California Towns Are Leasing Back Their Own Streets to Build Prisons, Finance Pensions

from Zero Hedge

California’s municipal fiefdoms have found a new way to unilaterally “refinance” their debt and book imaginary savings by eploiting an interesting-sounding financing alternative explored by Forbes writer Elizabeth Bauer: two cities in California are issuing bonds with their own city streets as collateral to pay down their unfunded pension liabilities, according to Forbes.

The two cities, West Covina and Torrance, are in SoCal. The city councils of the two communities in recent months have borrowed a combined $550 million in funds backed by their own city streets to try either to “refinance” money owed to CALPers, or to use on projects – or even more hospital beds and respirators, depending the circumstances.

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