"When it comes to municipal bond defaults, both Warren Buffett and Meredith Whitney are not only dead wrong, they are out of their league," Larkin said in notes sent to CNBC before an on-air interview.
That's right, because......
"You have to remember these are governments, they don't go out of business, they have to continue in business, they have to continue to operate, they have to continue to provide services."
Where's the money come from Larkin?
More to the point, what happens when you build in teat-suckling in the form of exponential growth in expense for every school adminstrative hackjob that fancies putting up a sign with "Auschwitz" over the entrance to the main hall? Never mind the clearly-displayed wet dream of running the alleged screwel as if the content of the water pipes in the locker room were gaseous.
It's astounding to me that we have supposed educators who can't perform basic mathematical functions and understand how they apply to the promises they think governments and the people will keep. You know, exponents?
These are the people we trust with "educating" our kids. And for those who are in the indoctrination business and lament how "times have changed" and "kids are wilder" and "you have no idea what we deal with" you're wrong. I understand exactly what you're dealing with: The fruits of your own labor, which make your complaints even more outrageous!
You indoctrinated those kids' parents, you see. Then they pooped out a few waifs. Guess what - you're responsible for that which created the problems that are now in your classrooms!
But we understand (while retching in disgust at your fawning ignorance) - it's far more important to "recognize" every kid in a 5th grade class in a faux "graduation" ceremony for "outstanding"....... physical education. And we also understand how awful it must be to not be able to play "Dance-Dance Revolution" for a whole eight hours while in school, thereby justifying spending thousands of taxpayer dollars so the kids can play video games during their "physical education" class.
We used to call that "gym class", incidentally, and that was back when we were allowed to play dodgeball. A game that requires a $5 ball and a place to throw it, indoors or out. And yes, people do lose in dodgeball, especially if they don't run. Occasionally they take a ball in the chest and it hurts. A bit. But the point of gym class is to encourage the kids to run, right? Sounds like a good motivational exercise to me, and surprise-surprise, the kids actually like it. Even if "it" is beaning their best friend with an inflatable red ball.
Life is like that. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. But losing makes you try harder in a world where nobody is there to give you a teat to suckle when times get rough.
In the real world times not only get rough, they occasionally get really rough. The latter is headed our way because of the unrealistic and criminally insane garbage that our so-called "public employees" have shoveled down the throat and up the butt of the alleged proletariat, nearly all of whom were intentionally not taught about how exponents work in the real world when they were in screwel.
There's only one question left to ask: Was that failure intentionally concocted or a result of stupidity? Either way, exactly how does this sort of either rank incompetence or malicious deception qualify someone for a paycheck, say much less a title of "teacher" or "educator"?
But Larkin said actions at state level and local control boards will do a lot to prevent wide scale defaults, and most state and local pension funds are "years away from being unable to pay pensioners."
What are they going to do about it?
Again, just as one example right here, we have an idiotic government bridge authority that sold a bunch of bonds to put in place a nice "extension." I like the precept of the extension, as it will get a lot of traffic off the road near my subdivision and if I'm coming over that bridge and headed to points yonder, it will be faster too. The problem is that the local residents liking something has exactly nothing to do with whether the project is economically viable.
The entire cash flow from the toll revenues are necessary just to pay the interest on that bond. And this bond is, at last check, rated "BBB" - that is, investment grade!
Given this fact here are a few "inconvenient" questions: How do you ever retire the principal on that bond? How do you pay for maintenance on the new road? How do you pay for maintenance on the bridge itself? And oh, by the way, there's already existing debt on the bridge, so can someone explain to me exactly how this bond will not default, since last time I checked 2 + 2 = 4, and you need it to equal 6 for the books to balance? Of course there's also the obvious question that nobody (except perhaps Merideth and Buffet) have asked: How the hell did you get a "BBB" rating on that bond without handing a stack of $100 bills to the so-called "ratings agency" under the desk?
I know, I know, "if we build it they will come."
Go talk to the Garcon Point bridge authority about their projections in that regard, and how well it's working out for them. If you can find anyone on the authority, that is. I hear that all but one resigned, possibly to avoid putting their hand on a bankrupt project, and thus the board no longer has a quorum. That could be a problem in that the authority needs to have a quorum to conduct business.... you know, to do things like authorizing bond interest payments?
