New York may sell off roads, bridges and tunnels

[jk]

CRISIS PUTS NY IN 'SELL' HELL

GOV EYES BRIDGE, ROAD PRIVATIZING


By BRENDAN SCOTT and FREDRIC U. DICKER Post Correspondents

July 30, 2008
ALBANY - Warning of an approaching economic calamity, Gov. Paterson yesterday called an emergency session of the state Legislature - and raised the specter that New York may have to sell off roads, bridges and tunnels to close a massive budget deficit.
In a rare televised address, the Democratic governor cited "private-public partnerships" involving the sale of state assets - widely condemned by critics as fiscal gimmickry - as one way to stem a tide of red ink brought on by the sagging economy and woes on Wall Street.
etc


http://www.nypost.com/seven/07302008...ell_122211.htm



see also macro man's "modest proposal:"

Regular readers may recall that despite residing in Europe (and, briefly, Asia for the past fifteen years or so, Macro Man is an American citizen. Now some folks might be bitter about paying fifteen years’ worth of income taxes with nothing to show for it but a little blue book (e.g., a passport), but that’s not Macro Man’s style. His actual US tax burden has been pretty modest, “thanks” to Gordon Brown. Still, it pains him to see the land of his birth in such dire straits these days, and lately he’s been giving quite a bit of thought about how to fix the economic and financial malaise that’s hit the United States over the past few years.

What he’s come up with is a modest proposal that should restore the fiscal health of the United States, reduce a large portion of future liabilities, and set the country on the road to economic health and prosperity. The assumptions that Macro Man used in his calculations are pretty modest, and while the identities of some of his suggested participants are a tad ambitious, he’s confident that his sums could work out in real life.

The first port of call is to take profit on a number of 18^th century transactions conducted by the US Government. Top of the list is the Louisiana Purchase, which was consummated in 1803 for the princely sum of $23,213,568. To derive a current marketable value, Macro Man calculates an annual cash flow by multiplying state GDPs by 18% (the proportion of US nominal GDP that the Federal government receives in tax revenue) and assigns a modest P/E multiple of 8 to the result. Perhaps some banks or Donald Trump would assign a higher multiple to these one-of-a-kind assets, but Macro Man prefers to dwell in the realm of reality.

In any event, selling the Louisiana Purchase back to the European Union would get rid of Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Using the methodology described above, Macro Man reckons the US Government could raise $2.34 trillion. Good thing the euro’s so strong! You’ll agree that the price seems eminently reasonable...after all, it’s less than 50 times as much as InBev paid for Anheuser-Busch.

etc

http://macro-man.blogspot.com/2008/0...-proposal.html

[metalman]

Re: New York may sell off roads, bridges and tunnels

Yah, man. That belongs out front. My comments on that a couple weeks back...

[jk]

Re: New York may sell off roads, bridges and tunnels

Yah, man. That belongs out front. My comments on that a couple weeks back...

i found a link to it elsewhere, and completely forgot you had already posted it.
otoh, i hope you enjoyed macroman's piece if you hadn't already seen it.

[zoog]

Re: New York may sell off roads, bridges and tunnels

i found a link to it elsewhere, and completely forgot you had already posted it.
otoh, i hope you enjoyed macroman's piece if you hadn't already seen it.

...Oregon could be sold to the peace- and nature-loving Swiss for $227 billion...

Doubt I would really complain about that.

So let's see, his full list of sales leaves the thirteen colonies minus Maine: Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, (and Washington DC) as the remaining states in "restoring America's greatness".:rolleyes: There are reasons I live on the west coast... (:p)

[GRG55]

Re: New York may sell off roads, bridges and tunnels

Doubt I would really complain about that.

Originally Posted by macro man
...Oregon could be sold to the peace- and nature-loving Swiss for $227 billion...

He forgot that the Swiss have to save their cash to bail out UBS, Credit Suisse and other parts of their banking system because, even more so than the USA and UK, banking and finance IS the Swiss economy.





...ok, ok there's Nestle, Novartis and those expensive family workshop watch makers (the one's the management consultants like to wear :p)...

[metalman]

Re: New York may sell off roads, bridges and tunnels

i found a link to it elsewhere, and completely forgot you had already posted it.
otoh, i hope you enjoyed macroman's piece if you hadn't already seen it.

did, thx. derivatives of old itulip stuff are fun to read. but what's next???

google... usa fire sale

[phirang]

Re: New York may sell off roads, bridges and tunnels

CRISIS PUTS NY IN 'SELL' HELL

GOV EYES BRIDGE, ROAD PRIVATIZING


By BRENDAN SCOTT and FREDRIC U. DICKER Post Correspondents

July 30, 2008
ALBANY - Warning of an approaching economic calamity, Gov. Paterson yesterday called an emergency session of the state Legislature - and raised the specter that New York may have to sell off roads, bridges and tunnels to close a massive budget deficit.
In a rare televised address, the Democratic governor cited "private-public partnerships" involving the sale of state assets - widely condemned by critics as fiscal gimmickry - as one way to stem a tide of red ink brought on by the sagging economy and woes on Wall Street.
etc


http://www.nypost.com/seven/07302008...ell_122211.htm



see also macro man's "modest proposal:"

Regular readers may recall that despite residing in Europe (and, briefly, Asia for the past fifteen years or so, Macro Man is an American citizen. Now some folks might be bitter about paying fifteen years’ worth of income taxes with nothing to show for it but a little blue book (e.g., a passport), but that’s not Macro Man’s style. His actual US tax burden has been pretty modest, “thanks” to Gordon Brown. Still, it pains him to see the land of his birth in such dire straits these days, and lately he’s been giving quite a bit of thought about how to fix the economic and financial malaise that’s hit the United States over the past few years.

What he’s come up with is a modest proposal that should restore the fiscal health of the United States, reduce a large portion of future liabilities, and set the country on the road to economic health and prosperity. The assumptions that Macro Man used in his calculations are pretty modest, and while the identities of some of his suggested participants are a tad ambitious, he’s confident that his sums could work out in real life.

The first port of call is to take profit on a number of 18^th century transactions conducted by the US Government. Top of the list is the Louisiana Purchase, which was consummated in 1803 for the princely sum of $23,213,568. To derive a current marketable value, Macro Man calculates an annual cash flow by multiplying state GDPs by 18% (the proportion of US nominal GDP that the Federal government receives in tax revenue) and assigns a modest P/E multiple of 8 to the result. Perhaps some banks or Donald Trump would assign a higher multiple to these one-of-a-kind assets, but Macro Man prefers to dwell in the realm of reality.

In any event, selling the Louisiana Purchase back to the European Union would get rid of Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Using the methodology described above, Macro Man reckons the US Government could raise $2.34 trillion. Good thing the euro’s so strong! You’ll agree that the price seems eminently reasonable...after all, it’s less than 50 times as much as InBev paid for Anheuser-Busch.

etc

http://macro-man.blogspot.com/2008/0...-proposal.html

We could dig up our roads and ship em to bahrain: bahrain has a shortage of bitumen, if you can 'effing believe that!

[GRG55]

Re: New York may sell off roads, bridges and tunnels

We could dig up our roads and ship em to bahrain: bahrain has a shortage of bitumen, if you can 'effing believe that!

Bitumen? Hell that's easy to fix. Look at this problem from the same region [an iTulip post from a while back]...