Purchased from Totokaelo last year. Awesome basic dress, with hidden pockets. I should have ordered one size smaller. Description from their site:
Sleeveless dress in a soft cotton-lyocell blend fabric. Crew neck with elastic waist. Side slit pockets. Slips on. Machine wash. 67% lyocell, 33% cotton. Portugal.
Color:black Material: lyocell/cotton Size: 36 (fits like small/medium, see measures from Totokaelo site) Condition: Worn twice, like new condition
Paid: $140
Asking: $90 + 6 shipping Listing ends: March 8 Please leave your email in the comments section if interested. Thanks for looking!
I bought a pair of these amazing Vince flats last year and they were my absolute favorite pair of shoes—like fancy TOMS but somehow MORE comfortable. I tracked down this pair at the end of the season, but unfortunately didn't realize they were a half size smaller than my others, and it was final sale. These are perfect shoes for spring/summer. Description from Saks: Buttery nubuck leather forms this casual design, constructed with a fold-down back for added versatility. Leather upper Leather lining Rubber sole Padded insole Imported
Color:taupe/tan with slight iridescence Material: super soft leather with rubber sole Size: US 7 EURO 37.5 (these are a 7, not 7.5) Condition: New without box
Paid: $150
Asking: $70 + shipping Listing ends: March 8 Please leave your email in the comments section if interested. Thanks for looking!
Last week I wrote an article for the Illinois Policy Institute on the hugely unfunded and deteriorating nature of numerous Illinois' pension systems.
I will post the article on Monday.
My article was on state pension systems, not Chicago's, and was written well ahead of downgrades of Chicago's debt by Moody's on Friday. I was not surprised to see the downgrade.
Chicago had its credit rating cut to within two steps of junk by Moody’s Investors Service because of mounting pension liabilities, underscoring the city’s fiscal stress as Mayor Rahm Emanuel faces an unprecedented runoff.
The one-step reduction to Baa2 affects $8.3 billion of general-obligation bonds, which were already the lowest-rated among the 90 biggest U.S. cities, excluding Detroit. The outlook remains negative, signaling more cuts are possible, New York-based Moody’s said Friday in a report.
“The city’s credit quality could weaken as unfunded pension liabilities grow and exert increased pressure on the city’s operating budget,” Moody’s analysts Matthew Butler and Rachel Cortez wrote. “We expect substantial growth in unfunded pension liabilities even if the city’s recent pension reforms survive an ongoing legal challenge.”
The third-most-populous U.S. city has $20 billion in unfunded pension obligations that it can’t address without the approval of the state legislature. State lawmakers in June restructured two city pension plans with about $9.4 billion in underfunded liabilities for about 60,000 municipal workers and retirees by making them pay more and reducing benefits. The changes didn’t apply to the police and fire systems.
Labor unions in Chicago sued to block the law in December, and the litigation was put on hold pending the outcome of an Illinois Supreme Court ruling on a state pension overhaul.
Chicago May Owe Wall Street $58 Million After Moody’s Rating Cut
Chicago may have to pay $58 million to unwind interest-rate swaps after Moody’s Investors Service cut the city’s credit rating within two steps of junk because of mounting pension liabilities.
The reduction on Friday to Baa2 affects $8.3 billion of general-obligation bonds, which were already the lowest-rated among the 90 biggest U.S. cities, excluding Detroit. The outlook remains negative, signaling more cuts are possible, underscoring the city’s fiscal stress as Mayor Rahm Emanuel faces a runoff election.
Because of stipulations in four of the city’s swaps contracts, which it entered into as a hedge, the rating cut may terminate the agreements early and trigger the $58 million cost, Moody’s said in a report. The city is also closer to ratings that may force an additional $133 million of payments.
“This is a very significant, negative development for the city of Chicago’s financial position,” Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a nonpartisan research group in Chicago, said in an interview. “This is a very big deal.”
Swaps agreements, which issuers enter into with banks, exchange fixed interest payments for floating ones. They’re designed to cut borrowing costs. They can backfire when interest rates move in an unexpected direction, as happened in the U.S. with the Federal Reserve keeping its overnight target close to zero since 2008. Most swaps can be ended if one party fails to maintain a minimum credit rating, requiring payment of the entire amount due.
