First, the very recent revelations about Mr. Madigan’s trying to muscle Metra will have no impact on Lisa Madigan’s decision to run or, if that decision is yes, her chances at becoming our next governor.  Perhaps I am giving the voters of this state far too much credit; re-read my 6/19/13 piece in which I asked/said

 …poll participants had to be reminded that Lisa Madigan’s dad is Mike Madigan?   And these people get to vote?   Remember this the next time someone pontificates on the wonders of democracy,

but one has to assume that most voters know that Mike Madigan is Lisa Madigan’s dad and that most voters are not at all shocked (or even jarred from their figurative sleep) by news that Mr. Madigan is somehow connected to corrupt activities at Metra…or at least I hope, for the future of the state and the Republic, that we can make such an assumption.  In other words, if people were going to vote for Lisa Madigan because they have bought into the mythology surrounding her and/or they make their voting decisions based on 30 second commercials, Mr. Madigan’s machinations at Metra will make minimal, at most, difference.  There is simply nothing new here that would influence her decision or the voters’ opinions regarding her.

Second, the notion that Lisa Madigan and Deb Mell (See my 7/6/13 piece, FAREWELL, DICK MELL…SORTOF) have “daddy problems,” as the press puts it, is preposterous.  Where would either of these two young women be if it weren’t for their fathers?   Yes, they are both talented and would be doing something productive and perhaps lucrative, but Attorney General and Alderman in Waiting?   There are plenty of bright young women and men out there who would be at least as good at either job as either of these two, but never got the chance because their dads weren’t Mike Madigan and Dick Mell.  So to say that either gentleman is somehow a problem for his daughter is incredibly naïve, myopic, and short-sighted.  Again, see my 6/19/13 piece in which I said

“…let’s leave aside for a moment the near fact that if Lisa Madigan were not Mike Madigan’s daughter, she would not have served in the Illinois House and Senate, never been considered for Attorney General, and certainly not now be the governor in waiting.  Let’s instead buy blindly into the silly supposition that Ms. Madigan’s being Mr. Madigan’s daughter actually hurts her.”

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

EGYPTIANS, INTELLECTUALS, AND “DEMOCRACY”: “AFTER YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT YOU DON’T WANT IT…”

7/15/13

Since I’m in the habit today of using my experience to simplify what appear to be very complex situations (See today’s post on the Madigan/Metra situation, WE ARE SHOCKED…SHOCKED!...TO LEARN OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE AT METRA.), let me turn my enthusiasm for non-complication to the situation in Egypt.

What has happened in the Land of the Pharaohs (both ancient and modern, it seems) is that the “youth” who were so generously lauded by Western intelligentsia, media, and governments for being so enthusiastic about “democracy” got what they wanted…reasonably free and fair elections, which is what passes for “democracy” in the eyes of the vacuous Western intelligentsia, media, and governments.  However, these professional enthusiasts for “democracy” did not like the outcome of those elections, i.e.,  the perhaps incompetent, and maybe heinous, government of Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood cohorts, who won not only because they were the best organized group in the elections but also because, mirabile dictu, they got the most votes.  Rather than wait for the “democracy” for which they so yearned and pined to play itself out and present an opportunity to replace Mr. Morsi at the ballot box, the sterling young “democrats” behind the “Arab Spring’s” Egyptian manifestation colluded with the military to do what the Egyptian military does best:  overthrow the government in what can only be described as a military coup.

Such is the outcome when Westerners decide to bring our particular form of enlightenment to populations that, with the exception of a handful of overeducated malcontents with too much time on their hands and too little experience to know better, never asked to be favored by being forced, more or less, to do things our way.

For more background, see, among many others, my 6/28/13 post, EGYPT AND MR. MASLOW, my 1/29/13 post EGYPT:  MEET THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS?, and the posts to which they will refer you.

