Word: tolls
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...know what RFID stands for, but you're probably using the technology on a daily basis. RFID (that is, radio frequency identification) is in passports, in electronic toll-collection tags, in credit cards, metrocards, library books and car keys. Like conventional bar codes, RFID chips store and relay information, and allow for the identification of commercial products - and, now, of house pets and people too. Human "tagging" was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2004 to facilitate retrieval of private medical records, but the procedure has had few takers. It's still purely voluntary and last week, California...
...treasury by $1.8 billion by selling a 99-year lease of the Chicago Skyway to Spanish roads operator Cintra and Australian bank Macquarie. At about the same time, Texas bagged $1.2 billion to let a Cintra-led consortium build the first part of the Trans-Texas Corridor and collect tolls on it for 50 years. In 2006 Indiana signed a 75-year lease for the 157-mile (253 km) Indiana Toll Road in exchange for $3.8 billion, funding the state's transportation needs for the next decade--and grabbing the attention of other budget-conscious states. "It was an earthquake...
...privatization under the enthusiastic leadership of Governor Rick Perry, saw its legislature impose a two-year moratorium on new projects. The Pennsylvania legislature bounced Rendell's first attempt to privatize the turnpike, though now he's trying again in the wake of shifting state politics. The mother of all toll roads, the New Jersey Turnpike, is under review, but Governor Jon Corzine, a former Goldman chairman, disappointed eager bankers in June when he flatly stated, "We're not going to privatize...
Money from the private sector could help fill that gap, but there is more than one way to get it. Deals like the Chicago Skyway and Indiana Toll Road, which lease existing assets, may tap the private sector's operating prowess and political immunity in raising tolls, but critics see them as long-term mortgages to solve short-term fiscal problems. "People are giving public-private partnership a bad name by running around the countryside trying to entice cash-strapped states and municipalities to participate in these monetizations," says Tim Carson, vice chairman of the Pennsylvania Turnpike commission...
...that Musharraf's army has been unable to combat. As many as 250 people, including some 45 soldiers, were killed in fierce fighting in Pakistan's tribal areas last week. Despite promises to the contrary, Musharraf was forced to use aircraft to bomb suspected militant hideouts, escalating the death toll and local anti-government rage. Some analysts are already calling the situation in North and South Waziristan, the locus of the fighting, a "civil war." On Friday, the eighth anniversary of Musharraf's coup, militants publicly beheaded six alleged criminals. A week before they executed three soldiers. "The situation...