Chicago has 15 agreements tied to variable-rate general-obligation debt and one to variable-rate sales-tax bonds, according to Moody’s. While the company said the city has the resources to cover the $58 million payment, it said the cut moves Chicago closer to further termination payments triggered by going below Baa2 or Baa3.
Chicago, like Illinois, has struggled with rising pension costs. The city is obligated to pay $600 million into four pension funds in next year’s budget, though Standard & Poor’s said the contribution may be delayed after Feb. 24 elections led to a runoff vote between Emanuel and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
Chicago's finances are already sagging under an unfunded pension liability Moody's has pegged at $32 billion and that is equal to eight times the city's operating revenue. The city has a $300 million structural deficit in its $3.53 billion operating budget and is required by an Illinois law to boost the 2016 contribution to its police and fire pension funds by $550 million.
Cost-saving reforms for the city's other two pension funds, which face insolvency in a matter of years, are being challenged in court by labor unions and retirees.
State funding due Chicago would drop by $210 million between July 1 and the end of 2016 under a plan proposed by Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner.
Moody's said Chicago's rating could be cut if Illinois courts find pension reform laws enacted to shore up the state's financially ailing pension system and for two of Chicago's retirement systems are unconstitutional. A ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court on one of the laws could come as early as this spring.
S&P warned of a multi-notch downgrade if the city fails to come up with a sustainable plan this year to pay its escalating pension contributions.
In a report, Moody's noted that the downgrade to Baa2 moves the city closer to termination of 11 more swaps deals. Termination on those contracts would potentially cost Chicago an additional $133 million, Moody's noted.
Snake Oil and Swaps
When a snake oil salesman at the country fair says his potion will cure you of whatever ails you, you can rest assured the following three things will happen if you try some.
It will taste terrible.
It will not work.
You will wish you didn't buy it.
Similarly, when Wall Street peddles swaps, the following things are highly likely, if not virtually guaranteed.
The contracts will be extremely one-sided with many loopholes for the Street and none for the city.
The swaps will cost the city that enters them lots of money, and the termination fees will be excessive.
Cities will wish they never entered into the agreement.
Musical Tribute
As music fans might have expected, I have musical tribute to honor the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois. Although I like "My Kind of Town", I have a more appropriate offering in mind.
A significant part of the world-famous air pollution choking the Chinese capital of Beijing actually comes from nearby Hebei province. Hebei is a truly Dickensian place, with coal-fired plants blackening the skies, with additional help from steel mills, cement plants and more. The excesses of the industrial revolution never really left us; they just picked up sticks and moved to China. Given mounting concerns over pollution and overproduction, Hebei has been marked for dialing back of its dark, Satanic mills that manufacture hell on earth:
Last year the province’s economy was one of China’s worst-performing, growing 6.5 percent, below its 8 percent target. Hebei’s mills produce some 25 percent of China’s more than 800 million tons of steel. The province is one of the country’s biggest glass and cement manufacturers. All three industries face serious oversupply, much of it built up since cheap loans became available after the 2008 global financial crisis. China’s steel factories run at 72 percent of capacity: A mill generally has to run at 80 percent to make a profit.
Under pressure from top leaders, provincial authorities have promised to cut capacity in steelmaking and cement manufacturing by 60 million metric tons each by the end of 2017 and reduce coal use by 40 million tons.
The future, supposedly, lies in smaller steel plants--mini-mills, if you will--closer to the coasts which receive coal from Australia:
By the time Hebei finishes restructuring its industries, an estimated 200,000 steel jobs will be gone, the Hebei Provincial Development and Reform Commission says. The factory shutdowns fit with a national plan to consolidate steel production in larger, more efficient mills closer to the ports that bring in Australian iron ore, says Michael Komesaroff, principal of Urandaline Investments, a Melbourne-based consulting firm. “The transition is coming at a much faster rate and on a larger scale than had been previously anticipated. That’s making it much harder for everyone to manage,” Komesaroff says.
It will be interesting to see if China can transition from Hebei's high-pollution, heavy-industry model of economic growth since it epitomizes the PRC's old-style "commanding heights" approach, dominated as it is by state-planning. Having created a overproducing, super-polluting, Hebei, can the same sort of centralized planning deliver on a lean, mean and green Hebei? Perhaps state direction has run its course; or perhaps not. At any rate, the preponderance of half-finished apartment complexes also speaks to the misallocation of credit which has occurred post-global financial crisis in China to accompany the ills mentioned earlier.
This entire notion that you can take bad assets from a bank and put them in a "bad bank" to make everything well, is ridiculous. Today we see yet another failure of the construct.
Austria's Financial Market Authority stepped in on Sunday to wind down "bad bank" Heta Asset Resolution and imposed a moratorium on debt repayments by the vehicle set up last year from the remnants of defunct lender Hypo Alpe Adria.
The step, allowed by new legislation that gives banking supervisors more power to intervene, followed an outside audit of Heta's balance sheet that exposed a capital hole of up to 7.6 billion euros ($8.51 billion) which the government was not prepared to fill, the FMA said.
The moratorium on repayment of principal and capital lasts until May 31, 2016, giving the FMA time to work out a detailed plan to ensure equal treatment of all creditors, the FMA said in a decree published on its website.
More than 9.8 billion euros worth of debt is affected, including senior notes worth 450 million due on March 6 and 500 million on March 20.
The finance ministry noted that creditors can be forced to contribute to the costs of winding down Heta - or "bailed in" - under new European legislation that Austria adopted this year so that taxpayers do not have to shoulder the entire burden.
Not Insolvent?!
In an absurd statement, the finance ministry added "Heta was not insolvent".
In summary: Repayments on Heta's bonds have been suspended, there is a capital shortfall of $8.5 billion, a bail-in is needed, and taxpayers do not have to share the "entire burden", but the bank is not insolvent.
And by the way, isn't separating out the "bad bank" supposed to make what's left of the "good bank", good? I ask because Heta is what's left of the "defunct" lender Hypo Alpe Adria.
It seems the good bank and the bad bank are now effectively defunct.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
H by Hudson Bronte boots in black, size 38. These have the perfect toe shape and a foxy (and practical) 2" stacked heel. They go with everything and look super sophisticated.
Barely worn (approx. 5 times). In great condition; no flaws or scuffs. Paid $315, asking $250 + shipping.
Listing ends March 8.
Please contact lisakatrindobbin (at)gmail.comif you have any questions or would like to see more photos.
Purchased from Totokaelo last year. Awesome basic dress, with hidden pockets. I should have ordered one size smaller. Description from their site:
Sleeveless dress in a soft cotton-lyocell blend fabric. Crew neck with elastic waist. Side slit pockets. Slips on. Machine wash. 67% lyocell, 33% cotton. Portugal.
Color:black Material: lyocell/cotton Size: 36 (fits like small/medium, see measures from Totokaelo site) Condition: Worn twice, like new condition
Paid: $140
Asking: $90 + 6 shipping Listing ends: March 8 Please leave your email in the comments section if interested. Thanks for looking!
I bought a pair of these amazing Vince flats last year and they were my absolute favorite pair of shoes—like fancy TOMS but somehow MORE comfortable. I tracked down this pair at the end of the season, but unfortunately didn't realize they were a half size smaller than my others, and it was final sale. These are perfect shoes for spring/summer. Description from Saks: Buttery nubuck leather forms this casual design, constructed with a fold-down back for added versatility. Leather upper Leather lining Rubber sole Padded insole Imported
Color:taupe/tan with slight iridescence Material: super soft leather with rubber sole Size: US 7 EURO 37.5 (these are a 7, not 7.5) Condition: New without box
Paid: $150
Asking: $70 + shipping Listing ends: March 8 Please leave your email in the comments section if interested. Thanks for looking!
Last week I wrote an article for the Illinois Policy Institute on the hugely unfunded and deteriorating nature of numerous Illinois' pension systems.
I will post the article on Monday.
My article was on state pension systems, not Chicago's, and was written well ahead of downgrades of Chicago's debt by Moody's on Friday. I was not surprised to see the downgrade.
Chicago had its credit rating cut to within two steps of junk by Moody’s Investors Service because of mounting pension liabilities, underscoring the city’s fiscal stress as Mayor Rahm Emanuel faces an unprecedented runoff.
The one-step reduction to Baa2 affects $8.3 billion of general-obligation bonds, which were already the lowest-rated among the 90 biggest U.S. cities, excluding Detroit. The outlook remains negative, signaling more cuts are possible, New York-based Moody’s said Friday in a report.
