Mark Glennon

The pandemic may be over and schools open, but the harm done to our children will be permanent, particularly when it comes to education. A major new study by researchers at Stanford University provides a needed reminder of why we must never make the same mistakes again. During the pandemic, about 17 million students left the K-12 system with “significant learning deficits. This group on average has little chance of recovering,” says the study. Sadly, the study also says, we have few means of rev…

“Cities such as San Francisco and Chicago are trying to save their downtown office districtsfrom spiraling into a doom loop.... St. Louis is already trapped in one. This is the future for America’s downtowns if they can’t reinvent themselves and halt the downward spiral.”

To pay for job growth in government, health care and social services, we need other employment to grow at least as fast. It’s that simple because private sector employers and

To pay for job growth in government, healthcare and social services, we need other employment to grow at least as fast. It’s that simple because private sector employers and employees pay most of the needed taxes and health insurance costs. For that reason, this, too, is simple: Illinois’ path is unsustainable. All of our job growth is coming in government, healthcare and social services while other sectors are shrinking. That can’t last. At Wirepoints, we recently took a close look at Illinois…

The club is growing.

Government, health and social service jobs far more than accounted for all the job growth in Illinois over the past five years, which was almost nothing -- a net of just 13,600 jobs.

-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --

-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --

There’s a word you should know if you want to understand part of our sky-high inflation. It’s “greenflation,” which means the rush into renewable energy that’s pushing up prices on everything. Though greenflation is happening everywhere, because Illinois’ green energy climate policies are among the most aggressive in America, our state is a leading culprit. Prices for the basic commodities that factor into most everything we buy have soared in the past five years. Copper prices, for example, w…

-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --