Humboldt Bay and NCRA: A great investment?
I've read this article on Golmdan- Sachs' interest in Humboldt Bay and the North Coast Railroad Authority a couple times to make sure I have it right. It does indeed look like they're talking about using private investment from various pension funds to develop the harbor and railroad.
How could a libertarian argue with that? It's their money to lose, or is it? I had to ask myself; If it was my retirement money they were investing, would I want it spent on rebuilding our railroad?
posted by Fred Mangels @ 8:15 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
The NCRA give away of public property already happened. According to the contract with the NWP the "operator" pays $250,000 a year to use the entire line when or if it gets used. Anything that needs to be fixed beyond basic maintenance is payed for by the public. So the public will end up footing the bill for the failing rail line long into the future, even if some mega multinational runs fright on it. Just to add insult to injury the money that the NWP is paying now will be credited back to them if or when the train runs or will be payed back by the NCRA by giving them the publicly owned rolling stock.
Just like with the Goldman Sachs, who only want to broker, not pay for, a potential deal, no private money is at risk.
Goldman Sachs is not offering to invest a dime here. They are offering to take 2% of any future profits for the honor of being allowed to take 2% of any future profits. In other words, they want a piece of the upside of any future investments without having to put anything whatsoever on the line.
Another brilliant business move by the HBHCRD!
Port Authority Delays Could Put Money Back in Goldman's Pocket
It's a scenario every New Yorker who doesn't own his own place fantasizes about: years of free rent because a landlord screwed up on the terms of a lease. So how about 64 years of free rent, worth $161 million in total rent? Nobody would make that kind of screwup, right? Of course they wouldn't — unless they were the city and state governments of New York.
And that's exactly what seems to be happening right now. Because of egregious Port Authority delays in the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site, the city and state stand to lose $321 million that investment bank Goldman Sachs was ready to pay in rent and sales tax for the land under the $2.4 billion tower it is building nearby. The Daily News' I-Team uncovered this loophole while perusing the SEC Website. Turns out that according to the deal signed by Mayor Bloomberg and former governor George Pataki, if certain progress is not made by the end of 2009, the money set aside by GS would revert back to the bank. City and state officials say that won't happen, but since no buildings are anywhere near complete on the site, the News argues there's no way that taxpayers won't lose the money.
You can't blame Goldman Sachs for eyeing that cash right now. It's a tough economic time for banks, after all. It's certainly not the moment to be throwing away money on projects that show no signs of coming to fruition, ever.
I am so surprised so many voters on your poll have voted "yes".
I voted "no".
Most of the Yes votes were stuffed in there. The poll seemed about normal the first few hours with something like one Yes vote, 11 or 12 No votes and 1 Not Sure.
About an hour later I checked it and about 20 to 30 Yes votes had been added so either some rail fanatic kept going back, deleting his cookies and voted over and over, or someone mailed out to an e- mail list and had friends come to vote.
I suspect the former as that's easily done in the time frame this happened in and it happens all the time in the Pollhost polls.
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