komo news | Foreign Companies Buying U.S. Roads, Bridges — This is odd. Talk about asking for trouble. How does the taxpayer benefit from essentially building a road for the public trust then letting a foreign corporation get ownership? This is some sort of scam, I can smell it.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Roads and bridges built by U.S. taxpayers are starting to be sold off, and so far foreign-owned companies are doing the buying.
On a single day in June, an Australian-Spanish partnership paid $3.8 billion to lease the Indiana Toll Road. An Australian company bought a 99-year lease on Virginia’s Pocahontas Parkway, and Texas officials decided to let a Spanish-American partnership build and run a toll road from Austin to Seguin for 50 years.
Few people know that the tolls from the U.S. side of the tunnel between Detroit and Windsor, Canada, go to a subsidiary of an Australian company – which also owns a bridge in Alabama.
found by Aric Mackey
Call me old-fashioned, but I remember the good old days when only our politicians were for sale, but now I guess it’s everything. I was just at church this morning, and we got in some new hymnals, and I noticed there are several full-color ads now in our church songbooks. One was for Chevy trucks, and another was for Coca Cola. Call it the power of suggestion or whatever, but I found myself praying for the sermon to end so I could go buy myself an ice cold Coke. Amen, did that taste good!
Yes, apparently America is a “for profit” enterprise.
“somehow, all these bogeymen tend not to materialize.”
The difference is that it is happening. Corporations are buying roads and our making us pay twice for the privliege of driving on them. Once via our taxes and twice via the toll fees.
(In our “free market” world I don’t know what it means to identify corporations with particular countries. It’s impossible for corporations to feel any sense of patriotism or duty towards a country. For corporations its all about profit and any political alliances that may exist between a corporation and a county are solely to increase that profit.)
#7. Yes, but it still is not a crisis that “foreigners” are buying American roads. (as if a multinat corporation actually has a national allegiance). Remember those iron rails that spanned the US of A back in the 19thC. you know who financed those? the Brits. and somehow the USA sill wound up being the World Only Superpower [TM].
I do think it is disgraceful that our governments would resort to gimmicks – the governor of IL wants to sell off the lottery – to finance whatever it is they want to do than either ask the public for more taxes or for spending cuts in other areas.
for the record – I am opposed to toll roads as a matter of principle, for the reasons you note – gas taxes go to finance those roads, so why make the drivers pay twice?
Well, the old saying is “If they own it they probably won’t bomb It.”, and if it’s really pissing off the Americans then let them either buy the infrastructure parts outright or buy stock in the companies that are buying up infrastructure. You hear a lot of bitching about how Americans are taking it in the neck, but that’s about all it is. The ones making most of the noise are sitting on their ass while the get it up and go bunch’s efforts are usually centered around making a dollar (or some yen, a pound or two and maybe some rubles). People that watch and live by the things on CNN, Fox or Springer can’t be expected to have a whole lot on the ball.
Big business is generally bad for everyone except the business and it’s investors. The bottom line is the bottom line. The country of origin is irrelevant. These companies are out to make money ANY way they can and will bend or break the rules and generally do what ever they can to do so.If they can buy some politicians for a few hundred k and make a few million that’s just the cost of doing business.
I don’t know about elsewhere but in North America the situation won’t change until we can seperate the politicians from the corporate masters. It is amusing in a sick sort of way that the politicos will do almost anything to gain and retain power, corporations know this and WILL do anything to make a buck.
Perhaps a revolutiom would change things but let’s get rid of lobbyists and lawyers first. If that doesn’t work then we start the real revolution.
Mr. Fusion –
Urban freeways can cost billions, not millions of dollars a mile to build – look at the Big Dig, for example.
And a bridge costs substantially more to build and maintain than a paved road over land.
Ever read the book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson?
Yea, this is part of it.
PS,
and Japan, sells cellphones CHEAP at home, and Corps HERE, charge us, thru the nose..
Boy are you onto something John. I was looking into this here in Australia after the appalling behaviour of Macquarie Corporation. Basically they have been buying up or building key infrastructure here, mainly roads and airports, from well-meaning but naive governments keen to accelarate their capital works and infrastructure improvement projects. So they build the roads, airports and car parks – whatever – and then hold the public to ransom for tolls and fees. Recently a clause in a tunnel contract in Sydney forced the government to actually close-off city roads and force commuters into a pay-per-use tunnel. This lead to a virtual gridlock as well as a boycotted, empty tunnel. Why should you care? Because these guys are looking for Government schmucks elsewhere too. Notably . Of course it begs the question that if all our new infrasructure is commerically financed “per-per-use”, then where are our taxes going…? So if you see the words “Macquarie Infrastructure” anywhere, run like the wind! Planet Earth -192 countries, 1 world of political incompetence.
Everyone wants a stronger UN, well that means letting the world tell us what to do and not to do. This is all part of the NAFTA Superhighway meant to bust American Unions. Funny, we’re not hearing anything from the Unions about this. A stonger UN also means becomming more like the rest of world, which is mostly poor and third world. As the businessmen continue to sell off America to make a buck the leftest continue to push treaties that meant to bind us to a Global political system that is neither humane nor democratic. This is simply one more symptom of our continued involvement in Globalizing the US economy. Does anyone really expect the middle class or poor in the US to benefit from continued Globalization? If wonder then only look at the living standards of the rest of the world.
I wish someone would sell the “Statue of Liberty” and relocate it to Mexico, then maybe all the welfare Mexicans would leave and that would at least solve most of our buget problems.
Being someone who lives in Indiana, I can say we weren’t kept in the dark, but there was almost no one who wanted this to happen. The Governer ran this through on party lines. What is amazing has been the peoples negative reaction to it nad it still hapened. In fact, the legistlation passed faster than anything else on the agenda this year. Several groups are trying to fight it in court, but the courts say they have to post a bond equivalent to the value of the deal which can never happen!
The funny thing is, the Governer refuses to answer the question that if this company can make so much money, why can’t the state.
This is all happening because this is the only way he can get funding for a Interstate project(I69) he wants passed, but the state can’t find money for.
Well you keep saying that the economy is bad and the country is going bankrupt, the currency is worthless… In that case, it’s definitely better for a state to sell up front and collect in today’s dollars while that company will be collecting in future (worthless) dollars.
26,
I WOULD LOVE global priceing…
LOVe to see price in the US, DUMP into the dirt.
But its not happening that way, the corps are buying from other nations, and Forcing USA to pay PREMIUM prices for stuff thats CHEAP anywhere else.
We are Comparitive buying… What would cost someone in India in months wages, is WHAt they are charging HERE is comparison to base wages… This is why they force the average wage up. Its also WHY they dont count destitute persons, and those ont he street int he average/
27,
and Guess whom got raises in there wages THIS YEAR??
Its funny to note that the US gov, Military USEd to run its own services, and commisary… And NOW they subcontract it out, and prices have gone thru the roof.