B.A.
A new arms length-state owned company (London Airport Limited) would buy Heathrow, Stansted, Gatwick, City, Southend, Luton, Southend, Manson, Biggin Hill, Ashford and Cambridge Airports (and nearby hotels, offices and other airport related facilities)
It will issue long term bonds to the general public and other institutions (at a rate of lets say 4%) that will fund 60% of the overall cost, the rest coming from government.
Sorry, not going to happen.
Firstly, the S.E. will need to retain point-to-point airports. Thus LGW and STN will need to stay, to provide for the Low-Standards airlines and their desperate travelers. There is no point clogging up a world-class hub with harp logos, and these carriers would not want to go there anyway. Too expensive and too crowded for locos (20 minute turnaround at LHR anyone?).
As to the issue of bonds, if you set a fixed rate for the bond this simply becomes a government bond, wholly backed by the government with very little connection to the airport. And while general returns on investments are low at present, making 4% attractive, would you really want to trust your money to a European government in the present climate? I don't think many big players will, they will prefer property or overseas investments over the UK government. And if you do attract big money for this project, are you not simply extracting money from the economy and reducing economic activity in other sectors?
In the current climate, the only really way of financing such a large project, is through Quantitive Easing. The government has already printed some £300 billion, which could easily have funded Silver-Boris airport six times over. Instead, they gave the money to banksters, so they could continue paying each other fat bonuses. So when large industrial corporations get into financial trouble, often through sheer incompetence, the government sticks two fingers up at them. But when the banks get into trouble, often through sheer greed and incompetence, they get bailed out and given a bonus. It sounds very much like the USSR's failed economic model.
Did anyone here feel any benefit from all this largesse to the City of London? No. Alternatively, had this money been spent more wisely, we could already have had - a new London airport; a new nationwide TGV network; three new regional airports; four new shipping ports; and some money left over for scientific R&D. What would have been better for the economy and the people, eh? What would have provided more jobs and more economic activity, and made the UK a better place to live in - creating a first-class travel infrastructure for the UK, or another fat bonus for an incompetent bankster?
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However, the money-printing-pill has not worked, and the BofE's finger is still hovering over the Q.E. button. If this new tranche of funding - say £50 billion of new money - were used for a new Silver-Boris airport, the entire project could be funded in a trice. And the economic result would be much better for the economy than giving more money to failed fat-cats who will have no incentive to mend their profligate ways if they are simply rewarded for failure.
And who pays for Q.E.? UK citizens do, of course, through increased inflation. But at least that 'tax' is fair and even across the board. You cannot evade inflation if you live and work in the UK, by hiding money in tax havens (or even by buying other currencies). Inflation always comes back to bite you, whether you are buying a tin of beans or a Rolls Royce.
B.A.
As for why much of American infrastructure is crumbling, its is because the GOP-Led Congress cannot agree on matters like those with the Democrat controled White House
Would have to disagree with you there. The rot set into the US long before the current administration.
If you look around the US there are some fine city centers, and then there are other areas in the sticks that would not look out of place in rural Africa. And some of the general transport infrastructure is woeful. There is a huge backlog of rail and road bridges that were cheaply built in the 30s and 40s and need replacing, and it is not getting done - and that is just one small example of infrastructure rot, out of many.
If you compare US transport infrastructure to European equivalents (not the UK, because much of that is dire too), there is no comparison. European surface transport is in a different century to the US. Same goes for housing too. Americans still live in houses made of sticks, and then they complain bitterly when a hurricane or tornado blows it away. Gads, even the Three Little Pigs knew that they should build houses out of brick (or concrete, as in the Med countries).
And this is a serious matter for the UK and for the USA. I was in the USSR in the early 1990s, as the Wall came down. And it was quite apparent that the USSR failed because they let their infrastructure rot. Nothing had been built or repaired since the Revolution. Can you imagine a vast nation (in the 1990s) without any motorways, trains that could barely do 50kph, Victorian dockyards, military bases that looked like junkyards, no real banks (it was basically a cash economy), completely empty shops (an indication of how bad industry and agriculture were), and a capital city with barely a single functioning restaurant. Can you imagine the chaos? In Moscow, the best restaurant in town was the new McDonalds - Moscovite aristocrats used to dress up in their finest furs and book a table to go to the McDonalds (they had never seen such large portions, such exquisitely presented food, and such clean premises). For a Westerner, this was a real sight to behold.
That, dear leaders in Westminster, is what happens to a country when you ignore its infrastructure and spend every last penny on social security and welfare issues. Oh, yes, social spending works for a while and it probably gets you reelected, because everyone likes free goods and less work, but then the nation collapses under a blanket of inactivity. It took the USSR some 70 years to totally disintegrate, and run out of functioning infrastructure. In many respects, the USA and the UK are not that far behind.
As the old joke goes: "Liberal-Socialist governments are the best in the world, until they run out of other people's money." Just ask Blair and Brown...
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