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Mortgage meltdown’s latest victim: County bond issues
Shrapnel from the mortgage market’s implosion keeps landing in unexpected places. The latest example: A small water-and-sewer bond issue by Palm Beach County has seen its interest rate shoot from less than 4 percent to as much as 9 percent.
The reason? The issue is insured by Ambac Financial Group, one of the guarantee companies that has turned toxic after taking big losses on securities backed by subprime mortgages.
This story should have a happy ending for taxpayers, though. The county expects to refinance the debt from variable-rate bonds to fixed-rate bonds with an interest rate of 3.25 percent.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski
Alexandra Clough



Comments
By ChicagoHumor
March 11, 2008 2:49 PM | Link to this
Q: What is harder to find in downtown West Palm Beach, than a snowball??
A: An owner-occupied condo!! hahaha
An economy fueled by selfish indulgence, materialism, and greed is destined to crash.
By WAKE UP
March 11, 2008 4:08 PM | Link to this
Oh my god! HA, HA, HA, HA, Oh my God that’s so funny! Oh God! Funny. Yeah, that’s funny stuff. Oh, boy. I, I, I just can’t contain myself…
Chicago - you’re still a tool…
By Funny Maven!
March 11, 2008 5:16 PM | Link to this
Since everyone is feeling so jovial today, here’s another doozy! Why did the Guats cross Dixie Hwy? To buy a luxurious condo with every ammenity from me, Captain Condo King Pizow, aka Jumbo Loan King Pizow aka Millionaire Maven! Cheer up folks, the Captain is making it rain Ca$h from Jupiter all the way to Boynton! “I make it rain, I make it rain, I make it rain when I close!”
By Curious
March 11, 2008 7:06 PM | Link to this
Some clever-cool writing in yesterday’s Barron’s, Jeff.
You ghost it?
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB120493420479720885.html
:-)
By MoreMidwestHumor
March 11, 2008 11:47 PM | Link to this
Wake up your sense of humor. Whats wrong wake, you one of those condo speculators?
I have other clever jokes too. THis one is about the University of Florida.
Q: What is the origination of the trademark ‘Gator Chomp’?
A: UF football coaches needed a simple way to convey the term ‘gator’. SInce most UF football players can’t read, making that gator symbol was the simplest way to communicate the name of their team!
haha…now thats funny. I dont care who you are, thats funny!
Oh, I have another one.
Q: Whats the difference between U Miami football recruitors and UM (Michigan, the REAL UM) recruitors?
A: Michigan recruits from high schools, while Miami recruits from REFORM schools!!
haha ho ho..oh man..that is hilarious!
By WAKE UP
March 12, 2008 8:13 AM | Link to this
Wow - high school level college jokes…that’s pretty good. What’s actually funny is that you’re here, leaching off the Florida resident tuitions and you’re local, so what are you a fightin’ owl? PBCC? Palm Beach Atlantic?
When someone is not a student at a certain school and harbors jealousy and resentment towards that school, they tend to use humor as a defense mechanism. It’s okay that you couldn’t get in to UF or UM (well if you’re leaching in state tuition, you probably couldn’t even afford UM anyways).
Personally I didn’t attend either one of those fine institutions, so I could really give a crap less what jokes you come up with for them.
Actually, by your jokes I can tell that you’re not a true Chicagoan either…no self respecting Illinois native would ever reference the university of michigan.
Now run off to class so you can learn something today.
By ChicagoWolverine
March 12, 2008 10:52 PM | Link to this
Wake, where do you think most UofM Michigan grads wind up when they finish school? Detroit?? Please. The first thing Michigan college grads do is get the heck out of Michigan and its 7.4% unemployment rate.
WHere do the majority of them go? Chicago! Chicago is a magnet for college grads all over the Midwest. Michigan grads avoid Detroit like the plague, unless they score a rare decent white collar gig at GM or Ford.
By Curious
March 12, 2008 11:29 PM | Link to this
Another example is in today’s news in Boca where hundreds of porkers (“what gots their rights”), some of whom traveled from afar to get to this local public feeding trough only to find they were too late to get a voucher for subsidized-housing (i.e., built with money expropriated from normal working people who don’t owe them anything), aka, (as we all know) prolific crime breeding slums of the future.
One participant even got thrown in jail apparently for being even too uncivil for this group, or whatever? What a pathetic and disgusting bunch of infrahuman leeches.
One of the interesting asides is that in most normal neighborhoods where residents paid for their houses, they last for fifty to a hundred years due to constant concern, pride, maintenance and upgrades.
These public projects seem to have a lifespan of about twenty years before they are completely destroyed and then torn down to repeat the same corrupt and wasteful process.
By WAKE UP
March 13, 2008 10:23 AM | Link to this
okay - maybe I’m just confused here Chicago - now you’re a UM grad who’s in SFL to get what, a graduate degree? In what? Please say economics - that would be true humor.
If you re-read my comments, I didn’t say UM grads didn’t move to Chicago - I said no self respecting ILLINOIS native would brag about being a UM grad…there are way too many fine institutions to choose from in state. Of course any smart UM grad would get the hell out of Michigan…not to imply you’re smart in any way.
So I guess that makes you a Michigan native who has Chicago envy…why are you in SFL again??? Oh yeah, cheap tuition.
Be careful of that bike chain grease on your way to class.
BTW - you want to rip on FL schools, yet you’re here sucking like a leech…