Chicago Daily Observer

With another 427 point drop today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped 16.66% since Barack Obama was elected to become President of the United States.

Welcome to reality, President-Elect Obama. Any chance of putting your tax increases and tariffs on hold indefinitely?

The Chicago City Council is debating the 2009 budget. Clout Street’s City Hall reporters are there and live-blogging the proceedings. Please scroll down for earlier updates…

Updated at 1:18 p.m.

Aldermen approved the budget 49–1, with Ald. Billy Ocasio (26th) the only vote against.

Updated at 1:07 p.m.

Aldermen appear to be nearing the end of the budget speeches and as expected, Daley’s budget looks like it will pass.

Ald. Virginia Rugai (19th) said this economic situation is far worse for the city budget than other hard times in 1992 and 2001.

“They look so insignificant in comparison to now,” said Rugai, who added that she’s voting for the budget.

Ald. Richard Mell (33rd) said the recession has hit Chicago like a tsunami, but the worst is yet to come.

“My fear is what’s going to happen next year… Next year could be like a meteor hitting Chicago and the ... Read More...

Have you heard the latest fashionable anxiety? It’s not about economics at all.

It’s orthorexia: an obsession with healthy eating.

The term was first used in 1996 by the American physician Steven Bratman, as told by Michael Pollan in his new book, In Defense of Food. The book exposes the forces behind America’s poor eating habits—particularly the powerful marketing of processed foods—and offers advice on how to circumvent them.

It’s no secret that, for all our talk of health and fitness, Americans are overweight and suffering from heart disease, cancer and diabetes in alarming numbers. Remember back when 60 Minutes did the segment on the French Paradox? That’s the notion that French people freely consume foods like brie and fois gras and swill copious amounts of wine, yet remain slim and healthy. (Sales of red ... Read More...

“We may think we can prosecute and incarcerate our way to a less violent society, but it is going to take more than that.”

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said that Tuesday in his speech to the Lake County Bar Association at Greenbelt Forest Preserve.

Fitzgerald said public corruption gets all the headlines—Tony Rezko, former Chicago Ald. Edward Vrdolyak and Republican power broker Bill Cellini—and violence gets far fewer.

“People are tired of worrying about guns, gangs and drugs, but people are imprisoned in their own homes, afraid to go out even in the middle of the afternoon,” he said.

The upstart and lower-fare Virgin Airlines’ plans to initiate service at O’Hare Airport, and thus bring competition, more jobs and economic development to the Chicago area, appears jeopardized by the sweetheart deal between the Daley administration and the legacy airlines that control the airport.

Which raises the question: When will someone, especially in the business community that is so dependent on air travel, finally get mad on the lunatic ways of O’Hare Airport.

Virgin Airlines, which provides international service from both coasts, has been planning a major expansion into America’s heartland, with O’Hare as its base. But it has been stymied because it has been unable to lease gates at the airport, even though more than enough are sitting idle. Virgin said it will have to decide in a few weeks whether to cancel its O’Hare plans and look for another alternative. Meaning, I assume, another Midwest city in which ... Read More...

The cost of living in the U.S. fell by the most on record as fuel costs plummeted and retailers used discounts for cars and clothing to entice consumers hobbled by job losses and sinking home values.

Consumer prices plunged 1 percent last month, more than forecast and the most since records began in 1947, after being unchanged the prior month, the Labor Department said in Washington. Excluding food and energy, so-called core prices unexpectedly fell for the first time since 1982.

A speaking engagement at Northwestern University by William Ayers, the 1960s radical whose connections to President-elect Barack Obama became a campaign issue, has been postponed, university spokesman Alan Cubbage said today.

Ayers had been in negotiations to speak at the university Thursday night, Cubbage said.

William Ayers, the 1960s radical whose connections to President-elect Barack Obama became a campaign issue, is in negotiations to speak at Northwestern University Thursday night, university spokesman Alan Cubbage said today.

“The expectation is yes,” Cubbage said, that Ayers will appear at Cahn Auditorium at an event sponsored by the Muslim Cultural Students Association.

Details about tickets and the time were still being worked out, Cubbage said.

Ayers, a former Weather Underground member, is currently promoting an updated version of his 2001 memoir “Fugitive Days.”

Yesterday in a front page article in the weirdly kaleidoscopic “Tribune”…where the editorials aren’t found in the main paper but behind the obits in the second section…(and which I call kaleidoscopic because each day shows a different pattern of subjective judgment-what you’re told definitely yesterday is different from what you’re told today and what you will be told tomorrow)…a news story by Rick Pearson and Bob Secter informs us that “there may be no more enduring caricature in politics than that of the Chicago machine led by a powerful mayor with life or death say over an army of the city’s elected officials.”

