Bankrupt Cities and States Won't Let This Crisis Go to Waste - John Rubino

The people running states like New Jersey and cities like Chicago know they're broke. Ridiculously generous public employee pensions - concocted by elected officials and union leaders who had to have understood that they were writing checks their taxpayers couldn't cover - are bleeding them dry, with no political solution in sight.

They also know that they have only two possible outs: bankruptcy, or some form of federal bailout. Since the former means a disgraceful end to local political careers while the latter requires some kind of massive crisis to push Washington into a place where a multi-trillion dollar state/city bailout is the least bad option, it's safe to assume that mayors and governors - along with public sector union leaders - have been hoping for such a crisis to save their bacon.

And this year they got their wish.

John Rubino is the founder and manager of the popular financial website DollarCollapse.com. Mr. Rubino is the co-author, with GoldMoney's James Turk, of The Money Bubble and The Collapse of the Dollar and How to Profit from It. He spent the 1980's on Wall Street as a Eurodollar trader, equity analyst and junk bond analyst. During the 1990's he was a featured columnist with TheStreet.com and a frequent contributor to Individual Investor, Online Investor, and Consumers Digest, among many other publications. He currently writes for CFA Magazine.