No jobs, no investment; but pay raises for the ruling class

I think this is the Democrat's plan for all of Illinois. From Crain's,

"This vote sadly put politics ahead of Chicago's working men and women,” Michael Lewis, Wal-Mart’s Senior Vice President of Store Operations, said in a statement. “It sends a message that Chicago is closed for business, closed for development, and closed for job creation.”

and drive out the tax revenue need for this: from CBS,

Members of the Chicago City Council voted 26-to-16 on Wednesday to give themselves raises linked to the cost of living in each of the next four years.

The measure will probably result in smaller-than-normal raises for the aldermen. They approved a $20,000-a-year increase in 1995 and an additional $10,000 in 1998.

The city's 50 aldermen currently make more than $98,000 a year, so even a small raise will boost them past the $100,000 mark.

The annual increases will be based upon the Consumer Price Index -- published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The ordinance passed with no floor debate.

Post Script 1: Big problem with today's liberalism is its complete inability to distinguish the lessor of two evils. A real handicap considering there is a downside to just about every decision we face.

Frédéric Bastiat saw this as the difference between a good economist and a bad economist. Chicago's problem yesterday was we had no economist, just medicore Pols without forsight. Here's how Bastiat described it,

In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.

Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.

But then we've always been a city that's never looked much further ahead then where's mine. Post Script 2: The Sun Times sums up the Council's bet,

Supporters point to Wal-Mart's huge profits and executive salaries as evidence that it can afford to pay its workers more. They think Chicago's dense, urban market still will be attractive to the big boxes, which have saturated the rest of the area. If they're right, the City Council will have raised some workers out of poverty. But if they're wrong, they'll have relegated more workers to it.

Demographics and the obstacles of selling in the City are working against supporters.