Thursday, September 9, 2010

Harrisburg, PA goes broke

The city of Harrisburg failed to make a $3.29 million bond payment yesterday according to the Wall St Journal. The straw that broke the camel's back is apparently a municipal incinerator. Built in the 1970's and "retrofitted to meet code" in the uh-oh's the incinerator carries $288 million in debt. The city of Harrisburg's population is only 47,000, so each man woman and child is responsible for $6127.66 worth of incinerator debt.
They will never pay that off, so they might as well declare bankruptcy and teach investors not to fund unaffordable projects.
Let's hope our NH state and town legislators are wise enough to avoid buying white elephants like this one.

No comments: