Northwest Area Citizens Organization

     Sources close to the leadership of the Illinois State Senate predict quick passage of the State of Illinois budget Tuesday, July 14th, sans the 50% tax hike.

     It's time to watch the All Star baseball game in St. Louis.

     Consideration of a tax hike to balance the budget will be postponed until after prospective opponents file political nominating petitions later this Fall.

 

Mark Arnold Fredrickson

President

Northwest Area Citizens Organization

     Many of the fifty Gypsy Spirit passengers were surprised to learn that their host shared their mutual acquaintance with other friends, former classmates, business & political acquaintances during Saturday evening's Lake Michigan cocktail cruise departing Chicago's Burnham Harbor.

     The guest list included those who shared the host's dream catcher quest: fellow political candidates, one well up & coming welter weight prize fighter, a former professional wrestler, ambitious immigrants more comfortable on the Caspian, an optimistic realtor, a resiliant divorcee, the chief executive of a local liquor distributor, a mother & father on their first night out since their baby's birth & others aspiring to their fifteen minutes of Andy Warhol fame.

     The passage of a morning shower calmed the winds & waves on Chicago's Lake Michigan. Clear weather sailing painted a panoramic vista. Saturday's cruise climaxed beneath colorful Navy Pier fireworks which earned a few carefully composed digital images.

     The midsummer's sunset cruise reminded passengers of their host's generosity & the seridipitous network of friendship & new found acquaintance.

     Next March, when the vintner toasts his first Argentinian nouveau vintage, many hands to help him import, distribute & introduce his flavorful wine to fellow Chicagoans--a bountiful harvest gleemed from sunshine, soil's nourishment & a multiplcity of carefully cultivated relationships. 

     Others may launch their own dream catcher cruise by simply paying it forward in the service to another & harvesting the fruit.

 

Mark Arnold Fredrickson

President

Northwest Area Citizens Organization

markfredrickson@earthlink.net 

     The Illinois Secretary of State has devised a new plan to ensure that all Land of Lincoln motorists keep their insurance & emissions inspections current.

     Apparently, Secretary of State Jesse White has send letters to law-abiding, long-standing customers of at least one leading Illinois insurance company, threatening to suspend vehicle registrations & license plates if they fail to reply. Secretary White's affirmative defense is that motorists were required to reply to an insurance verification letter mailed proactively by the Illinois Secretary of State's Office.

     To end these suspensions, White's Office requires that passenger vehicle owners present a proof of insurance & pay a $100 fee to the Secretary of State's Office--Mandatory Insurance Division.

     So many of these letters have been mailed to Allstate Insurance Company customers that a third generation agent in based in Barrington, Phillip Rutledge, knew well that the letter was sent in error. Rutledge couldn't say whether the license suspension threat letters were simply an oversight on the part of Allstate Insurance Company or the State of Illinois Secretary of State's Office or a intentional effort to flush out tax revenue or another emissions visit.

     Why Secretary of State Jesse White would tumble in to this political quagmire just a month before a prospective opponent might circulate political nominating petitions is anyone's guess. His patronage chief lives in the same community of Norridge built by this blogger's great uncle. It's a community where a few bad men have elevated debt collection to an art rivaling Tony Suprano's best. 

     Insolvency staring down the State General Assembly & Constitutional officers such as Secretary White, it's understandable that he'd prioritize uniform enforcement of the State's motor vehicle laws.

     The minimum fine for driving a suspended vehicle is $1,000, according to the Secretary of State's letter announcing the proposed vehicle registration suspension.

     But there's no excuse for taking such a bold initiative with law-abiding citizens.  

     Unless State officials planned to recycle the vanity plate like so much as a Burr Oak cemetary plot.

           

Mark Arnold Fredrickson

President

Northwest Area Citizens Organization

 

P.S. Yes, the dunned & stunned license suspension letter recipient also received an vehicle emissions testing invitation days after the Secretary of State's letter. Maybe there was a vanity plate bounty?

 

     Millions of Americans who remain gainfully employed, however abbreviated their work week & diminished their retirement savings, may be inclined to leave Wall Street's complexity to the quants in spite of disastrous consequence. 

     While some of the nation's leading banks painfully rebuild the equity value & capital reserves, other small town & neighborhood banks fall victim as a rate unequaled since the Great Depression.

     Just this week the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation switched the owners of 52 of the nation's banks, nine in Illinois alone. The Chicago Tribune (07/03/09) compared the increased bank foreclosure rate to that of the national unemployment rate, but that may tell only part of this story.

     Diminished value of capital reserves may be attributed to everything from non-performing sub-prime mortgages to last Fall's nationalization of the two of the biggest American mortgage lenders--Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae.

     Financial wizards, who sat through many of the same MBA classes as this blogger, were attracted to Wall Street investment houses, private equity firms, hedge funds & commercial banks by promises of fame & fortune. Create new financial products, attract investors, diversify the risk to third parties & reap the rewards.

     Seldom expressed in the polite company of Long Island Atlantic Ocean panoramic vistas or in the midst of Fifth Avenue Manhattan bling, "Eat what you kill" became the path to riches for a privileged few.

     The statistical "fat tale" caught up with those who once relegated catastrophe to the footnotes of financial reports. Were the consequences confined to those who created this mess, many of us might chalk it up to moral hazard, but diversification & leverage spread the suffering around the globe.

