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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLos Angeles now spending more on Wall Street fees than on maintaining roads
Los Angeles councilman Paul Koretz has called for banks NY Mellon and Dexia to return $65 million in unfair profits and termination payments they received between 2008 and 2014. This follows a report (embedded below) revealing that the city spent more than $200 million in fees to Wall Street in 2013 alone. Koretz says he may push the city to take punitive action against the financial institutions involved if they do not renegotiate the deal.
The report, published by the union-backed Fix LA Coalition, notes that the City of Los Angeles last year spent more on Wall Street fees than it did on our streets. Indeed, the report notes the city paid Wall Street $204 million in fees, spending only $163 million on the Bureau of Street Services.
The fees are connected to the controversial interest-rate-swap deal cemented by Los Angeles in 2006. It is a deal similar to those engineered by Wall Street in cities across the country. Those deals have made headlines in recent years in some of the countrys most high-profile municipal budget crises.
For instance, a recent study by former Goldman Sachs investment banker Wallace Turbeville found that an interest-rate swap deal was a primary driver of Detroits fiscal crisis. Noting that the banks used the citys bankruptcy to demand upwards of $250-350 million in swap termination payments, Turbeville concluded that a strong case can be made that the banks that sold these swaps may have breached their ethical, and possibly legal, obligations to the city in executing these deals. (A court recently reduced the amount the city has to pay Wall Street to unwind the deals).
http://pando.com/2014/05/06/los-angeles-now-spending-more-on-wall-street-fees-than-on-maintaining-roads/
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)lanes but not fixing sidewalks so that people can walk safely.
I think the bike lanes were part of some boondoggle federal program. It's not about bikes v. cars. We already had bikeways on sidestreets. Changing a few stop signs so that bikes could have more of a right-of-way on the sidestreets would have been a better solution for both the bike-riders and the car-drivers. But no. Bike lanes had to be. Rarely do I see any bike riders. They are mostly only present on weekends, especially weekend evenings when there are not so many cars anyway. It's a ridiculous waste.
Blue_Adept
(6,384 posts)Replaced a long disused train track that hadn't been operating for 20 years. Turned it into a pretty nice walking/bike trail.
My father can't understand why it exists because he never sees anybody on it at all. Complains about it regularly enough too.
Of course, he hasn't left the house in five or six years other than to go to a doctors appointment that takes him by it.
Doesn't stop him from complaining though that he never sees anyone on it.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)But replacing a car lane with a bike lane on a heavily traveled street makes no sense. Not yet anyway. If the goal is to get people to ride bikes instead of taking their car, then you want to make using a bike as safe and easy as possible. I think that having a special lane for themselves on very busy thoroughfares in cities is an ego thing for a lot of American bike riders. Sometimes their are no safer side-street alternatives. But when they are, the safest alternative should be the choice.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)but LA is a slightly larger fish, in a better protected state.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)First, I suppose you'll want to learn what a swap is.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)This is not right! Why do we have to put up with shyster bankers?
Stay completely the fuck away from interest-rate swap deals.
Hestia
(3,818 posts)after 2008, it's been draining those budgets. It seems to be something Goldman-Sacs came up with - big surprise.