It’s not every day when you get to see radically bad public policy run headlong into an epic media fail. When it does happen, the resultant collision leaves the general public looking like it went ten rounds with the world’s best heavy weight and ends with in guys in neat Armani suits leaving with a bagful of the public’s money. That’s what’s happening in Springfield right now, where the CME Group and Sears are orchestrating a multi-million dollar armed robbery of the state. It’s bad public policy and I’m not the only one who has figured this out. Our media friends talk about this like it’s about jobs and/or tax fairness or the politics of how the CME Group has us over a barrel and those would be wrong things to focus on. If they were really helping us make and support good public policy they might get their tiny minds around the issue that what is true is that corporations are not paying anywhere near their fair share of our state’s taxes. 

If you want to know what the future looks like when the Mayor of the state’s economic engine is an Agent of Finance look no further than under-funded schools, shrinking pensions and billions of dollars flowing out of the public sector and into private hands. As you read this Speaker of the Illinois House Mike Madigan, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and their puppet –like lesser ring wraiths, Sen. President John Cullerton and I’m not sure if it matters that she has a title, Barbara Flynn Currie are arranging to transfer at least tens of millions of dollars and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars to the CME Group. These would be the same people who are impoverishing teachers, diminishing the capacity of first responders to protect the public and adding to the ranks of starving children and gang shooting victims. I’m just pointing out what they cut out of the budget this year as part of something called “shared sacrifice” which I think loosely translates to sacrificing the poor and making the middle class pay for it. So here are some constructive questions. What does CME Group Inc. do for is its cash? Why does CME Group Inc. need a tax break?

The CME Group Inc. is one of the most profitable entities on the face of the earth in this history of human and raccoon kind, (You are blissfully unaware of the damage raccoons have done to our society and I will allow you to remain so. For now let us just say that they are masked and gloved for a reason and on April the 1st I will “unmask” their conspiracy for the first time in public.). How profitable are they? Well, their third quarter profits were up 29% and that number puts them at somewhere in the neighborhood of $951 million in pure profit. That would be after paying salaries, bonuses, taxes, overhead and taking losses. What they are looking to do in Springfield is boost that number from around $951 million to maybe $1billion or if things go really well with the extra gold in their X-mas stockings they can run it up to $2 billion… in PROFIT.

To say that this is the 1% acting at its most opportunistic and demonic is an understatement. To say this is the 1% doing things that would warm the cockles of a demon’s heart is closer to the mark. What the CME Group wants is more and why do they want more? Well numbers like $951 million sound like a lot to you and I, but to their investors they have underperformed. CME Group shares have fallen 4.9 percent over the past year. They could get that share price up by cutting into say executive bonuses or being better at managing their business and reduce their losses or they could get the money from the public. Guess which one these prick-rat-bastards picked? Yep, they want us to help them get richer. Public funds flowing into private hands and as upsetting as you might find this have you wondered exactly what goes on over there at the CME Group Inc.? You know, who are these guys and how are they adding to the commonweal of our state?

To begin with they are the world’s largest futures market and what that means is that they make their money on speculation of the very sort that has thrown the world’s economy into the sterling condition it is in right now. They are among the lords of the Shadow Banking System. Yes, Shadow, its right in the name that they are in league with actual darkness and they are acting like Satan’s little friends when you see how well they are behaving since helping destroy the economy. Case in point, the unfolding mess at MF Global; which you may think is an aberration but I am here to tell you that you and I have no idea if such is the case. Our banking system is held together with the equivalent of bailing wire and bubble gum by guys you shouldn’t trust alone in your house with your silverware.

What the CME Group Inc. is in the business of doing is helping increase the dramatic financial inequality that is plaguing our country. To put it more bluntly CME is demanding that we the public make them a more profitable business and they don’t care how much damage they do to our children, infrastructure, public health, environment or education to do it. Thanks Mike Madigan, Rahm Emanuel, Barbara Flynn Currie, John Cullerton, Terry Duffy and Craig Donohue for being so clear about how you feel about the 99% of us that make you possible. But I think I should say this. If you want to get the honey you can’t go killing all the bees.