“The city’s credit quality could weaken as unfunded pension liabilities grow and exert increased pressure on the city’s operating budget,” Moody’s analysts Matthew Butler and Rachel Cortez wrote. “We expect substantial growth in unfunded pension liabilities even if the city’s recent pension reforms survive an ongoing legal challenge.”
The third-most-populous U.S. city has $20 billion in unfunded pension obligations that it can’t address without the approval of the state legislature. State lawmakers in June restructured two city pension plans with about $9.4 billion in underfunded liabilities for about 60,000 municipal workers and retirees by making them pay more and reducing benefits. The changes didn’t apply to the police and fire systems.
Labor unions in Chicago sued to block the law in December, and the litigation was put on hold pending the outcome of an Illinois Supreme Court ruling on a state pension overhaul.
Chicago May Owe Wall Street $58 Million After Moody’s Rating Cut
Chicago may have to pay $58 million to unwind interest-rate swaps after Moody’s Investors Service cut the city’s credit rating within two steps of junk because of mounting pension liabilities.
The reduction on Friday to Baa2 affects $8.3 billion of general-obligation bonds, which were already the lowest-rated among the 90 biggest U.S. cities, excluding Detroit. The outlook remains negative, signaling more cuts are possible, underscoring the city’s fiscal stress as Mayor Rahm Emanuel faces a runoff election.
Because of stipulations in four of the city’s swaps contracts, which it entered into as a hedge, the rating cut may terminate the agreements early and trigger the $58 million cost, Moody’s said in a report. The city is also closer to ratings that may force an additional $133 million of payments.
“This is a very significant, negative development for the city of Chicago’s financial position,” Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a nonpartisan research group in Chicago, said in an interview. “This is a very big deal.”
Swaps agreements, which issuers enter into with banks, exchange fixed interest payments for floating ones. They’re designed to cut borrowing costs. They can backfire when interest rates move in an unexpected direction, as happened in the U.S. with the Federal Reserve keeping its overnight target close to zero since 2008. Most swaps can be ended if one party fails to maintain a minimum credit rating, requiring payment of the entire amount due.
Chicago has 15 agreements tied to variable-rate general-obligation debt and one to variable-rate sales-tax bonds, according to Moody’s. While the company said the city has the resources to cover the $58 million payment, it said the cut moves Chicago closer to further termination payments triggered by going below Baa2 or Baa3.
Chicago, like Illinois, has struggled with rising pension costs. The city is obligated to pay $600 million into four pension funds in next year’s budget, though Standard & Poor’s said the contribution may be delayed after Feb. 24 elections led to a runoff vote between Emanuel and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
Chicago's finances are already sagging under an unfunded pension liability Moody's has pegged at $32 billion and that is equal to eight times the city's operating revenue. The city has a $300 million structural deficit in its $3.53 billion operating budget and is required by an Illinois law to boost the 2016 contribution to its police and fire pension funds by $550 million.
Cost-saving reforms for the city's other two pension funds, which face insolvency in a matter of years, are being challenged in court by labor unions and retirees.
State funding due Chicago would drop by $210 million between July 1 and the end of 2016 under a plan proposed by Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner.
Moody's said Chicago's rating could be cut if Illinois courts find pension reform laws enacted to shore up the state's financially ailing pension system and for two of Chicago's retirement systems are unconstitutional. A ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court on one of the laws could come as early as this spring.
S&P warned of a multi-notch downgrade if the city fails to come up with a sustainable plan this year to pay its escalating pension contributions.
In a report, Moody's noted that the downgrade to Baa2 moves the city closer to termination of 11 more swaps deals. Termination on those contracts would potentially cost Chicago an additional $133 million, Moody's noted.
Snake Oil and Swaps
When a snake oil salesman at the country fair says his potion will cure you of whatever ails you, you can rest assured the following three things will happen if you try some.
It will taste terrible.
It will not work.
You will wish you didn't buy it.
Similarly, when Wall Street peddles swaps, the following things are highly likely, if not virtually guaranteed.
The contracts will be extremely one-sided with many loopholes for the Street and none for the city.
The swaps will cost the city that enters them lots of money, and the termination fees will be excessive.
Cities will wish they never entered into the agreement.
Musical Tribute
As music fans might have expected, I have musical tribute to honor the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois. Although I like "My Kind of Town", I have a more appropriate offering in mind.
