Tax Payer Loans for Foreign Investment

Uncle Entity

Mon Mar 31 19:09:35 -0700 2008

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Hmm...

Grant a company a monopoly and expect anything other than rent-seeking.

Sounds like a market failure to me.

Tax Payer Loans for Foreign Investment

Carl

Tue Apr 01 04:52:34 -0700 2008

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Doesn't it always?

 

 

[/AC flame. Again >-) ]

Tax Payer Loans for Foreign Investment

The Baron

Tue Apr 01 05:59:10 -0700 2008

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Well, it doesn't help when the road is desperately needed, but no American company is willing to step up to the plate. TxDOT has been trying to figure out for years how to handle the huge problem of getting all the cargo from Mexico and the gulf coast up to the center of the country where it is all headed. I-45 and I-35 are nightmares to drive, even at 3 in the morning.

Cintra (the eeevvviiiilll foreign company) came in with an unsolicited bid showing how they could do it with an acceptable profit to both them and the State, to offset shortfalls in transportation funding statewide. It looked good to TxDOT and to the Governor, so they were going to go ahead with it. Then there was a huge stink and accusations of corruption, and racist remarks against foreign companies, and all sorts of stupid and illogical things said, spurred on by deliberately misleading press reports... So, they open the process up to bidders... Now, Cintra is one of the largest Toll operators in the world. This Trans Texas Corridor is going to be one of the largest highway facilities, let alone toll facilities in the world. There were very reasonable restrictions placed on bidders. We don't want a 22 year old massage therapist in charge of the company that wins the contract... The few American companies that could manage the job all looked at it, looked at the Cintra bid already on the table, and basically said the small amount of profit Cintra was taking on it wasn't worth their time, and didn't even bother to submit bids.

Tax Payer Loans for Foreign Investment

raga

Thu Apr 03 01:07:07 -0700 2008

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 TxDOT has run out of money (as has been projected for at  least the last 10 years ago.) To keep up with the m&o of existing facilities and build new ones would require an increase in gas tax or some new source of funds. But no politico has stepped up to increase the gas tax (many of them, including the gov., ran on a no-new-tax platform). 

That was when gas was hovering around $1/gal and adding even a few pennies to the gas tax of $0.20 /gal was ideologically unacceptable. 

 

Well, gas is now at $3.50, and not a penny of that price increase goes toward infrastructure m&o. As ref., CA is now at $0.36, while TX remains at $0.20

http://www.corridorwatch.org/ttc/cw-gastax-states.htm

 

Meanwhile TxDOT has put a hold on all projects and I know quite a few engineers (in design/engineering companies) who were working on TxDOT projects, but have been have been laid off in the last 6 months.

 

Voters got what they asked for - not even a $0.01 raise in gas tax. As a bonus, they also get to pay a $1.00 toll for every 5-10 miles of travel, but hey, it is a "user fee" and not a "tax", so there!

 

Keep in mind that the TTC itself was a nice pre-reelection present by Gov. Perry to his most faithful, deep-pocketed constituents: the (highway) construction industry. 

 

So TxDOT "leases" TTC to Cintra - it is a 50-year project. Todays decision-makers/project-managers will be dead long before the project is even close to completion. I.e., no accountability for those making questionable assumptions (of which there are quite a few) to sell the financial viability of the project. 

 

Not surprising that no one else wants to bid on the SH- 130 project.

 

So where's the money for Cintra? Loans and US-DOT funds in the US, and bonds in Australia!

 

Better drink up all the beer flowing forth before the spigot runs dry, because I'd be willing to bet that 50 year hence some sods in Australia will wake up to discover that the stack of bonds in his safe isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

 

cheers- raga

Tax Payer Loans for Foreign Investment

President4242

Sat Apr 05 08:54:48 -0700 2008

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Well, it doesn't help when the road is desperately needed, but no American company is willing to step up to the plate. TxDOT has been trying to figure out for years how to handle the huge problem of getting all the cargo from Mexico and the gulf coast up to the center of the country where it is all headed. I-45 and I-35 are nightmares to drive, even at 3 in the morning.

I like the Lou Dobbs and John Ratzinger solution:  Leave Mexico to the Mexicans, and start manufacturing the goods close to where they are consumed.