AlterNet: Privatizing Roads, Bridges, Schools and Energy Grids? Corporatism Pervades SOTU
Privatizing Roads, Bridges, Schools and Energy Grids? Corporatism Pervades SOTU
While the President pledged to reel in corporations, his grand plans for the U.S. proposed just the opposite.
by Laura Gottesdiener, AlterNet
. . .
. . . on the issue of income inequality, the President’s rhetoric was right across the board--that is, until he actually began unfurling his Grand Plans. That’s when the President’s typical double-speak kicked in. He promised to curtail corporate profits, but his vision for a new, “high-tech” America seemed to entail turning everything from our highways to our public schools into corporate-owned, public-private partnerships.
. . . Obama’s proposed public-private partnerships went far beyond public school classrooms. They also include the country’s most essential infrastructure: roads, bridges, rails and even energy grid.
. . . Couched as a way to save taxpayers’ money, the President actually just dangled a considerable carrot in front of corporations: construction grants and partial ownership of nearly all of the United States’ infrastructure.Public private partnerships are essentially a stepping stone to full privatization of our roads, bridges, railways, power grids and--yes--even our public schools.
The implications of this proposal are so scary that they even startled a Fox News reporter who commented, “It’s unnerving to hear the suggestion that the best way to guard against corporate excess is by crafting ever-closer public/private partnerships.”
As a concept, public-private partnerships can be considered a metaphor for any type of privatization: they sound smart in a capitalist society, but they’re never what they’re cracked up to be.
As a trio of smart economics professors, including one at Yale University, writes in a paper on using these partnerships to revamp U.S. infrastructure, “Public-private partnerships are often touted as a “best-of-both-worlds” alternative to public provision and privatization. But in practice, they have been dogged by contract design problems, waste, and unrealistic expectations. Governments sometimes opt for a public-private partnership, for example, because they mistakenly believe that it offers a way to finance infrastructure without adding to the public debt. In other cases, contract renegotiations have resulted in excessive costs for taxpayers or losses for private firms.”
. . .
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/privatizing-roads-bridges-schools-and-energy-grids-corporatism-pervades-sotu?paging=off
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... there go the commons. Bon voyagie 
commons.
Public-Private Partnerships. Doesn't sound right together. Reminds me of Church & State. Yeah, I was listening, and that stuck out like a sore thumb. Didn't like the sound of it, either. Sounds like our schools are going to be turned into old fashioned "technical schools." That's where they didn't teach you to read and write...they just taught you menial job skills so you could get nice low-wage employment when you graduated. At least you wasn't digging ditches. The more I think of it, it reminds me of North Carolina's Governor's statement a week or so ago about doing the same thing, only to the colleges in his state! That went over down there like a lead balloon, let me tell you.
And "Ask any CEO where they would rather locate and hire...". Well, we know the answer to that. Do they have high speed rail and great infrastructure in places like India, Mexico, Indonesia, China, etc., where they have been moving good jobs to for the last 30 some odd years?
We're going into full-blown Shock Doctrine Disaster Capitalism, folks, and it's beginning to scare the bajeesus out of this old girl. Cue "This is the End" by the Doors....
.... because I do like PO very much. I voted for him twice, and I voted in the 2010 midterm as well. I vote Democrat every time the polls are open. Local, State or General election. But I live in one of those locked up pitiful crimson red states, so I feel like my vote doesn't count. I still vote, though.
But. When I hear double-speak coming out of the mouths of Democrats, even if it's PO, I feel I have to speak out. And there are some folks on DU who rip you apart when you have the nerve to say something. "Public-Private Partnerships", I feel is a new buzz thing to take the place of "Corporatization" or "Privatization." And yes, promoting climate change on one hand and signing offshore oil permits at the same time don't jive. I could go on and on but I won't. Things are really changing fast and no one is telling the People. Out of here... Happy Valentines Day!
...have the RICH FUCKS own Every-fucking-thing-in-the-WORLD.
My Bad.
Now that it is the Democrats who want to privatize everything,
I guess it is All GOOD!
No Publicly Owned Necessities, Utilities, or Common Wealth
No Magna Carta
Back to the Dark Ages of Feudal Lords and Kings!!!
Those who haven't learned History are destined to repeat it!
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