WE ARE SHOCKED…SHOCKED!...TO LEARN OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE AT METRA

7/15/13

It looks like we all know what happened with the quarter million dollar goodbye kiss for former Metra CEO Alex Clifford.   (See my 7/10/13 piece, METRA: THE WAY TO REALLY FLY…AWAY WITH OTHERPEOPLE’S MONEY), to wit…

 House Speaker, 13^th Ward Democratic Committeeman, and State Democratic Chairman Mike Madigan asked Mr. Clifford to give a raise to a cog in Mr. Madigan’s political machinery who happened to be drawing a check from Metra and to put another similarly positioned cog on the Metra payroll.  Mr. Clifford refused, citing not only the pay freeze in place at Metra at the time but also his aversion to hiring and promoting people based on politics.   Mr. Clifford was then summarily fired by Metra Board Chairman Brad O’Halloran, a Madigan associate who was doubtless put on the board, and made Chairman with at least the help of Mr. Madigan.  (Note, by the way, that Mr. O’Halloran is from Orland Park, a beautiful southwest suburb into which many of my former neighbors, along with many former Madigan constituents, have moved.  Over at least the last twenty years, one of Mr. Madigan’s projects has been extending his power base from the southwest side of the city into the southwest suburbs.  Mr. O’Halloran fits this script beautifully.  But I digress.)   Mr. O’Halloran fired Mr. Clifford not only because Mr. O’Halloran owes his position to Mike Madigan, and thus responds to Mr. Madigan’s orders with alacrity, but also because Mr. O'Halloran feared for Metra’s funding which, ultimately, is in the hands of Mike Madigan.   Since no one could know that offending Illinois’s uber power broker was the reason for Mr. Clifford’s demise (as if anyone would be shocked or surprised at this development, but I digress again), Mr. O’Halloran arranged for a quarter million dollar severance package for Mr. Clifford, complete with confidentiality agreements, and then made up some bovine excrement about 10 ride passes and the Englewood flyover (See, again, my 7/10 post along with my 4/21 post THE METRA BOARD:   PARADISE FOR POLTROONS, POPINJAYS, AND PATRONAGE PARASITES), a story for which no one fell.

Despite my rather blasé dismissal of the idea that anyone could be surprised by Mr. Clifford’s being fired for not acceding to Mr. Madigan’s (and God knows how many other politicians’) demands, apparently one guy was shocked and surprised…Mr. Clifford.   Apparently, he really believed what the Metra Board must have told him when he was brought in from California to run our troubled commuter rail system, i.e., that he would be able to run it in a professional, non-political manner. 

So while Mr. Clifford’s standing up to the Big Man and his legions of lackeys is admirable, it was clear that his firing was justified…for gross naiveté.   How in the world could someone, anyone, think he could come to Chicago and run any agency or, indeed, any kind of entity, public or private, without playing ball with the politicians who run this cesspool of corruption?  Anyone that ingenuous should never have been hired in the first place on general principle.  

Mr. Clifford’s big severance package, however, was in no way justified.   Why cover up something that, when revealed, was, or ought to have been, met with a collective yawn from a populace inured to the machinations of the puppetmasters and their stooges who run this place?

Perhaps less importantly, this latest bout of chicanery has only reinforced the conclusion of my 4/21 post:

…the Metra board is a repository for hacks, hangers-on, suck-ups, toadies, lackeys, and other virtually unemployables. 

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

WHAT MAKES FOR GOOD AND BAD INVESTMENT PERFORMANCE? CAPTAIN OBVIOUS AGAIN AT YOUR SERVICE

7/12/13

Today’s (i.e., Friday, 7/12/13, page C4 “For Fund Managers, A Bruising Quarter,” by Min Zeng) Wall Street Journal outlined the poor second quarter performance of some of the nation’s premier bond funds managers in the face of rapidly rising interest rates.  The most salient examples in the article were

                                                                                    Loss    

Manager                       Fund                            Loss     Benchmark       Benchmark

Bill Gross                     Pimco Total Return       -3.6%      -2.3%          Barlcays US Agg

Dan Fuss                      Loomis Sayles Bond     -1.4%      -2.5%          Barclays  US Govt

Jeff Gundlach                Doubleline Tot Ret        -1.6%      -2.3%          Barclays US Agg

Michael Hassenstab      Templeton Global Bd    -2.8%      -3.0%          Citigroup World Govt

Hmm…

A former professional investor like yours truly might object to the Journal’s characterization of these gentlemen’s performance.   Other than Mr. Gross, all three managers beat their benchmarks, in two cases quite handily.  Thus, in the world of professional investing, we would consider the second quarter to be a successful one for Messrs. Fuss, Gundlach, and Hassenstab.