A significant part of the world-famous air pollution choking the Chinese capital of Beijing actually comes from nearby Hebei province. Hebei is a truly Dickensian place, with coal-fired plants blackening the skies, with additional help from steel mills, cement plants and more. The excesses of the industrial revolution never really left us; they just picked up sticks and moved to China. Given mounting concerns over pollution and overproduction, Hebei has been marked for dialing back of its dark, Satanic mills that manufacture hell on earth:
Last year the province’s economy was one of China’s worst-performing, growing 6.5 percent, below its 8 percent target. Hebei’s mills produce some 25 percent of China’s more than 800 million tons of steel. The province is one of the country’s biggest glass and cement manufacturers. All three industries face serious oversupply, much of it built up since cheap loans became available after the 2008 global financial crisis. China’s steel factories run at 72 percent of capacity: A mill generally has to run at 80 percent to make a profit.
Under pressure from top leaders, provincial authorities have promised to cut capacity in steelmaking and cement manufacturing by 60 million metric tons each by the end of 2017 and reduce coal use by 40 million tons.
The future, supposedly, lies in smaller steel plants--mini-mills, if you will--closer to the coasts which receive coal from Australia:
By the time Hebei finishes restructuring its industries, an estimated 200,000 steel jobs will be gone, the Hebei Provincial Development and Reform Commission says. The factory shutdowns fit with a national plan to consolidate steel production in larger, more efficient mills closer to the ports that bring in Australian iron ore, says Michael Komesaroff, principal of Urandaline Investments, a Melbourne-based consulting firm. “The transition is coming at a much faster rate and on a larger scale than had been previously anticipated. That’s making it much harder for everyone to manage,” Komesaroff says.
It will be interesting to see if China can transition from Hebei's high-pollution, heavy-industry model of economic growth since it epitomizes the PRC's old-style "commanding heights" approach, dominated as it is by state-planning. Having created a overproducing, super-polluting, Hebei, can the same sort of centralized planning deliver on a lean, mean and green Hebei? Perhaps state direction has run its course; or perhaps not. At any rate, the preponderance of half-finished apartment complexes also speaks to the misallocation of credit which has occurred post-global financial crisis in China to accompany the ills mentioned earlier.
This entire notion that you can take bad assets from a bank and put them in a "bad bank" to make everything well, is ridiculous. Today we see yet another failure of the construct.
Austria's Financial Market Authority stepped in on Sunday to wind down "bad bank" Heta Asset Resolution and imposed a moratorium on debt repayments by the vehicle set up last year from the remnants of defunct lender Hypo Alpe Adria.
The step, allowed by new legislation that gives banking supervisors more power to intervene, followed an outside audit of Heta's balance sheet that exposed a capital hole of up to 7.6 billion euros ($8.51 billion) which the government was not prepared to fill, the FMA said.
The moratorium on repayment of principal and capital lasts until May 31, 2016, giving the FMA time to work out a detailed plan to ensure equal treatment of all creditors, the FMA said in a decree published on its website.
More than 9.8 billion euros worth of debt is affected, including senior notes worth 450 million due on March 6 and 500 million on March 20.
The finance ministry noted that creditors can be forced to contribute to the costs of winding down Heta - or "bailed in" - under new European legislation that Austria adopted this year so that taxpayers do not have to shoulder the entire burden.
Not Insolvent?!
In an absurd statement, the finance ministry added "Heta was not insolvent".
In summary: Repayments on Heta's bonds have been suspended, there is a capital shortfall of $8.5 billion, a bail-in is needed, and taxpayers do not have to share the "entire burden", but the bank is not insolvent.
And by the way, isn't separating out the "bad bank" supposed to make what's left of the "good bank", good? I ask because Heta is what's left of the "defunct" lender Hypo Alpe Adria.
It seems the good bank and the bad bank are now effectively defunct.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
H by Hudson Bronte boots in black, size 38. These have the perfect toe shape and a foxy (and practical) 2" stacked heel. They go with everything and look super sophisticated.
Barely worn (approx. 5 times). In great condition; no flaws or scuffs. Paid $315, asking $250 + shipping.
Listing ends March 8.
Please contact lisakatrindobbin (at)gmail.comif you have any questions or would like to see more photos.
