[mattduke]

Moody's downgrades $64 billion of U.S. muni debt
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/ ... AK20120622

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', '[')b]Moody's downgrades $64 billion of U.S. muni debt
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/ ... AK20120622

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he Chapter 9 filing allows Stockton, a city of 292,000, to suspend payments to creditors while it seeks court approval for a plan that balances its revenue with its debt. The budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 calls for defaulting on $10.2 million in debt payments and cutting $11.2 million in employee pay and benefits under union contracts that could be voided by the bankruptcy court.

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')esidents of Moberly, Mo., got a shock last year when they discovered that their city had guaranteed $39 million in bonds, sold by an independent authority, to help a Chinese company build a plant to make sucralose, an artificial sweetener.

The project fell apart in a matter of months, and residents learned that they had been misled about the company’s track record in China — and that they were now expected to make the bond payments.

But municipal bond market participants say they were shocked, too, by how quickly the city of about 14,000 would walk away from a solemn promise to guarantee the debt payments through 2025, the life of the bonds.

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')an Bernardino’s interim city manager recommended Tuesday evening that the city file for bankruptcy protection, saying it may not be able to make payroll over the next three months.

"We have an immediate cash flow issue," Andrea Miller told the mayor and seven-member City Council.

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he City of Compton, a city of 93,000 people located on the outskirts of Los Angeles, must decide by September 1 whether to seek bankruptcy, according to its two most senior financial officials.
Such a move would see it join a growing number of deficit-hobbled California cities that have used the filing to restructure onerous debt loads.

[mattduke]

And now Buffet is bailing out of his Muni exposure.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... 04118.html

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')esidents of Moberly, Mo., got a shock last year when they discovered that their city had guaranteed $39 million in bonds, sold by an independent authority, to help a Chinese company build a plant to make sucralose, an artificial sweetener.

The project fell apart in a matter of months, and residents learned that they had been misled about the company’s track record in China — and that they were now expected to make the bond payments.

But municipal bond market participants say they were shocked, too, by how quickly the city of about 14,000 would walk away from a solemn promise to guarantee the debt payments through 2025, the life of the bonds.

[mattduke]

Somnolent Moody's awakens to warn muni bondholders of the obvious.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... 7-19-12-49

[mattduke]

Now s&p lifts an eyelid re Illinois.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012 ... n-problems

[dinopello]

There's no State Debt thread so I thought I'd post this here. It's an article about State's debt and ranks them as a percentage of the State's GDP.

[mattduke]

US state debt hits 4 trillion. That's 4 million million. Buy gold.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/2 ... ZT20120828