REAL Cheap??
What a little toll road actually worth?
More below the orange highway cone.
"Our Man Mitch" Daniels, former governor of Indiana-- the guy who tried to have Zinn's A People's History of the United States banned from Indiana colleges, and this book banner is now President of Purdue University...
Mitch is either a genius, or the most adept con man in U.S. history.
While Governor, in 2006, his administration leased the Indiana Toll Road, a 160 mile or so stretch of road from Chicago to the Ohio border for $3.8 Billion dollars to a Spanish investment firm-- for 75 years. this company promptly went bankrupt, and the toll road has been in disrepair for years.
This week:
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — An Australian company has reached a $5.73 million agreement to buy the bankrupt business that holds the lease to the Indiana Toll Road.
IFM Investors purchased ITR Concession Co., which holds the lease on the 157-mile highway across northern Indiana for another 66 years. ITR Concession had declared bankruptcy on more than $6 billion in debt last September, and a federal bankruptcy judge in Chicago approved a plan to put the lease out to bid.
The Indiana Finance Authority, which oversees the highway lease, said in a news release it has reviewed the bid.
ITR’s parent company, the Spanish-Australian consortium Cintra-Macquarie, paid Indiana $3.8 billion in 2006 for a 75-year lease of the highway. T
YOU read that right-- a toll road which just a few years ago sold for $3.8 BILLION dollars, was just snapped up at the
bargain basement price of $5.73 Million dollars.
Now, I think it's fair to ask, why did the state of Indiana not simply revoke the lease for non performance and assume control of the toll road, which was run fairly well for decades?
Because: privatization. "Leaders" like Our Man Mitch and the current stumbling, bumbling Governor of Indiana Mike Pence-- insist that Privatization of services is THE best way to go-- and by gum, they are going to prove it, even if it takes GIVING AWAY the Indiana Toll Road to a company-- hopefully guaranteeing this company will make a huge profit, thus "proving" Privatization works.
Weak, very weak.
http://www.indystar.com/...