A Perfect Economic Storm Hits Greenwich
An email to your scribe:
--- On Mon, 10/11/10, Lucia Jansen wrote: From: Lucia Jansen Subject: The RTM October call To: William Clark Cc: Valerie Stauffer Date: Monday, October 11, 2010, 11:46 PM
Hello Dear Bill,
A little heads up from your former District 7 friends. Check out our website www.rtmdistrict7.org and see the Sense of the Meeting Resolution and Historical Budget Report that was written and used as a reference point. Do you remember when I asked you some questions about the Town's labor....well, since then is all the research discovered. I think you will enjoy from at least a historical point of view. I would love your feedback.
Warmest regards,
Lucia
And his reply:
Dear L,
I think this is a fabulous piece of work. As you know, Greenwich has the highest per-capita number of town employees in the State of Connecticut, if not the nation. I believe we have twice as many municipal employees per capita as the next-highest town on the list.
Labor costs are going to kill this town. Unfunded pension liabilities will bury the corpse.
Meanwhile, the US dollar is nearing a post-war low as the printing presses turn out TARP money day and night. We're right on track to follow the lead of Zimbabwe and the Weimar Republic.
Yet interest rates are at historic lows, and, from what I'm reading today, about to go still lower. What should a sensible person/municipality do at this juncture?
The answer is simple: borrow all you/we can at today's non-existent interest rates, build our town's capital projects with the proceeds, and pay off the loan over 15-30 years with vastly inflated, not to say worthless, dollars. It's a complete no-brainer.
Of course, many of the people in charge of the town's future welfare have no brains. P&Z, for example, neither plans nor zones. Enforcement of building codes and other municipal ordinances is almost non-existent. But the real problem is that the finance board--the BET--seems to have no glimmer of the fact that Greenwich has an historic once-in-a-century opportunity to turn this perfect economic storm to our long-term advantage.
I feel like John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness. As he must have wondered, so too do I: is anybody out there listening?
Feel free to circulate this to the District, along with my best regards to the members.
Best always,
Bill
--- On Mon, 10/11/10, Lucia Jansen wrote: From: Lucia Jansen Subject: The RTM October call To: William Clark Cc: Valerie Stauffer Date: Monday, October 11, 2010, 11:46 PM
Hello Dear Bill,
A little heads up from your former District 7 friends. Check out our website www.rtmdistrict7.org and see the Sense of the Meeting Resolution and Historical Budget Report that was written and used as a reference point. Do you remember when I asked you some questions about the Town's labor....well, since then is all the research discovered. I think you will enjoy from at least a historical point of view. I would love your feedback.
Warmest regards,
Lucia
And his reply:
Dear L,
I think this is a fabulous piece of work. As you know, Greenwich has the highest per-capita number of town employees in the State of Connecticut, if not the nation. I believe we have twice as many municipal employees per capita as the next-highest town on the list.
Labor costs are going to kill this town. Unfunded pension liabilities will bury the corpse.
Meanwhile, the US dollar is nearing a post-war low as the printing presses turn out TARP money day and night. We're right on track to follow the lead of Zimbabwe and the Weimar Republic.
Yet interest rates are at historic lows, and, from what I'm reading today, about to go still lower. What should a sensible person/municipality do at this juncture?
The answer is simple: borrow all you/we can at today's non-existent interest rates, build our town's capital projects with the proceeds, and pay off the loan over 15-30 years with vastly inflated, not to say worthless, dollars. It's a complete no-brainer.
Of course, many of the people in charge of the town's future welfare have no brains. P&Z, for example, neither plans nor zones. Enforcement of building codes and other municipal ordinances is almost non-existent. But the real problem is that the finance board--the BET--seems to have no glimmer of the fact that Greenwich has an historic once-in-a-century opportunity to turn this perfect economic storm to our long-term advantage.
I feel like John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness. As he must have wondered, so too do I: is anybody out there listening?
Feel free to circulate this to the District, along with my best regards to the members.
Best always,
Bill
posted by Bill Clark | 10/14/2010 12:23:00 PM
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