The Hedge Fund That Ate Chicago

By Les Leopold

April 23, 2014 | There's a battle royale raging in Chicago. It pits hedge funds, the Chicago financial exchanges, real estate interests and Mayor Rahm Emanuel on the one side, against public employee unions and community groups on the other.

At issue is whether public employee pension benefits should be slashed. Mayor Emanuel claims [3] that, "If we make no reforms at all across our pension funds, we would have to raise City property taxes by 150%.... Businesses and families would flee, not just from our city but from our state." By 2017, he claims [4] the city will have to pay $2.4 billion a year into the pension fund.