More on the flirtation with bankruptcy by Jefferson County, Alabama (which includes the state capital, Birmingham).  Officials there had bedazzled bond-buying investors for years with rosy financial projections of the county’s water/sewer operations; Wall Street firms, in turn, bedazzled county officials with prospects of lower interest rates achieved though interconnected financial instruments of almost unfathomable complexity, instead of the straightforward long term bonds the county had been issuing.  Knowingly or not, everyone dove right in to what appeared to be fine water, now turned into a sludge-filled money pit.