However…

What professional investors and the consultants who hire them don’t seem to understand is that the individual investor and, if s/he is honest, the typical institutional investor, DOESN’T LIKE TO LOSE MONEY.  PERIOD.  While the typical investor is an understanding sort, s/he has limits on his or her understanding, and they are quite tight limits.   Typically, s/he doesn’t give a rat’s hindquarters how his or her money has done relative to some index that s/he doesn’t understand or thinks is rigged.  S/he wants to make money, or at least avoiding losing money, under all circumstances.  It’s amazing that professional investors have such a hard time understanding this.

If you don’t think this is true, consider these two discussions with someone whose portfolio you help manage:

Scenario 1:

“You made 8% last year, but the market (however defined) was up 11%”

Scenario 2:

“You lost 8% last year, but take heart;  the market lost 11%”

If you somehow think that your consultee, friend, client, etc. would be happier with the second report, you have to get out of the office and talk to some  real investors.

METRA: THE WAY TO REALLY FLY…AWAY WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY

7/10/13

Metra Board Chairman Brad O’Halloran (pictured) did an interview with the Chicago Tribune yesterday in an effort  to cool the heat that will burn in his seat as he undergoes grillings from various governmental and quasi-governmental bodies this week regarding about the strange, unmerited, and at least extra-legal quarter million dollar severance kiss Metra gave its failed CEO Alex Clifford.

Mr. O’Halloran blasted those who think Mr. Clifford’s sweet deal was part of some sort of secrecy pact designed to keep the deep, dark secrets of Metra incompetence, or worse, deep and dark at least until Mr. O’Halloran and his cronies can make off with bundles of cash similar to those they gave Mr. Clifford.  Mr. O’Halloran explained that his critics have been “flat out wrong” and that Mr. Clifford was fired for poor performance.  Mr. O’Halloran specifically cited Mr. Clifford’s decision to increase the cost of 10 ride Metra passes, which eliminated any dollar benefit from buying the passes (See 4/21/13’s now seminal post THE METRA BOARD:   PARADISE FOR POLTROONS, POPINJAYS, AND PATRONAGE PARASITES) and Mr. Clifford’s approval of the construction of the Englewood Flyover, which might sound like a lot of things but is in reality a railroad bridge on the south side, for $93 million.

There are at least two problems with Mr. O’Halloran’s bleatings, other than the obvious, i.e., that if poor performance were grounds for dismissal, Mr. O’Halloran, the whole Metra board, and about 95% of the public and quasi-public servants in this state would be out of work.

First, Mr. O’Halloran’s listing of examples of Mr. Clifford’s incompetence explains why Mr. Clifford was fired, but does not explain why Mr. Clifford was entitled to a quarter million severance package.  Indeed, this listing of Mr. Clifford’s shortcomings undercuts the argument for such a reward.

Second, the Metra Board approved both the Englewood Flyover boondoggle and the bone-headed hike in the 10 ride pass.  Mr. O’Halloran himself voted for the latter.  If the hike in the price of the 10 ride fare pass were sufficient grounds for Mr. Clifford’s sacking (It was; again, see my 4/21 post.), and Mr. O’Halloran voted for it, the implications for Mr. O’Halloran’s continued service on the board should be obvious.

The performance of Mr. O’Halloran in l’affaire Clifford just adds further evidence to a point I made on 4/21, to wit…

…the Metra board is a repository for hacks, hangers-on, suck-ups, toadies, lackeys, and other virtually unemployables. 

