Chicago, where our friend Arrow lives, shuts down to save money

Meatpie

OWNER/ADMIN
Staff member
Administrator
Joined
Oct 7, 2008
Messages
59,850
Location
Bulgaria
_46221200_007806036-1.jpg


State workers will not be paid on the Reduced Service days.

Public services in the US city of Chicago, where Arrow lives, have been shut down for a day as the authorities face an expected budget shortfall of some $300m (£184m).

Non-essential services such as rubbish collections, libraries and health centres were closed, in the first of three planned reduced service days.


City authorities hope the move, with workers taking an enforced unpaid holiday, will save an estimated $8.3m.


Other cities in the US have already introduced similar measures.
The savings from Chicago's reduced service days are small compared with the overall deficit.


But in a statement last week, Chicago's Mayor Richard M Daley thanked state employees for their "sacrifice".


"Every dollar we save from these measures helps to save jobs, and in the long-term, maintain service for Chicagoans," he said.
"This plan engages most civilian employees to accept cuts and to be part of the solution to our budget crisis."


Two more reduced service days have been scheduled - one for 27 November, the day after Thanksgiving and another for Christmas Eve, 24 December.
Workers have also been asked to take a series of unpaid days off and holidays without salary.


Chicago is one of a number of US cities and states to introduce closures and furlough days to address deficits.


In California, which has a budget deficit of some $24.3bn (£14.5bn) and has declared a fiscal emergency, state offices have been ordered to close for three days each month.


Michigan has said it will not pay its state employees on six days up to the end of September, to save nearly $22m.

(BBC)
 
Yes, PieMan, it is TRUE

Yes, it is so true, PieMan ; Chicago government closed yesterday to save $$$$.

The financial experts are very worried that the economy here will grow worse; consumers are not spending $$$ to buy new goods, even retail goods, and without $$$ in the economy, it just continues to sink.

Yesterday the USA Stock Market went down a lot.

Hard times in the USA, I lost my job two weeks ago, "laid off." Hard to find new work, I am working with all my contacts...but no one wants to hire new workers, employers want to save $$$ because they are not making good profits....except the health insurance companies, who RIP off Americans with high monthly health insurance premiums since the government here provides no public health insurance to healthy people.

Health Care Reform is being debated now in the USA but the BIG RICH health insurance companies are "buying" people off to go make trouble at Town Hall Meetings Members of Congress are hosting throughout the USA on Health Care Reform. They curse and swear, threaten violence, FIGHT with the police.....all driven to do so by GREEDY Health Insurance Executives....last year, get this....MAJOR USA Health Insurance Executives made an average of $11.1 MILLION in salary !!

All on the backs of sick and dying Americans...and if you cannot pay for health insurance, then they KICK you off, also, if you become too ILL, they KICK you off because you are costing them to LOSE their PROFITS...and you can JUST DIE !! THIS in the USA ! !!!

AND if you lose your job like I did, I only can keep my health insurance going for 18 months, then I WILL lose MINE, too...and NO private health insurance companies will sell me health insurance because I have PRE-EXISTING MEDICAL CONDITIONS...which they do not want to pay for, and I can just DIE, too !

The only way I will be able to get health insurance here IF I cannot find a new job WITH health insurance (and employers here ARE NOT REQUIRED to offer health insurance to their workers)....is to apply for DISABILITY from the federal governement, Social Security Disability, but I would only be able to get MEDICAID and then MEDICARE if I WIN my CLAIM for disability benefits....which requires a LAWYER who DEMANDS big $$$ to get paid, too !

The USA is not like everyone think it is; it is very HARD here, all about $$$$$, if you have no $$$$ or even if you have lots of $$$ but lose your job, you are SCREWED in the USA !!!

We ADMIRE the UK .... there, everyone has health care, through the NHS...and even up above us, in CANADA, all citizens there HAVE health care....but we are not able to get it here, our Congressmen are BOUGHT OFF by the RICH HEALTH INSURANCE EXECUTIVES to vote against it, and get this....OUR CONGRESSMEN get FREE health CARE that WE, the people here, pay for...yet when it comes time for US to get the SAME health care as Members of Congress get and the U S A President get, THEY SAY NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WAAAAAY !

The USA is VERY CORRUPT !! It is not a very nice country, you really need to remember that. It can be a VERY WICKED PLACE !!!

And we have a SOARING crime rate here; shootings all the time. Just two days ago, a 23 yr old was SHOT dead when he aimed his gun at the police for wanting to take his street drugs.

Every weekend in Chicago, at least six to 12 people are KILLED DEAD by gang
drive-by shootings ! Even little children are shot, it is unbelievable.....the gangs shoot bullets RIGHT INTO YOUR HOUSE for the the HELL of it !!

