Passenger Trains > Investors Snap Up All CA HSR Bonds Offered Today

"Sacramento, CA (AP) -- California's state treasurer says ongoing legal challenges didn't harm the sale of nearly $1.25 billion in high-speed rail bonds.

Spokesman Marc Lifsher says all the bonds were claimed Thursday and treasury officials are happy with the results.

He says there was wide participation by different sectors of the bond-buying market. The sale produced yields that would be expected under current market conditions."

The high-speed rail bonds were approved by California voters in 2008, and proceeds will go to construction of the 119-mile section in the Central Valley. Today's sale marks a landmark achievement for the high-speed rail project, with this successful sale of bonds being the first from Proposition 1A to be used for construction from the $9.9 billion voter-approved measure. Previously, rail bonds have been sold to pay for design and construction.

The high-speed rail project also receives 25 percent of state cap and trade revenues paid by purchasers of pollution allowances, recently upheld by the Court of Appeals. The state revenue sources will eventually provide the match required for $3.3 billion in federal funds, which California has been allowed, by agreement, to spend first. Some of those federal funds were redirected from projects in Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/17 22:16 by reindeerflame.

Looks like the smart money voted for the CAHSR with their wallets...maybe even POTUS got in on the action, although we will never know.

We  in Ohio  say   '  you're  welcome'. As  we  drive the  nightmare to  Cleveland in  winter.

railwaybaron Wrote:
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> Looks like the smart money voted for the CAHSR
> with their wallets...maybe even POTUS got in on
> the action, although we will never know.


"Smart Money?" Hmmm. Time will tell...

railwaybaron Wrote:
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> Looks like the smart money voted for the CAHSR
> with their wallets...maybe even POTUS got in on
> the action, although we will never know.

Hmmm. . . . .

It appears to me this is a bit like buying a typical municipal bond.

It's not because the people buying the bonds think that a particular project has particularly great value or potential. . . it's that the people buying the bonds think they are making an absolutely safe investment, and will be pain back by either the local or state government, and if there is fiscal distress, they get paid back ahead of the widows and orphans and politicians retirement funds and who ever else is in line.

So if the HSR never carries a single fare paying passenger, the bond buyers will still get all the money that is due them.

And if the HSR proves to be the single wisest investment the great state of California has ever made, with ten million people riding it a day and it sparking an economic boon, cleaning up the environment, educating the great unwashed masses, and extending the disease-free life expectancy of Californians to 250 years, the bond buyers will still not get a single cent more than. . . what they were promised to get.

All "investors snapping up CA HSR bonds" means is there wasn't enough "private smart money", and hence the government had to guarantee the return on any investment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/17 12:30 by Narniaman.

BFD. Bonds backed by taxpayer money. Not a hard sell, regardless of how ridiculous the project is. CA HSR couldn't recruit a single private investor if it tried and its life depended on it. CA HSR is the California boondoggle poster child.

cutboy2 Wrote:
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> We  in Ohio  say   '  you're  welcome'. As
>  we  drive the  nightmare to  Cleveland in
>  winter.

And just think....it would have been running now. Thanks Gov. Kasich.....

railwaybaron Wrote:
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> Looks like the smart money voted for the CAHSR
> with their wallets...maybe even POTUS got in on
> the action, although we will never know.

Wonder what the maturity dates of the bonds were? Or the yield? Or are you judging what "smart money" is without knowing anything about the sale?

(Why would the POTUS speculate in municipal bonds?)