War, or Whore President ?

During a search for some imagery of the criminals bilking the country blind, I stumbled on the following gem:

Friday, March 31, 2006

America's new FAST Track to Fascism

Every day on national cable, Lou Dobbs curses the steady flow of desperate migrant workers who cross our borders, laboring in exchange for increasingly worthless dollars. Meanwhile, under the radar, Goldman Sachs gives new meaning to the term "highway robbery" by facilitating the massive flow of foreign capital in exchange for American highways.
wakeupfromyourslumber.blogspot.com/2006_03_01...


If somebody asked if you wanted to buy the Brooklyn Bridge, you’d know it was a con. But how about buying the Indiana Toll Road?Before you snicker, you should know the Indiana highway was auctioned off last week for $3.8 billion.

For the next 75 years, the more than 150 miles of Interstate 80 will be run by a pair of Spanish and Australian companies that will collect the tolls, operate the pit stops, keep up the highway and try to make a profit.
Cintra SA, the Spanish firm, and Macquarie Infrastructure Group, the Aussies, are teaching Americans the business of investing in roads, bridges, water mains and the like. All of a sudden, Americans need to be taught how to invest in infrastructure?

You may have heard of Macquarie. Last year it bought a controlling interest in the company that operates the Dulles Greenway for $533 million. A year ago, Macquarie and Cintra took over the Chicago Skyway, adding it to a network of toll roads and bridges around the world. And Macquarie is part of one of the rival groups bidding $1 billion to take over the Dulles Toll Road for 50 years, with the money expected to underwrite Metrorail’s extension to Dulles.

The Australians launched a sister company in the United States in December 2004. Since the $25-a-share initial public offering, Macquarie Infrastructure Co. Trust (MIC on the New York Stock Exchange) has climbed to $34.45.Counting reinvestment of the hefty $2-a-share dividend, investors have made a 45 percent total return since the company went public 15 months ago.[!!!] That's some return on investment! Either those privateers (read: profiteers) have a ground-breaking formula for making money from toll roads, or our governments' corruption and incompetence exceeds the bounds of human imagination. I suspect a combination of both.

Betting on infrastructure

With that kind of money to be made, Americans are lining up to try their luck at Wall Street’s hottest new game – investing in infrastructure. Washington’s biggest financial firm, the Carlyle Group, just created an eight-member team to get into roads, bridges, etc.

Goldman Sachs & Co., which made $9 million [!!!] advising Chicago on the Skyway sale and stands to collect about $20 million in fees for putting together the Indiana Toll Road deal, is raising a multibillion-dollar fund to buy infrastructure. Surprise, surprise.

The usual suspects line up to milk a sure bet.

Risk?

What risk is there in leasing the only road in or out of a city or international airport? With endless access to FIAT capital, as long as people inhabit the country, you CANNOT lose.
Wall Street is getting into infrastructure because politicians have bailed out on one of the most important issues facing the nation.

Transportation was once one of the things Americans counted on their government to provide.

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Indeed, the destruction of America did not come from Osama Bid Laden, it came from the the corporate president and team who betrayed their country for a Bush, a shrub of a man really, and a family that has traded with the enemy for over sixty years.

They have no values. Even the term "values" in relation to a Bush or the RNC is simply political capital used to refer to a money laundry that poses as a religion and a one time political party, now just paid off pimps in suits, selling off their own country for a buck.