     The Obama Presidential Administration knows that there's must financial regulatory work left to do. Urgently, those same Congressmen & women who reaped bundled a harvest of generous political contributions must now tell their Wall Street benefactors that there's a new sheriff in town to curb wild west excesses.

     Getting the wealthiest ten per cent of Americans to resume their consumer spending represents fully one third of America's economy. Restoring their confidence in the financial markets is the key to driving economic growth past the "dead cat bounce" which sprouted this past Spring.

     Former President William "Bill" Clinton may have granted executive clemency to one Wall Street inside trader, Salim "Sandy" B. Lewis, but the latter calls a "fool's game" regulating the nation's financial affairs based upon "wishing for improvement and managing by the Dow's swings."

     Lewis and William D. Cohan, a Fortune contributing editor & Wall Street banker suggest gutting the current system in favor of one which "rewards taking prudent risks, allocates capital where it is needed, allows all investors to get accurate and timely financial information and increases value to shareholders and creditors." 

     The pair knows that America's credit card love affair with free money which made paper millionaires of millions be rooted out in favor of prudence.  

     Obama Administration Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's best efforts may be thwarted during quiet conversation cocktail parties, lavish entertainment & a few carefully chosen gestures exchanged by long acquaintance. Generous Wall Street contributions which fueled both political parties to fame & fortune bought political access which must be bridled back in the interests of the nation's future financial health.

     Changes in the so-called "mark-to-market" Financial Accounting Standards Board rule proves illustrative of how bankers persuaded regulators to allow them to polish up the rusty facade of non-performing loans & illiquid assets.

     As with the tale of the frog & the scorpion, often incorrectly attributed to the Greek poet Aesop, there's an insuppressible nature in all of us from which the public must be protected. 

 

Mark Arnold Fredrickson

President

Northwest Area Citizens Organization

markfredrickson@earthlink.net  

     As sunrise greeted Under the Big Top diners on Chicago's Northwest Side, America's recessionary love affair with the picture show offered a cinematic solution to the State of Illinois' budgetary crisis & even the nation's War on Terror.

     Actor Johnny Depp's portrayal of Depression era bank robber John Dillinger in the Public Enemies blockbuster explained Dillinger's success by his own self-restraint & the generous quid pro quo cooperation of Chicago's organized crime syndicate. Dillinger ingratiated himself with others & avoided capture due largely to the public's fascination with his daring do & grandiose lifestyle. 

     Mutually, all of the parties in this art decco melodrama reaped rewards. For Dillinger & for his benefactors, the bank  robber's crime spree well-suited each of the parties. The public got a thrill, mob bookmakers distracted the cops, saloon owners spiced up their night life & Dillinger grabbed the loot. 

     The party finally ended in Dillinger's own pool of blood in front of Chicago's Lincoln Avenue Biograph Theatre. G-man J. Edgar Hoover's publicist cleverly spun a path to stardom for Hoover, expanding federal law enforcement jurisdiction for the once frustrated FBI pencil-pusher.  

     Organized crime bookies weighed in on the side of their recurring revenue & left Dillinger to be cut down in a hail of bullets. 

     In another theatre, just down the street, Illinois State's legislative leaders mixed their own melodrama. Campaign finance practice which puts legislative leadership's boot to the throats of all but the most independent State legislators, produced a nominal budget which failed to restrain runaway payroll & employee pension spending. The Chicago Tribune (07/02/09) summed it up as a "profile in failure" & pictured this Irish-American legislative leadership triumverate atop its daily newspaper Editorials section.

     Legislators find themselves caught in a political version of the Giant City State Park's rock climbing formation--fat man's squeeze. Tax recipients fight to keep the government spending gravy train rolling, while taxpayers expect to get a big income tax hike. 

     Fifty per cent!  

     How shall we break out of this legislative budget impasse?

     Criticism not withstanding, two examples of mutual gains bargaining may resolve this apparent polarization.

     On the academic front, we learn how middling students were admitted to the University of Illinois law school in exchange for public & private law firm employment for U of I graduates.

     In a federal courtroom, Dr. Robert Weinstein's wire-tapped sage advice to arrange a "quid pro quo in another world" suggests that taking a broader view of the mutual interests of all parties may invite resolution of even the most adverse circumstance.

     One might marvel @ Chicago's River North serial development just a generation ago. Consecutive high-rise condominium projects sprouted from a once cozy low-rise building neighborhood where once parking was as affordable as the lunches & beverages served @ family-owned diners & cafes. Coincidentally, in tearing down one man's paradise & to build another's parking lot, the same cast of characters convened for a mutually beneficial business arrangment--architects, engineers, developers, parking operators & realtors. The Belden's exterior Cancun maroon color scheme unified this building's appearance.  

     While we may applaud these arrangments as either business savvy or tactical cunning, it now appears that the University of Illinois deferred the dreams of some for the benefit of others & that Dr. Weinstein's advice enabled his partner--lawyer Stuart Levine--to steal millions of dollars from Illinois public employee retirees. 

     Resolution of the State's budgetary impasse & even South Asian peace is possible with the use of the mutual gains bargaining where, instead of getting mired in party positions, we examine the interests & find a way where all may win.

    Might it take a Swede to show an Irishman the way?

 

Mark A. Fredrickson

President

Northwest Area Citizens Organization

 

P.S. This blogger managed a series of high-rise residential, commercial, institutional, education & governmental construction projects, including several in Chicago's Loop & residential Near North neighborhood during the 1990's.