States and cities hoping to fill in budget gaps with cash-outs of future toll-road revenues and the like by handing revenue-generating assets over to private operators for up-front money may be sobered up by a report out yesterday from Australi Read More
The analysts at Municipal Market Advisors think that should Sen. Barack Obama win tonight, President Obama's planned income-tax hike on individual households earning over $250k could push up demand for tax-exempt municipal bonds. Read More
Swiss bank UBS has attracted $1.5 billion to its new global infrastructure fund. "John Fraser, chairman and chief executive office of the UBS AG's funds arm, said ... he was encouraged by the demand from long-term institutional investors, including p Read More
Harvard's Ed Glaeser, also a Manhattan Institute senior fellow, and Wharton's Joseph Gyourko have an (free registration required) of the likely futility of proposed government efforts to stop the slide in housing prices. The profs specifically Read More
Even as states and municipalities face unprecedented capital-markets pressure as they try to issue new debt, Standard and Poor's currenty has no states on ratings-watch negative, or even with a negative outlook. Read More
From Stephen Green, chairman of London-based HSBC, the world's largest bank: "I believe the direction is clear: regional capital markets will develop and more of the capital generated in the fast-growing emerging markets will stay closer to home on t Read More
California may have to ask the federal government for a $7 billion loan by the end of the month just to pay for basic services like police and firefighting, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last Thursday. New York City readers may have shuddered, as the r Read More
As E.J. notes in the post below this one, Gov. Paterson says he thinks Wall Street bonuses could be down as much as 60 percent, higher than his budget office's expected 43 percent decline. To put this estimate in perspective: after the tech bubble Read More