This whole country is turning so ugly; very bad times, here.
:eek::sm (41)::sm (41)::sm (41):
 
Very interesting post as always Arrow thanks.

Sad to hear things are going haywire in Chicagoland. Don't they release morgue photos of the gangsters?

Chicago is renowned the world over for its nasty gangsters.

I am famliar with the prolebem in the US healthcare system, the BBC have aired extensive reports on how bad the whole situation has become. They showed a young woman, who had a job and an insurance, but she was left die from cancer beacause they wanted $30,000 for surgery and her insurance didn't cover that surgery!

The woman didn't have the money so was left to die and cried on the BBC as millions of viewers wathced.

TRAGIC AND SAD.

In my country we have a National Health Insurance system. You can go to any hospital and they don't have the right to refuse treatment.

Problem is some drugs are very expensive and if you don't have the money to buy them you are fucked.

Dental care here is also very good.

Basic procedures are free but if its something more complicated you need to pay.

I had a terribly surgery in 2007. They pulled two of my wisdom teeth and cut me with a scalpel and I bled like an autopsy dude.

And the pain, oh God.

So painful, I seriously considered jumping out of the window and put myself out of this torture.

One tooth got stuck, so they had to cut it in half.

Ontop of that you have to pay $50 for this procedure as it is not covered by the NHS.

Things are not good anywhere in the world now.
 
Arrow, sorry things are hard for you.
And thanks for spotting the truth about the UK and our NHS - a lot of what's being said in the US about our system is totally untrue. it's a good system overall, especially for serious illnesses or accidents - whioever you are, you get quick good (normally) treatment, no payment involved. It's less good for chronic but less serious problems, or for mentl health - that it's improving. Same goes for most of western and northern Europe - the systems work in different ways, but you don't hve to be rich to get good treatment.
 
Things are no better here out West. The Arizona state government is still fighting over this year's budget and the fiscal year started on July 1. They are just cutting programs left and right, willy-nilly, in an attempt to try to balance the budget. Schools are taking the brunt of it. Violence seems to be on the rise, though it is Summer - the season where parents feel free to leave their young children in sealed, locked cars while they go to the gym or run in to the store and then wonder while some passerby has broken in to their car. Or where they pay no attention to their children and let them play unattended and get run over in the streets or backed over as someone backs out of a driveway or they end up drowned in a pool. It should be open season on parents. Bitter, party of one. But I digress. Bodies have been found in trash bins, dumpsters, and laying in random front yards in upscale neighborhoods. No pictures – the news authorities do not want to upset the delicate dispositions of the visitors to our state with all of the violence. And in Arizona, we do like capital punishment. If they could, I think they would go back to the old West days where someone was tried, convicted, and then summarily hanged. It is not quite as bad as Texas, where executions are the official state pastime. The killing of police officers seems to be a career out here. I have not seen this many die in such a short span and I have lived in and around the big cities – NY, LA, etc. Lest we not forget, good ‘ol Sherriff Joe and his tent city and required pink underwear. Instead of dealing with the true criminals, he is hell bent on arresting those breaking the law by being here illegally as since they are here illegally, they will be inclined to do illegal things. Sounds logical, doesn’t it?! It has always amazed me that even our friends up north can have national healthcare, yet in the USA it eludes us. Granted, the Canadians and those with national programs do “pay” for it in the form of higher taxes, but at least they get something for their money. We just keep on bailing out companies under the guise that we are staving off the collapse of all economic markets as we know them to be and keep getting shafted in long-run. The economy is not getting better. Just look at what has happened to Arrow. Folks are running scared. The stimulus payments did not work. And the government keeps fighting amongst themselves, listening to the highest bidder about what way to go on matters such as healthcare. Maybe it is all a conspiracy theory and they really want to thin down the population by using methodologies such as “survival of the fittest”? They just announced that there will be an insufficient amount of H1N1 vaccine available in October nor are they sure that it will actually work. Ah, the US tax dollar at work. Like Arrow said, all is not peaches and cream and greener grass here in the USA. We are our own worst enemy. We put on our pretty face when dealing with the world and then neglect our own. No place is perfect, unless you live in a Walgreens’ ad – and those have been taken off of the air. (For our friends outside the US or those who do not know what Walgreens’ is - They are a US drug store chain and have/had a campaign where the premise was there was a place called ‘Perfect’ where everything was perfect – everyone had everything they needed and all was bliss. Since no one could actually live in ‘Perfect’, the next best thing was the ability to go to your local Walgreens’ to shop.) Here is a novel idea. Maybe if all of the governments actually worked together instead of trying to outdo each other and worry about who may or not be a terrorist, etc. we all could enjoy the benefits instead of trying to place the blame on one another. Just a thought. But, what do I know.
:sm (41): :sm (20): :sm (30):
 
Back
Top