Hah! Too bad Andy Greeley isn’t well enough to read that! Get well, Andy! I’m praying you will. When your venue runs out at the tabloid there’s a place for you with the kaleidoscope. Now, think that Pearson-Secter thought one over for a minute. What you ... Read More...

We don’t say it all that often, but President Bush is right: Congress should pass the Colombian free-trade agreement now.

Mr. Bush signed the deal two years ago. The Democratic majority in Congress has refused to approve it out of a legitimate concern over the state of human rights in Colombia and less legitimate desires to pander to organized labor or deny Mr. Bush a foreign policy win.

The betrayal of former Chicago Ald. Edward Vrdolyak by his longtime friend was captured on secret recordings as federal agents investigated a corrupt real estate deal, newly unsealed court records show.

Authorities were listening as the colorful Vrdolyak discussed the arrangement with Stuart Levine, a crooked lawyer who was pressing his old pal for his share of a bogus finder’s fee.

“We don’t need the both of us in trouble,” Vrdolyak said as he promised Levine a cut of a $1.5 million fee. “I’m with you now and forever.”

Vrdolyak, nicknamed “Fast Eddie,” didn’t realize that Levine, already charged for other wrongdoing and under financial pressure, recorded their conversations for four months in 2006 while cooperating with the feds.

Time and time again, university administrators struggle with affirming free speech rights for students. This is especially true for administrators who are confronted with alternative speech or speech that may challenge the conventional wisdom of the campus. What they’ve found is that once students are given the opportunity to voice their opinions, there will inevitably be disagreement, and more often than not, controversy. A university, it seems, should want to open its doors to exactly this kind of disagreement and argument.

Instead, the notion of free speech rights for controversial ideas is greeted with hostility and no where else could this be seen more than in how university administrators respond to controversy. DePaul University in Chicago, the “Largest Catholic University in America,” is one institution desperate to put its free speech woes behind it. Over the past three years, its executive officers and mid-level staff have been dogged by criticism ... Read More...

Last week’s economic data shows that “risk aversion hysteria” has had a major impact on economic activity in the United States.

The total number of people receiving unemployment benefits (a.k.a. continuing claims) increased to almost 3.9 million in late October. As a share of the workforce, continuing claims are now back to the peak hit in the aftermath of the 2001 recession. Meanwhile, retail sales plummeted in October and are down 4.1% versus a year ago, the worst one-year comparison on record.

September’s international trade data showed a smaller trade deficit, but the underlying figures reported record declines for both imports and exports.

All of these figures are consistent with our view that the US has been experiencing a once-in-a-multiple-generation negative shock to monetary velocity, the speed with which money moves its way through the economy, as both business and consumers pull back from economic activity.

As a result, we ... Read More...

You Go, Andy! That’s Andy Shaw as natural as he gets and a City Hall insider by the name of Buck DaMedea!

Now this goof Andy Shaw is a walking metaphor for Chicago’s Media Elite! You really need to work at it 24/7 to be this stupid and Andy is no clock watcher!

True story, this one! Remember Terry Teele, Mayor Daley’s go-to-guy on all things Planning and Development? Get this.

When Terry Teele was forced to resign from his position in Daley’s Office, I happened to be sitting in the Planning and Development waiting room – a breathless Andy Shaw Charged In – ‘The Teele resignation – I’M here!’

The lovely middle aged black woman informed this Profound Newshound – ‘Fifth Floor, Sir. Mr. Teele works on the Fifth Floor. We are on the 10th Floor?’

Tom Roeser, the Chairman of our Editorial Board, states that you must read three newspapers and triangulate to understand any story in Chicago. After you take “just the facts” from people like Fran Spielman, subtract issue advocacy from Eric Zorn, then take notice as to what the news media refuses to cover, it is then possible to harvest a kernel of truth from the local media. ( Take a listen to miserable handling of Barack Obama’s “found” interview, advocating different methods of wealth redistribution on WBEZ‘s Odysessy for a foul reminder….first asking yourself why didn’t WBEZ remember this interview to begin with?) The news is never quite what it seems to be; what is left out is as important as what is reported.

For the last 18 months or so, Jerry Agar held the 9–11AM slot on WLS AM 890, bringing a lively, highly opinionated local ... Read More...