S&P: Hartford Bonds are Junk.

Standard & Poors has declared Hartford’s bonds junk. The story, which you can read here, is linked on Drudge.

Read the whole thing, but here’s a chilling excerpt:

“And yet, while Illinois squirms in the agony of the unknown, another municipality that as recently as a month ago was rumored to be looking at a bankruptcy filing, the state capital of Connecticut, Hartford, no longer has to dread the unknown: on Tuesday afternoon, S&P pulled off the band-aid, and downgraded the city’s bond rating by two notches to BB from BBB-, also known as junk, citing ‘growing liquidity pressures’ and ‘weaker market access prospects’, while keeping the city’s General Obligation bonds on Creditwatch negative meaning more downgrades are likely imminent.”

Curiously, nowhere does the analysis say that spending tens of millions of public fund to bring a professional hockey team to Hartford would help solve the city’s many troubles.