El Gordo

The Ciudad Real Central Airport, the doomed investment that brought down both Caja Castilla La Mancha and the government of the region after which that caja was named has effectively ceased to operate. Despite the termination of its only remaining scheduled route - Vueling to Barcelona - the airport's website has yet to reflect this new situation.

The promoters of this inane project may never have intended to get into the airport business, but rather their plan was to indulge in the near-zero sum game that substitutes for economic activity in the minds of many Spanish business people - the clocking up of capital gains. The airport was apparently always intended to be resold at a profit. Unfortunately it didn't enter into operation until 2008.

More interesting to the casual observer is the ease with which a project which cost a full three percent of Castilla-La Mancha's gross 'national' product found financing. Here's looking at, among others, the legion of really stupid French and German buyers of too-low-yielding Spanish covered bonds who poured money into the hands of a cartel that could think of nothing better than to invest it in a lottery ticket.

According to the official website, the CR airport saw about 100,000 passengers pass through its doors in nearly three years of operation. At a reported cost of 1.1 billion euros, that's 11,000 per head.

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