Judging by the length of this contract, they earned those kickbacks. My goodness the boldness of this. Any basic ROI analysis would show this is a terrible idea.
They essentially took a 1.16B loan in 2008, where the city had to pay that back to the tune of 150M every year, for 75 years. Thats 13% annually. Thats a 975% return on the loan.
That’s like taking out a 1.16B mortgage at 11% for 75 years. <insert Shane Gillis doing Trump> it’s a terrible deal, the worst deal I’ve ever seen this guy. I said to him it’s a terrible deal they’re all going to laugh at you. I did, I told him that.
Former mayor, Richard M Daley: "[the] agreement is very good news for the taxpayers of Chicago because it will provide more than $1 billion in net proceeds that can be used during this very difficult economy."
-_-; because gross incompetence, corruption, and misuse is clearly ONLY a issue with municipalities and not every single organization with access to money
I dont support musk or doge but the crazy thing to me is, they haven't found any because they genuinely aren't looking for it. Superfluous military contracts, industry kickbacks, lobbying, govt contracts, all sources of extreme grift and misuse in our govt but doge only looks at shit that benefits the proletariat
The idea that DOGE is anything but gross incompetence, corruption, and misuse is no longer even a viable opinion. OBVIOUSLY, nobody wants the government to waste money. DOGE is illegally cutting things they don't agree with, which will hurt far more people with lower income than it will help anyone. It is all even worse than that though because Trump's tax cuts for the rich will cost taxpayers way, way more than anything DOGE could possibly cut. It is MATH.
Check out Dean Withers or Parkergetajob on TikTok or YouTube. They will debate with Trump supporters and inform them where MAGA propaganda hooked them.
You're conflating waste, fraud, and abuse with incompetent leadership and bad short-sighted decisions. If DOGE is designed to get rid of that then DOGE would get rid of Donald Trump.
"every single organization with access to money" is corrupt, so letting the riches man in the world have control will do what? Make things less corrupt?
Wait, you mean the thing that is literally creating inefficiency and fraud rather than solving it. Yeah people dot like government waste and that’s why they don’t like doge.
The same kind of corruption and shortsightedness that led to Chicago pimping out it's parking revenue to foreign interests, is the same kind of corruption and cronyism Donald Trump and Elon Musk are committing on the United States, at a much larger scale.
DOGE is deliberately creating a regulatory environment that promotes corporate sponsored sell offs of publicly owned assets and utilities, has purposefully targeted regulatory bodies that have intervened on actions of Elon Musk and his companies, and have intentionally gutted many of the very types of government functions that Elon Musk and a dozen other stakeholders have an existing corporate infrastructure to take the place of.
Actions they've taken clearly violate constitutional precedent in regards to power of the purse and congressional oversight. Some actions of which step over legal concepts established in the Magna Carta, powers that many Monarchs even lacked.
The conflicts of interest are numerous and obvious. They are doing it in the open to normalize it. There's nothing normal about the wealthiest person on the planet, and 10 other billionaires on the cabinet, having such a direct stake in the executive branch.
Pointing at corrupt practices in Chicago and saying, "See, there's corruption out there, so DOGE should exist!" is laughable, because DOGE's actions are no different.
They may verbally key in on issues that are real and valid - yes, the government is bloated. Yes, the budget is running away from us. Yes, corporate interests have too much say in politics. Yeah, the groceries are expensive, and yeah social politics are off the rails. Good talking points to gain support. But if you go along with what they are saying, without analyzing what they are doing and how their actions are an obvious Trojan horse for the very things they are riling people up over, you open yourself up to being perpetually manipulated into supporting the very policies that you'll be riled up against next political cycle.
In the process we end up pimping out our country, and our children's country, to the very foreign and corporate interests that we were supposed to mad at, who will inevitably dump any extractable value left over for the right price so long as they control it.
Fighting against corporate welfare, uneven trade balances, unfair contributions in NATO, the price of groceries and medicine, of unelected foreign and corporate interests having a say in the government - these are all rational points of interest that the common person is aware of as a problem. If Trump and company were actually tackling this stuff, they'd have my support. Instead they use these issues as hot button topics to speak about, but literally do the opposite right in front of everyone's face. Then they point at the left and say, "Can you believe they don't support these issues, they're so looney!"
It's a bit like if your neighbor warned you about burglars in the neighborhood, earning your trust by pointing out real break-ins down the street, only to convince you to install his own security system - one that he secretly controls and uses to quietly rob you blind. By the time you realize who's really stealing from you, you're already out the door thanking him for his services.
I like your post. It all boils down to this: it's a two party system; one fires government employees, the other hires them. Im always going to go with the group that fires them
You too can make 975% return on your investments, $150m a year for doing nothing, as long as you have $1.1b to start with - plus a little extra pocket change to bribe the right people.
The ultra-rich live in a completely different universe. The best way to make money is to already have money.
The payments include meters that are broken or blocked due to street festivals, construction, etc. Those nonoperable meters are paid for each day they are put of service. This was an amazing deal , for one side.
Well, that's if you care about anyone else other than yourself. However if you are left less than 20 years or so to live, you don't give a fuck. You get 1.1B right away.
These are already installed - sunk cost, so not part of the equation.
Only complete morons would not be able to make the limited extremely high demand resource that is street parking in Chicago, and unprofitable business.
And that interest rate over that many years is absolutely absurd.
Worse yet, city employees were still doing the collections and maintence for the first several years at city expense (not sure if thats still going on or when it stopped)
Even worse, the city has to pay them for lost parking income any time they want to close down a street for something like a parade! So they are paying for the use of their own streets
It was parting fuck you from Mayor Daley. Dude was essentially competing with his father to see who could be a more corrupt Mayor of Chicago. He is definitely getting some of that money.
In 1999, Ontario's Conservative government (run by Mike Harris) sold it for 3.1 billion dollars to a private consortium of Canadian and Spanish businesses - Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (50.01%), Cintra Global S.E. (43.23%), and AtkinsRéalis Canada Inc. (6.76%).
According to a 2023 report, the annual revenue was $1,495.5 million ($1.5 billion) and net income was $567.3 million, up 13% and 30% respectively.
Edit: (From Wikipedia)
The concession has been called a "cash cow" for AtkinsRéalis (then known as SNC-Lavalin), while local media has commented on the "huge jump" or "soar" in profits.
In March 2025, AtkinsRéalis sold their remaining share of the highway bringing the ownership totals to as follows:
Indirectly owned subsidiaries of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board: 51.71%
Cintra Global S.E., a subsidiary of Spanish firm Ferrovial S.A.: 48.29%
Does the fact that the Canadian pension plan investment board has control of it mean that it's still kind of benefits Canadians at least a little bit? Or does that not matter, I guess?
Mayor Fucking Daley sold out the future of Chicago to get a short term influx of cash and kick the can of financial responsibility down the road, yet dumb old heads in the city will still talk about how we need someone like a Daley to come in and fix chicagos problems
He probably got plenty of kickbacks in addition to it.
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u/GenTycho 17d ago
I'm gonna bet those that let it happen are getting kickbacks off it.