Jefferson County (AL)Commission votes 4-1 to file nation's largest municipal bankruptcy

[trof]

Source: Birningham News

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The Jefferson County Commission has just voted 4-1 to file an estimated $4.1 billion bankruptcy, the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

The commission's action came after it spent approximately six hours over two days meeting with its lawyers to discuss legal options, including a Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing and a settlement with creditors on the county's $3.14 billion sewer debt.
<snip>
Another factor in the decision appears to have been the Alabama Legislature's inability to reach a consensus on any means of helping the county resolve its financial difficulties.

Jefferson County has been flirting with bankruptcy since Feb. 12, 2008, when it first publicly acknowledged that it was in financial trouble. Interest rates on some of the county's $3.2 billion in sewer debt, which had been 3 percent just weeks earlier, has soared to 10 percent because of the fallout from the nation's subprime mortgage crisis, county officials said. Payments jumped to a point where they were no longer affordable.

Read more: http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/11/jefferson_county_commission_vo_14.html

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Birmingham is in Jefferson County, the largest city in Alabama.
It's the state's banking/insurance/financial center.

The " Alabama Legislature's inability to reach a consensus on any means of helping the county resolve its financial difficulties." is our recently elected majority REPUG legislature.

They'd rather go after 'illegal immigrants' and leave farmers in the lurch.

Great going guys.
Now your state's major county and city are in bankruptcy.
Way to go.
:eyes:

[Cirque du So-What]

1. It won't last long

The record, that is. I predict that even larger municipalities are in line to set even bigger records.

[SpiralHawk]

2. There's your 'conservative' Republicon economic scheme in action

FAIL. As usual. Freaking Republicons are clueless on economic matters.

[Turbineguy]

3. Well yes,

but now they can lower taxes even more!

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. But the banks involved in creating the debt...no problems for them.

:mad:

[JDPriestly]

6. Actually, bankruptcy is not all that great for creditors either.

The creditors should just be reasonable and drastically reduce the interest owed them. The city's assets could be up for the taking. Depends on what the court does I think.

Any experts on bankruptcy law here? I don't know that much about it.

[fascisthunter]

5. the Republican Party's Objective... bankrupt and then control completely

...anything to prevent economic fairness and democratic control.

[freshwest]

7. Yep. They'll buy up the assets at pennies on the dollar. They've done it before.