Want to make an investment of a lifetime?

Give the California High Speed Rail Authority a call.

They have a real deal for you.

All you have to do is fork over a minimum of $15 billion to complete the 177-mile initial segment from Bakersfield to Merced.

Act quick, because the odds are the price will increase a billion or so before the close of business today.

What’s the potential return?

According to the CHSRA, you’ll only lose $3.8 billion in the next 40 years.

What a deal.

Better hurry.

People are likely to trip over each to get at the front of the line for the opportunity to fork over $15 billion and then lose an additional $90 million plus annually for 40 years.

Forget the sage advice of the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett himself.

He’d probably tell you that’s not a good investment.

Heck, a kindergartner could tell you that.

But not the people in Sacramento.

Unlike Buffet who managed 21.7 percent annualized returns at Berkshire Hathaway since 1965 that is more than double than the S&P’s 500 during the same time, Sacramento has had a dozen or so multi-billion budget deficits with the latest projected to top $18 billion next year.

Who in their right mind wouldn’t take the investment offer of the 21st century?

Sell your house.

Empty the 401k.

Liquidate all your assets.

Max out your credit cards.

The baby needs shoes and investing in California High Speed Rail is going to make it happen.

The only investment more promising is dropping by the 7-Eleven and investing $1,000 in the next Powerball lottery draw.

The bureaucrats at the CHSRA will tell you it’s a solid move to invest in their employment gravy train, I mean the high-speed rail project.

It is why they dropped their lawsuit against the federal government for withdrawing $4 billion in high-speed rail funding.

It is $4 billion, by the way, that the federal government took back after the state blew past the deadline years ago to actually meet certain “contractual” bench marks.

So why did California drop the lawsuit just weeks after a judge rejected a dismissal motion from the Trump administration?

Do you promise not to keel over and pass out from laughing.

To quote a CHSRA spokesperson who is now the undisputed front runner for telling the 2025 Whopper of the Year, it was because, “This action reflects the State’s assessment that the federal government is not a reliable, constructive, or trustworthy partner in advancing high-speed rail in California.”

It’s kind of like the pot calling the kettle black.

Let’s explore just how reliable, constructive, and trustworthy the State of California has been when it comes to high-speed rail.

First, the original lie — or should we say half-baked embellished sales pitch.

Voters were told in 2008 if they approved a $9.9 billion bond measure that they’d be zipping between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2.5 hours by the year 2020 at a reasonable cost of $50 for a one-way ticket.

It would cost $33.6 billion to do so.

As far as the rest of the $24.7 billion, private sector investors would be knocking down the door of the CHSRA officers to drop off money to cover the gap.

Funny thing.

Not one potential investor even made an inquiry in 16 years.

But now after the state has made it clear they don’t want Uncle Sam, aka Daddy Warbucks, not as a partner but as a sucker to write large checks they expect private sector investors to come out of the wood work after 16 years of avoiding the rail project as if it were the Mother-of-All bottomless pits.

Come on, that’s not a fair assessment, you might say.

After all, it’s all about climate change not fiscal responsibility.

It’s just a minor glitch that the CHSRA has spent $15 billion without laying a single foot of track.

The 177-mile initial segment between Merced and Bakersfield will now cost at least $34 billion and not likely carry a paying passenger until 2033.

The new price tag to go from San Francisco to Los Angeles is now pegged at $135 billion.

And when will it be completed?

The 12th of never, at this point, might be called wishful thinking at best.

Still, that’s no reason why investors shouldn’t dump more money into the pit.

Consider what’s ahead.

The San Joaquin Valley segment was started because it was viewed as the least expensive and easiest to get off the ground by none other than Gov. Gavin Newsom and his top-notch appointees running the rail authority.

The most litigious segments were expected to be shoving high speed rail down the throats of property owners and residents in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area.

But that, from the perspective of engineers that worked on the Chunnel under the English Channel between France and England, is a mere distraction.

They believe the segment passing through the San Andreas Fault to go from Merced to San Jose via Pacheco Pass was grossly underestimated when it came to difficulty and cost.

What better reasons for the private sector to change their tune about the bright financial investment prospects high speed rail offers than the promise of costly lawsuits and even more delays as well as a complex tunnel engineering project that could set a world record for cost overruns?

It gets better.

Two years ago, CHSRA revised ridership projections for the Merced to Bakersfield segment.

They slashed the ridership outlook by two thirds.

At the same time, the projected annual revenue went from $156 million down to $55.6 million,

But wait, that’s not the good news.

The bureaucratic number crunchers pulling numbers out of thin air have said — drum roll — once the LA to SF segment is up and running, high speed rail will be rolling in the dough.

And the $135 billion question is when will that be?

All CHSRA needs to do is land a whale with no business sense, no brains, and more money than they know what to do with.

They could start with the California Legislature that has steadfastly refused to pull the plug on the boondoggle to end all boondoggles.

They clearly have no business sense.

Brains are debatable at times.

And when they have $100 billion budget surpluses like the last one they had in 2023 they spend it at a warp speed that would make Scotty of Star Trek fame envious.