With the crunch worsening over the past several weeks in the credit markets, the bankruptcy reorganization forces are gearing up and eyeing potential debtors. Well, in this Heartland blog post, Thomas A. Rubin predicts one of the probable debtors that will need serious reorganization — the Las Vegas Monorail Company (prior posts here):

In short, the Las Vegas Monorail appears headed straight down the path to bankruptcy by approximately the year 2010 with nothing on the horizon that could prevent it ñ other than, perhaps, an ill-conceived government bailout or the absolute dumbest group of investors/suckers in recent financial history.
This result should come as a surprise to no one. Over the last several decades, I know of only one U.S. rail transit system, or quasi-transit system, that has come remotely close to covering its operating costs out of fares and other operating revenues (the Seattle Monorail), and none that have made any contribution what-so-ever to capital costs. However, the Las Vegas Monorail promoters assured everyone that operating revenues would not only cover operating costs, but would also cover all the debt service costs of the bonds sold to pay for the construction of the Monorail. [. . .]
One hopes that someone, somewhere, in a public sector decision-making capacity will tell the various casinos along the right of way that, if they want to see it continue to operate, well, it is all theirs.

Read the entire post, which lays out the public risks involved in even a privately-financed boondoggle of this nature. Meanwhile, this clever Political Calculations post comes up with an entertaining solution to achieving the same benefits of a light rail system at a far cheaper cost.