This is Illinois, however, so Metra’s board is not at all unique in this respect.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

PAT QUINN SUSPENDS LEGISLATORS’ SALARIES: FOUR MORE YEARS?

7/10/13 

Governor Pat Quinn (no relation, but my happiness at not sharing a bloodline with the man seems to decrease on a daily basis) announced today that he will use his line-item veto power on the budget to suspend lawmakers’ salaries until something is done on the pension crisis that is fast driving the Land of Lincoln to bankruptcy.  (A re-read of my 6/15/13 post, WAS PAT QUINN “PUT ON THIS EARTH” TO SOLVE ILLINOIS’PENSION PROBLEMS? May be helpful in assessing Mr. Quinn’s motivations here.)

This is an absolutely brilliant move on Cousin (again, not really) Pat’s part.  

Yes, this is little more than a bit of Mr. Quinn’s customary demagoguery.  The suspension is highly unlikely to survive; either the courts will overrule Mr. Quinn, citing the Illinois Constitution’s prohibition on changing lawmakers’ salaries mid-term, or the legislature will override Mr. Quinn’s line-item veto.   And even if the suspension does survive, the impact on the budget will, of course, be virtually undetectable, and even it may not get our esteemed public servants off the dime.

However…

The symbolism is brilliant here, and symbolism is, usually sadly, very important in politics. 

As I said over a month ago, in my 6/3/13 post, THE PENSION DEBACLE IN ILLINOIS:  MR. MADGIAN AS MACHIAVELLI, MR. EMANUEL LOSESA ROUND, OR MR. QUINN GOES TO SPRINGFIELD?,

Mr. Quinn is a pretty decent politician and a smart guy.   He can, and probably will, conduct a sort of Mr. Quinn Goes to Springfield type of campaign in 2014, in which Mr. Quinn, a lifelong politician who has played “get along, go along” for the last 40 years, will be cast as a sort of St. George who battles the dragons of Mike Madigan and his minions.   The voters of Illinois might go for it; they have certainly gone for much more preposterous notions; see, as only the most salient example, the governorship of the man whom Mr. Quinn served as Lieutenant Governor, Rod Blagojevich.

In my 6/5/13 post,  PAT QUINN, PENSIONS, ANDTHE UPCOMING ILLINOIS GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARY: WHAT WOULD JIMMY STEWART DO?, I followed up with

Mr. Quinn’s efforts to blame the legislature for the failure to enact pension reform and to set up the fast approaching 2014 primary as a Jimmy Stewartesque battle between the forces of sweetness and light vs. the dark side may be working.  

Governor Quinn may not be very popular, but the legislature is far less popular.  Mr. Quinn is no fool and realizes that the way to win this race is to run against the legislature and its Democratic leadership.   This latest move ramps up that campaign theme.

As I also said on 6/5,

Whether Mr. Quinn attacks subtlety or engages in a full frontal assault, he will be going after the legislature and “politics as usual” in his upcoming campaign for re-election.  It’s his only chance, and it’s a better chance than most people think.  (Emphasis mine.)

As I said then and even way before then (and, of course, even before Michael Sneed of the Sun-Times reported today (7/10/13, page 2) on the Governor’s first quarter fundraising advantage over Bill Daley and Lisa Madigan), don’t be so quick to count Mr. Quinn out of this race.   And don’t misunderstand me; I am not predicting a Quinn victory in either the primary or the general election.  But I am cautioning against dismissing the re-election chances of a politically clever incumbent, especially if this turns out to be a three way primary race.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

DICK MELL USED OUR MONEY TO PAY PEOPLE TO SLEEP: “THEY’RE GONNA SAY…WHAT A GUY!”

7/7/13

As the reporters who normally would despise someone like retiring Alderman Dick Mell were heaping praise upon the guy as he was heading out the door (See yesterday’s already seminal post FAREWELL, DICK MELL…SORT OF.), Mr. Mell let go with this whopper when asked about the “thousand” patronage jobs he had at his disposal at the height of his power as boss of the 33^rd Ward:

“The jobs that I really thought were great ones were the bridge tender jobs.  At one time we had three people on every bridge.  I put four kids through college as bridge tenders.  I would get them on the second shift from 3 to 11, where they could do their homework.  Or 11 to 7, where they’d sleep, and they were getting electrician’s pay, and it was great.”

