Category: Jefferson County

The most important slow country boy in America

20 December, 2012 (14:53) | Bankruptcy, Bonds, Capital markets, Infrastructure, Innovations, Jefferson County, Law, US News, Workouts |

By:David A. Smith   Bad facts make bad law. – Litigation proverb   And my word, are the facts bad here   The law is a continent endlessly being explored.  Beachheads are established; some areas are colonized, gridded and platted, and well settled.  As the society of settled law expands, the frontiers of unknown law [...]

Negotiating with the zombie

25 April, 2012 (13:08) | Bankruptcy, Birmingham, Infrastructure, Jefferson County, Municipal Finance, Sewer, Sovereign bankruptcy, Uncategorized, US News, Water & sanitation |

By: David A. Smith   Time to negotiate with the zombie?   Bankrupt county speaks with decaying tongue?   Instead of blasting its head off?   Do you feel … undead?   Except, quite possibly, you can’t – and if you can’t, then perhaps you’d better negotiate, as Jefferson County’s creditors are finding out in [...]

The financial ‘nuclear option’

15 November, 2011 (11:57) | Alabama, Bankruptcy, Birmingham, Cities, Infrastructure, Jefferson County, Municipal bankruptcy, US News, Workouts |

By: David A. Smith   So far has the actual use of nuclear weapons retreated from public consciousness that it has lost its reality, and hence its power to shock, with everything from senatorial procedures to union negotiations described as weighing a ‘nuclear option.’  But last week, in Birmingham, the phrase seems justified as it [...]

The perfect dung storm: Part 4, scraping the bottom of the barrel

15 September, 2011 (10:01) | Birmingham, Jefferson County, Municipal Finance, Sovereign bankruptcy, Subprime, Theory, US News, Water & sanitation, Workouts |

[Continued from yesterday's Part 3 and the preceding Part 2 and Part 1.]   By:David A. Smith   Wife’s named Mary But she’s called Marie We live in a three room house With a pepper tree   Randy Newman, Birmingham   Three days into our grim tale (only two to go to finish the post [...]

The perfect dung storm: Part 3, cleaning up the mucky finances

14 September, 2011 (09:53) | Birmingham, Jefferson County, Municipal Finance, Sovereign bankruptcy, Subprime, Theory, US News, Water & sanitation, Workouts |

[Continued from yesterday's Part 2 and the preceding Part 1.]   By:David A. Smith   Got a big black dog Whose name is Dan Lives in my backyard in Birmingham He is the meanest dog in Alabam’ Get ’em, Dan   Randy Newman, Birmingham   By now, two days into the story, and with only [...]