{"id":27030,"date":"2017-10-19T17:57:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-19T22:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27030"},"modified":"2017-10-19T17:58:36","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T22:58:36","slug":"hartford-could-default-on-its-debt-as-soon-as-next-month-moodys-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27030","title":{"rendered":"Hartford Could Default On Its Debt As Soon As Next Month, Moody’s Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hartford Could Default On Its Debt As Soon As Next Month, Moody’s Says<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Moody\u2019s latest warning about Hartford Connecticut is its most dire yet.<\/div>\n
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In a report issued Thursday, the ratings agency\u2019s analysts said Hartford, Connecticut\u2019s once-proud capital city, could default on its debt as soon as next month, forcing the capital of the country\u2019s wealthiest state (on a per capita basis) into bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

If the city doesn\u2019t change course (and given its shrinking tax base and the departure last year of Aetna, a major insurance company that was founded in Hartford and had located its headquarters in the city for more than 150 years, reforms appear unlikely), receive a state bailout or strike some kind of deal with its creditors, Moody\u2019s says lenders can expect it to run up annual deficits in excess of $60 million through the next 20 years.<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s (along with its rivals Fitch and Standard & Poor\u2019s) downgraded Hartford\u2019s credit rating on Sept. 26 to Caa3 from Caa1, <\/strong>reflecting a view that creditors would only manage to recoup between 60% and 80% of their principal should Hartford default.<\/p>\n

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Of course, there\u2019s no guarantee that the state government will be there to support troubled Hartford. Four months into the fiscal year, Connecticut is the only state in the country that hasn\u2019t passed a budget as lawmakers the state\u2019s lame-duck Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy joust over how to close a $3.5 billion two-year budget deficit. In a reflection of the state\u2019s broader fiscal crisis (as is the case in many US states), Moody\u2019s says Hartford\u2019s public employee unions represent a \u201csignificant constraint\u201d to cutting the city\u2019s deficit, as the Hartford Courant <\/a>points out.<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s called Hartford\u2019s unions \u201ca constraint\u201d to trimming the city\u2019s deficit. \u201cContractual salary increases and employee benefits are significant contributors to the city’s long term structural imbalance,\u201d the report read.<\/strong> Unions would have to make \u201csignificant concessions\u201d for Hartford to narrow those deficits, it said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hartford Could Default On Its Debt As Soon As Next Month, Moody’s Says Moody\u2019s latest warning about Hartford Connecticut is its most dire yet. In a report issued Thursday, the ratings agency\u2019s analysts said Hartford, Connecticut\u2019s once-proud capital city, could default on its debt as soon as next month, forcing the capital of the country\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1361,195,3108,15490,541,2639,783],"class_list":["post-27030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-bankruptcy","tag-debt","tag-fitch","tag-hartford","tag-moodys","tag-standard-and-poors","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27030"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27031,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27030\/revisions\/27031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}