Could Mr. Mell, in his efforts to sound like the paterfamilias of his ward, kindly dispensing favors to the hardworking residents who only had to show their gratitude by serving the “community,” in the person of Dick Mell, be so tone deaf?   Doesn’t he realize what he was saying?

I have news for Mr. Mell.  HE did not put any kids, other than his own, through college.  The TAXPAYERS put kids through college by paying them electricians’ wages for doing the work of a bridge tender, which was, most of the time, no work at all.   Further, all those people who put in the hard work necessary to become union electricians so that they could earn the wages that go with acquiring and applying such a skill were made to feel like chumps.  If they had only sucked up to Dick Mell, or one of his colleagues among the Organization’s ward bosses, they could have made those wages for doing nothing. 

Thanks, Dick Mell, for taking our money and handing it out to those who have somehow garnered your favor.  Isn’t it good to know that our tax dollars went toward paying hangers-on and toadies skilled labor wages for doing nothing so that Dick Mell could tell everyone that HE put them through college?

Mr. Mell is only being singled out for criticism here because he happens to be retiring and putting his foot in his mouth in the process.   He is no different from any of the old time ward bosses, whose modus operandi was to condition their constituents to behave like sycophants, to bow and scrape before these estimables, in order to get the services that we paid for...at a substantial premium as consideration to the pols for all that they added to the process of delivering these services.

But we kept electing these guys.   And now we wonder why the city and the state are in such bad financial shape.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

STUDENT LOANS: TEACH YOUR CHILDREN POORLY

7/7/13

In writing my already seminal diatribe of a few days ago on student loans (KEEPING STUDENT LOAN RATES DOWN:  PAYING FOR YOUR, AND YOUR NEIGHBOR’S, KID’S EDUCATION, 7/5/13), I listed a number of reasons why I am nearly reflexively opposed to borrowing to pay for college.  However, as I thought about this issue over the Independence Day weekend, I came up with yet another reason to oppose the student loan cancer on our society, perhaps the most insidious aspect of our nation’s vast over dependence on borrowing to educate its children.

By making borrowing for college, and, as I put it on 7/5, making “signing up for ‘your loan’…as routine as signing up for classes,” we are teaching our students a lesson that is even more dangerous than some of the stuff their professors are forcing into their heads:  we are teaching our kids that borrowing is the acceptable way to pay for things.   There is no need to work and save for the things that you want; just go out and borrow the money, get whatever your heart desires, and worry about paying for it later…or find some way to stick someone else (taxpayers, creditors, etc.) with the bill.

Borrowing for whatever might strike our fancy is an acceptable way of conducting one’s financial affairs in a nation that has driven itself over the economic cliff due to its collective inability to delay gratification.   But what is acceptable, especially in a society that has gone so far off the tracks as has ours, is not necessarily, indeed, rarely is, right.

FAREWELL, DICK MELL…SORT OF

7/6/13

Dick Mell announced last week that he will be leaving his post as 33^rd Ward alderman after 38 years on the job.  The Chicago media, generally hostile toward guys like Dick Mell, are, predictably, falling all over themselves with accolades for the City Council’s second longest serving member and something of a living relic of a bygone era, a time depicted in my books, The Chairman and The Chairman’s Challenge.  The press’s apparent hypocrisy, though, is understandable; gentlemanliness, or gentewomanliness, is almost always to be applauded and one of its manifestations is finding something nice to say about people at such milestones in their lives.

As you might guess, yours truly has some thoughts on Dick Mell who, despite being a self-made millionaire even before entering politics and despite running one of the most effective ward machines in this most political of cities will always be known first and foremost as Rod Blagojevich’s father-in-law.  (See my 6/19/13 post MIKE MADIGAN, JOHN CULLERTON, AND PENSIONS:   SOMETIMES A CIGAR IS JUST A CIGAR? for some background on the relationship between Dick Mell and his infamous son-in-law.)

