Madrid is Bankrupt

Zap is putting the screws on municipalities so they can't keep increasing their debts. He's been especially hard on Madrid (PP), with the biggest debt, and the Mayor was seen literally begging the Pres for a break at the Spain Day parade on October 12th.

He owes trash collection and street cleaning companies over 250 m euros, hasn't paid them in 9 months, and they are threatening to cut services (total debt owed by Spanish municipalities to the big trash haulers (spin-offs of once-rich construction firms) are over 2 bn euros).

The Mayor (Alberto Ruiz Gallardón) owes money to everyone. He put Madrid thru two Olympic bids (2012 and 2016), buried a highway under the Manzanares River, a 10 km underground six-lane salaam course with countless interchanges and extensions, that cost about 6 bn (the best work of interactive installation art I've ever seen, I must admit), built a Dominque Perrault tennis stadium that cost 300 m (double the budget) and that really sucks (The roofs slide up and down but so what? Its a big Kemedy-Center box (Ed Du Stone, Washington DC) finished in galvanized steel and concrete), and uselessly moved city hall into the old post office at Cibeles for a cost of over 100 m, not to mention a lot of other things. When he was Pres of the Madrid regional govt. he sunk another big chunk in a regional subway, underground, that connects all the southern suburbs. A total waste.

It would be great if Madrid forecloses. Its the only thing that might hurt this idiot's popularity -- he is by far the most popular politician in Spain, altho his own party hates him -- they think he's a socialist, because he's not exactly a Francoist. The PP puts up with him because he's unbeatable. And municipal elections are coming up next May -- let's see if he can hold his load until then.

Above, M-30 underground salaam. photo from Wikimedia Commons by FDV; used with permission.