Comment by Kon-Peki | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Kon-Peki | Hacker News Reader

If you're more of a numbers guy or gal, it's probably worth pointing out that the audited financial statements are available here [1]. I see that they have five lease deals going on and the reporting is only about the one (the worst deal???). A counterpoint is the deal in which Chicago leased the underground parking garages two years prior. Looking at those financial statements show that the deal was absolutely terrible for the bank(s) that financed the investment company - the original "owner" went bankrupt and the new "owner" has lost tens of millions over the last few years.

I have to wonder whether the aggregate of all the deals is a "disaster", "a little bit bad", or maybe "a little bit good" (lowest probability?)

[1] https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/fin/supp_info/public_p...

You're making a strawman in aggregating the deals. Whether or not in aggregate Chicago has good financials, at the end of the day, the parking meter deal is taking huge amounts of tax payer dollars for decades to, in essence, prevent modernize streets and reduce dependence on cars.

For some reason this reply below the parent comment was marked as dead. Am I missing something? Why was it killed?

> Part of the deal is that if their yearly returns are not high or met, the city has to make up the shortfall. Which is absolutely disgusting and insane for tax payers.

I'm not sure why it's insane. It makes it more like a loan than a risky investment, and with 3.2% return one must be crazy to take the deal without some kind of guarantees. I mean if you are promised a 3.2% APY investment and then told "but we can actually decide at any time to mess with your income or do anything that breaks it completely, and you'd have to trust us not to do that for 75 years" would you take that? Would you buy an annuity which pays less than a savings account, but the holder can at any time restructure it in ways that makes it return even less? No sane investor would do that. At least not with 3.2% APY - that'd require much higher income, commensurate with the risk.

Sometimes it's the account rather than the specific comment. (Idk in this case.)

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