When I read in the  New York Times about the amount of money it will take in places like Chicago to pay for pensions of public employees, it makes me think about how ugly politics will be in the future. Think Athens on the Prairie?

It’s going to be the taxpayers against the unions. People who are not part of public unions (and some who are) will be incensed if their property taxes have to go up by 150 percent to support the retirement of people who are in the unions.

Politicians who have papered over the problem for years are to blame, but someone is going to have to pay the bill – either pensioners giving back hard-won contract rights or taxpayers, in some form or another, bailing out the pensions.

The building pension crisis is going to involve a lot of conflict – either at the local level through ugly fights over taxes and givebacks – or at the federal level as part of the fight over ballooning federal debt levels. And then of course there are the bond holders who will want to get back all the money that they lent to the governments to pay for these obligations.

Chicago has a great Greektown, which seems only fitting, given that Chicago may have to take austerity measures.