First, Mr. Mell would like his daughter Deb Mell, who is currently a state representative, to replace him.   Mayor Emanuel has instituted new procedures for selecting replacement aldermen that are made to look fair, transparent, and representative.  But one suspects that Mr. Mell would not have left without the fix being in for his daughter, so Ms. Mell will probably have no trouble ascending to the post her father has held since she was seven years old.   She does have at least nominal competition for the job, however, in the person of State Senator Iris Martinez.

Note that I used the verb “ascending” when describing a move by Deb Mell from the state legislature to the city council, and that was no mistake.  Perhaps only in Chicago would a move from state representative or state senator to alderman be considered a promotion.   But this follows a proud tradition.   For example, back in 1973, when Roman Pucinski was effectively moved from the United States Congress to alderman of the 41^st Ward, he, probably rightfully, considered it a promotion and thanked Mayor Daley, and not at all disingenuously, for moving him up the ladder.   We take our aldermen seriously in Chicago.   Sometimes one wonders why, but I digress.

Second, the Chicago Sun-Times should have been more careful in its article about Mell’s retirement (“On way out, Mell talks family ties,” 7/6/13, page 6).   Deep into the story, the Sun-Times says

Mell operated (emphasis mine) one of the strongest ward organizations in Chicago, one that relied on precinct captains even after court rulings loosened the stranglehold the Democratic Machine had on government hiring and weakened other ward organizations.

Even though he is leaving his aldermanic seat, Mr. Mell will remain Democratic committeeman of the 33^rd ward and thus will continue to operate “one of the strongest ward organizations in the city.”   The post of committeeman isn’t what it used to be for a variety of reasons, but a ward’s committeeman controls the party apparatus in that ward.  Mr. Mell is not giving that up, at least not yet.

Third, in his parting comments, Mr. Mell had a few, and one suspects as few as possible, things to say about his infamous son-in-law, to wit…

“People loved him on the campaign trail.  He was phenomenal.   But when it came to actually governing, he was a problem.”

Hear, hear, despite the understatement in the second sentence.

Mr. Mell also said that if he could do it all over again, Blagojevich

“…would have never gotten out of state rep.  He would never have went (sic) to Congress.  He would have been a state rep until he decided to quit or be a lawyer or whatever.”

That’s great sentiment in retrospect.   But you can’t tell me, or anyone remotely sentient, that Mr. Mell only discovered the deep character flaws in his son-in-law only after Blago was elected to Congress and then to the governor’s mansion, both of which would have been impossible without Dick Mell’s help.   Many of us could see what a popinjay Mr. Blagojevich was long before he got to the governor’s office.  (In a later post I will tell you of the time yours truly and then Congressman Blagojevich sparred for an hour on a talk radio program…and will especially note Blago’s parting words to yours truly.  It’s a good story, but not as good as it sounds.)  Dick Mell is no fool and he was far closer to Blago than any of us who followed Blago’s career, so he had to be aware from pretty much the get-go of the poltroonishness of his son-in-law.  Yet Mr. Mell still used all of his powers and all of his abilities to put Blago first in Congress and then in the governor’s office.  For all his hemming and hawing now, and for all his other accomplishments, Mr. Mell’s foisting his son-in-law upon the people of Illinois (And I am by no means absolving our misinformed or simply uninformed, voters; anyone who has read just about anything I’ve written knows that.) will remain his most salient “achievement.”

Fourth, Mr. Mell went out of his way to be not all that uncharacteristically sycophantic toward Mayor Emanuel:

“Of all the mayors I worked with, I really like this guy (Emanuel) because he’ll make a decision based on what he believes is right.”

Mell went on to laud the Mayor’s “courage” in reworking the parking meter deal (See RAHM EMANUEL AND THE PARKING METERS:   “GOT TO MAKE THE BEST OF…A BAD SITUATION”, 4/30/13)…

“You think if I were mayor I would have touched those parking meters?”

