The Art Of The Steal @ The Manor Theatre In Squirrel Hill

For much of the time Dr. Albert C. Barnes, was amassing his collection he was ignored or insulted. Ever since controversy has raged. I just read a long story about it in a 1964 issue of Horizon Magazine.

Honestly, it's been to hard for me too fully form an opinion and this film may help.
One thing is not in doubt. The collection is one of the most important ever amassed by a private collector anywhere. Mary Thomas has a review in The Post.

"One of the world's largest collections of Impressionist and early Modern paintings, it includes 181 by Renoir, 69 by Cezanne, 59 by Matisse, 46 Picassos and seven van Goghs.

In the film, globally prominent art dealer Richard Feigen walks through a Sotheby's auction display, dismissing works as un-Barnesworthy that will later draw bids in the millions. In comparison, he cites one of the Barnes' foremost paintings, "The Card Players" by Cezanne, and muses about its monetary worth. "The Getty couldn't afford it. You would need some sort of a nation to buy it."

Rendell Unable To Bailout Harrisburg

This is not a comprehensive follow up report to this post but you should get the picture.

The small city of Harrisburg which has missed major payments on 288 million dollars in municipal bonds it had backed will not be getting aid anywhere near what would be needed to clean up it's mess. (68 million is due this year)

What's disturbing here, is that the wad of debt in default here isn't regular city debt, but bonds issued by an "Authority", that Harrisburg guaranteed, just the kind of thing Pittsburgh and Allegheny county have done over and over. Often these promises are so obscure and complex, almost nobody knows what taxpayers are really on the hook for.

The bottom line is that there's no way the state was in any position to cover the amount involved but I doubt bondholders thought that. Too big to fail is the motto of government finance. If the Authority, can't pay, the city will step in; if the city can't the state will and so on up the chain--or at least that's what people thought.