We're still in a jobs depression in many parts of Illinois. New business activity has slowed considerably thanks to sky-high taxes and a state government so incompetently run, they still owe bills from 3 years ago. But the talk today is about a pension bomb that threatens disaster and the settlement the state made with the SEC for misleading investors about the billions in shortfalls the pension system was operating under. Bloomberg: The state settled yesterday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over charges it misled investors from 2005 to 2009 about shortfalls in retirement funds. Yet buyers in the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market are still penalizing Illinois. Investors demand 1.3 percentage points of extra yield to own 10-year debt of the state and its localities, almost seven times the average in 2005, when the SEC said the inadequate disclosure began. Illinois had its credit rating cut by Standard & Poor's in January, leaving it the lowest of any state,...(Read Full Post)