Chicago Update -- Doomsday Re-Visited -- August 29, 2019

It's been awhile since there were any updates regarding "cities in trouble."

The most recent update, dated July 2, 2019. The city: Chicago.

Today: "Chicago mayor faces huge budget shortfall." Data points:

• deficit / budget gap for 2020: $1 billion
• nation's third largest city: annual budget of $10 billion
• servicing debt costs: $2 billion
• Chicago: largest net pension liability of any major US city: $40 billion
• the estimate had been ... $30 billion
• complaint: "wealthiest residents, wealthiest corporations need to pay their fair share."

Tea leaves: they will vote with their feet.

By the way, that $40 billion pension liability. That's not the complete story. From the zerohedge link:

Chicago has four city-run pension funds that collectively face a $42 billion shortfall. The Chicago Public Schools’ pension fund is short another $24 billion.

In all, there’s a $70 billion shortfall in the city-based funds alone.

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Dinosaur Notes

(in progress)

The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World, Steve Brusatte, c. 2018.

Permian-Triassic extinction: world's most severe known extinction event, 252 million years ago. A bit of irony:

• the frogs survived that extinction event, and are now facing another extinction event

Comment: reptiles and amphibians had fifteen minutes of fame. 

The therapsids.

From wiki:

The Gorgonopsia ("Gorgon faces") are an extinct suborder of theriodonts. Like other therapsids, gorgonopsians were at one time called "mammal-like reptiles" in classical systematics; the term stem mammals or proto-mammals is currently preferred.

End of the Permian: just before the age of dinosaurs -- 252 million years ago

• end of the Permian, top of the food chain:
• slimy salamanders bigger than dogs
• pareiasaurs: stocky beasts; four-feet; knobby skin, front-heavy build, generally brutish appearance; appearance of "mad reptilian offensive linemen
• dicynodonts: rummaged around in muck like pigs; sharp tusks to pry up roots
• gorgonopsians: bear-size monsters -- top of the food chain, eating pareiasaurs and dicynodonts
• just before the dinosaurs

Early Mesozoic (Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous): age of dinosaurs -- 252 million years ago