At least, certainly under the current administration, if the state government did an improvement and then said, "this work we already did is going to count as part of our financial support of this project", I'd expect to hear that it was water under the bridge, the money allocated going forward is what counts as the local contribution.
I have no idea how much of that is administrative and how much the underlying acts. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
Also, forgot to comment this from Montereyan:
Private companies have shown interest in making up the last $10 billion, but don't want to be contributing any more than 25-30% of project costs. And of course it's not yet clear what exactly they're going to want in return.
Yeah right. I am extremely wary of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Yeah right. I am extremely wary of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP).
Me too, but not if they are structured correctly, which is beginning to happen. eg City of Glasgow now has three municipal LLP "partnerships" with several more to come.
The key IMHO is a new take on financing through the creation of new forms of "Public Equity" in vehicles other than "the Corporation" which may be the entity that makes the Private sector "private", but is not, in fact, obligatory.....
I believe that it is possible to provide long term financing of public transport much more cheaply than by conventional "deficit-based" (ie secured debt created by credit institutions) finance through:
(a) "unitising" the resulting revenue streams; and
(b) capturing some of the land value created along the route, particularly in the vicinity of stations;
through the use of partnership-based frameworks for financing and assets maintained in public ownership by "Custodians". "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
You can't blackmail the FTA into supporting a rail project ... at least, no under present management. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
What I've been told my Democrats in the state legislature here in California is that they agreed to it because the details will have to be approved by the Legislature, and they're not interested in PPP. Their hope is that a Democrat will get elected governor in 2010 and that the PPP push will die. I'm not as confident as they, but in any case, PPP is now written into the project but without any details on what that actually means. And the world will live as one
Final version here: Midnight Thought on Living Energy Independence
and here: Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
I was off-line for days when you posted it (and, as it happens, again when it was promoted). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