It could, of course, be that Mr. Mell genuinely likes Mr. Emanuel and has enjoyed working with him, or at least that he has liked working with nominal north sider Emanuel more than he liked working with south sider Rich Daley.  But one suspects that Mr. Mell is following a not so proud tradition of the supposed tough guy aldermen, committeemen, and other pols around this town:  being shameless suck-ups to whoever happens to be occupying the Fifth Floor at the time. 

Perhaps the esteemed aldermen have no choice.   Beginning with Richard I and continuing with Richard II and Rahm Emanuel, Chicago mayors have almost completely emasculated the ward organizations, so the aldermen have to beg for the crumbs that fall from the Mayor’s table.   In this case, Mr. Mell really needs something from Mr. Emanuel:  the appointment of Deb Mell to the 33^rd ward city council seat.   One wishes, however, that these Chicago pols would stop masquerading as tough guys when, in reality, they have been reduced, and more or less willingly, to lap dogs and lickspittles.

Last, readers of my books, the Chairman and the Chairman’s Challenge, liked to try to guess who Chairman Eamon DeValera Collins is in real life.  When they aren’t guessing Ed Burke, Mike Madigan, Ed Vrdolyak, Bill Banks, or Rich Daley, they are guessing Dick Mell.  People ask me frequently if Collins is one of the aforementioned gentlemen, and Mell’s name comes up a lot.   My answer is the same for Mr. Mell as it has been for any other suggestion:  Chairman Eamon DeValera Collins is nobody in Chicago politics and he is (almost) everybody in Chicago politics.  He is one man who embodies the characteristics of many men.   Collins, as Don Vito Corleone was for the New York Mob of the mid twentieth century, is an amalgam of characters in Chicago politics of the latter part of that century.   Chairman Collins, like Alderman Mell, is an intriguing, enduring character, but, unlike Dick Mell, Eamon Collins is fictional.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

KEEPING STUDENT LOAN RATES DOWN: PAYING FOR YOUR, AND YOUR NEIGHBOR’S, KID’S EDUCATION

7/5/13

Both political parties, and both non-judicial branches of government, are scrambling to reverse the doubling of the interest rate (from 3.4% to 6.8%) on a variety of federal student loans.  

Yours truly has written extensively on student loans (See, inter alia,

SAVING FOR RETIREMENT, PAYING FOR EDUCATION, AND TALKIN’ ‘BOUT MY GENERATION, 5/29/13

STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS:   THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S (?) ASSAULT ON THE RESPONSIBLE, 5/10/13

for just a sampling of my highly unpopular thoughts on this topic.  In summary, I am firmly opposed to rolling back this interest rate increase because I am, for the most part, firmly opposed to the idea of borrowing to pay for one’s, or one’s children’s, college education.   Why am I so curmudgeonly on this issue, other than my normal predisposition toward curmudgeonliness?

First, the explosion of student debt is the next big debt time bomb in our economy and financial system.  We ought to be looking for ways to discourage, rather then encourage, such borrowing.

Second, the whole notion of borrowing heavily to finance college grows from the preposterous, and increasingly dangerous, notion that everyone should go to college.   The almost peculiarly American idea that everyone has to go to college has led to an economy top-heavy with people who majored in, say, minority studies, film studies, or sexual sociology from third or fourth rate “universities” and who thus feel entitled to the “middle class lifestyle that a college education affords them.”  Meanwhile, we don’t have enough people who can do actual work for which real consumers are willing to pay with their own money, such as plumbers, mechanics, construction workers, etc.   Then our hyper-informed populace complains when we import people to do such tasks so our kids can major in, say, gender studies and sit around and complain about not getting the jobs they feel they are owed.  Such is the state of modern American society, but I digress.

Third, there are other ways to pay for college, all of which are doable but none of which anyone wants to do as long as Uncle Sam is ladling out your dollars at ridiculously low interest rates.  Some of these highly unthinkable methods include:

·        working to pay for one’s education.

·        attending a community college for a few years before moving on to a four year institution,

·        paying attention to costs when selecting colleges and perhaps resigning one’s self, or one’s children, to the ignominious fate of having to attend a state university,

·        or, most reprehensible at all to the modern, middle class but ever so status conscious American, actually making some sacrifices to send your kids to college.  (You mean I have to give up dual Lexi, a summer home, regular expensive restaurant meals, $200 shoes, and a trip of a life time every year just so my kids can go to college!  Horrors!   The government should do something about this!)

Simply put, one should borrow to finance one’s, or one’s kid’s, education only as the very last resort.  And if one has to borrow to pay for college, one better major in something that will enable him or her to pay back the loan.  Unfortunately, we have made borrowing the first resort, and signing up for “your loan” has become as routine as signing up for classes, many of which are educational and financial dead-ends.

Fourth, one would be hard pressed, or unbelievably obtuse, not to conclude that the direction of all these efforts to “lighten the burden on our next generation of leaders” is toward all out debt forgiveness.  This would leave those of us who actually took the steps outlined above and thus will have our kids graduate without any student debt looking like the chumps we are.   We sacrificed to send our kids to college; our neighbors said “What the hell?”, bought BMWs, joined country clubs, shopped at Whole Foods, and borrowed heavily to send their kids to hyper-expensive colleges and will soon be forgiven of all their debt and thus their obligations to their kids.   Who were the fools in this scenario? 

And, yes, I am talking my own interest here; I simply don’t want to pay for my kids’ education and the educations of my neighbors who live better than I do.   But the next time you find someone whose politics do not reflect, to some degree, his or her own self-interest, let me know.  I won’t be waiting by the phone.

Now I have even more reasons to be opposed to this all-out effort to keep interest rates on student loans outrageously attractive, inducing students to further put themselves in debt so deep they will never climb out---until all loans are forgiven in the interest of “fairness.”

First, I hope most people know this but think most people don’t:  the increase in interest rates will only be on NEW debt.  Existing debt won’t be affected.  So students who are not so busy studying the sociology of the vagina or some other such nonsense, and their parents, will know that new debt will be expensive and perhaps will, but probably won’t, make prudent decisions based on the new rate.   There won’t be any surprises on the bills for existing debt.

Second, the Wall Street Journal reports today (“Student Loans Caught in Capitol Crossfire, 7/5/13, page A4), the average subsidized Stafford loan has a balance of about $3,400.   The Journal calculates that the increase in the monthly payment on such a loan, assuming a 10 year repayment period, at $7 per month.   (I calculated $5.67 per month, and I think I’m right.  But since I didn’t go to an expensive (er, sorry, “prestigious”) university in reasonable proximity to either coast, what could I possibly know?   Thankfully, the difference matters little.)

Six or seven bucks a month?   Back in the dark ages, when I went to the university that MIT wishes it could be, that amounted to two pitchers of beer, or four at happy hour, per month.  Now that we are in more enlightened times, that six or seven bucks amounts to a frappe lappe dappe mocha moustache latte drink these kids just have to have in order to get though a half hour of studying, or, at the most, two of these dyspeptic concoctions that are, for some weird reason, sold at establishments that bill themselves as purveyors of coffee, which can be made at home for pennies or bought at McDonald’s or White Castle for a buck.  But who wants to make such excruciating sacrifices when the government will absolve you from having to endure such indignities?

If our legislators and president had any courage, common sense, honor, intelligence, or even the slightest lack of hypocrisy, they’d let these rates on student loans go to 6.8%, or even higher.  So we can assume that, before long, the rates will go back down to 3.4%...further encouraging our kids to impale themselves on the stake of onerous debt.   But not to worry; the dire financial straits into which our esteemed public servants have helped put “our students” will give these pathetic lifelong payrollers an excuse to do more “good”…by using your money to forgive these loans, thus sticking you with the bill for your neighbor’s education, as he waves at you while driving off in his new Audi.