New State Panel to Study Privatizing Public Assets (New York)

[lurky]

Source: New York Times

ALBANY — Facing a recession, Gov. David A. Paterson’s administration said on Tuesday that it would set up a commission to explore ways to privatize public assets, including the lottery system and bridges like the Tappan Zee.

***snip****

Stephen J. Acquario, executive director of the New York State Association of Counties, said, “At this time of fiscal distress and uncertainty, all available options should be explored by the state.”

Ms. Hitchcock has a legal background. Before joining the Paterson administration in May, she served as deputy counsel to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and for 15 years before that was a senior staff lawyer with the Legal Aid Society in Manhattan.

Asked about her expertise in examining privatizations of major public assets, she pointed to her close ties to organized labor and her role as one of the officials involved in the state’s recent move to allow the American International Group access to $20 billion of capital from its subsidiaries, a day before the embattled insurer received a federal bailout.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/nyregion/01privatize.html?ref=nyregion

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I was surprised not to see this posted yet. I've been reading The Shock Doctrine in the middle of this whole mess, and I must admit my blood went a little cold when I saw this headline today.

[Cooley Hurd]

1. WTF??!!??

:grr:

Granted, the Tappan Zee's crumbling, but I sure as HELL don't want KBR to fix it!!!!:grr:

[lurky]

2. That seems to be the way it works.

Slash taxes, let the infrastructure crumble, then say, "We can't afford to fix it. We'd better just let some corporate Good Samaritan take it off our hands!"

[Javaman]

4. The Hostest Twinkie Tappan Zee... nt

[One_Life_To_Give]

3. Experience writing Contracts and Specifications?

Hand it to a private contractor and you will get exactly what is in the contract, no more and no less. Run a bridge for a few years no problem. e.g. Not my fault your contract didn't specify it had to be still standing on the last day of the contract +1.

Know a town that privatized tax collection. First thing they did was issue leans against every entity that owed taxes. Didn't settle to well with the "Politically connected."

[harmonicon]

5. so fucking dumb

I remember Bloomberg talking about this when her first became mayor of NYC. I thought it was so widely ridiculed then that the idea would drop, and certainly not spread - I guess the shithead virus has a long incubation period.

[whistle]

6. Music to John McCain's ears I'm sure, sell off the people's assets

...of NY State

[RoccoR5955]

7. What I heard on the Albany NPR affiliate, which I trust implicitly,

is that the State is planning on LEASING certain things, and NOT granting ownership of public resources to the private sector. I do not believe that Paterson would do this. It's not his way.
I am sure that I can hear more, some time after 6PM Eastern. You can listen too, at http://www.wamc.org

[PA Democrat]

8. PA is trying to lease the PA Turnpike

There was a tentative deal to lease the Turnpike for 75 years to a consortium comprised of Citibank and a Spanish company, Abertis, and the offer was withdrawn yesterday.


http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08275/916380-85.stm

The whole damn country is falling apart. Everything is being sold to the highest bidder.

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. ty for that update.

I have been trying to track the growing number of privatizations.

Toll roads are being leased to foreign companies more frequently, after we paid years of taxes to build them.

[Mika]

11. Florida has done this, and is expanding it.

They can charge whatever tolls they please. 50 year leases of parts of the Florida turnpike and other state roads.


-

[Piewhacket]

12. Nice image.

Appropriate.

But I just want to mention I'm an old fan of Slim Pickens and some might not know
the image is derived from Peter Seller's movie 'Dr. Strangelove',
and is perhaps the most famous scene in it, a classic and perhaps the most memorable
Slim Pickens (as Maj. T.J. 'King' Kong) moment in film.

Any explanation would be inadequate. You should see the movie if you haven't.
Then you'll definitely get it. 'Dr. Strangelove' changed the world.
It may even have saved the world.

I remember the missiles of October. I was there. The brink of nuclear holocaust.
If you have lived through that scenario, the real and imminent threat of extinction
of all life on earth with 15 minutes notice, it is difficult to be frightened
by lesser catastrophe. Economic troubles? Pffoooeee. We can only fear poverty,
and if you are already poor, what is there to fear???

Yet I find that somehow I can still be terrified by something. Something that makes
the blackness of nuclear holocaust simply seem like a respectable exit for a world that
just didn't make it.

So what is it that can still frighten me?
An oppressive prison without respite or hope of escape. The true nightmare scenario.
The totalitarian, fascist, Orwellian world.

THAT is the nuclear bomb that GWB has been riding to destruction.
"WEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The future holds mankind's destiny, whatever it is.
I cannot see the future, but for me the path of the present moment is clear.
Dems must win in November. That is all.

[Zhade]

14. Seventy-five YEARS?

That's insane!

[Phred42]

10. The Fascists are laughing their asses off

This is insane and MUST be stopped

[Auggie]

13. K&R. THIS IS BIG!!!

Decades of Chicago School Economics (Disaster Capitalism) is coming to your neighborhood. Want to pay Blackwater for police protection? Bechtel for water? Pay tolls on the Halliburton Highway?

Just wait.

[NeoConsSuck]

15. NY State is getting murdered with this financial crisis

probably more so than almost any other state. As Patterson stated, 20% of all tax revenue comes from Wall Street. 20% !! And all the investment banks that went belly up were headquarted in Manhattan. So not only does the State lose all tax revenues from those investment banks, the 75,000? or more investment bank workers that became unemployed are no longer paying taxes to NY State. And even the remaining Wall Street banks headquarted in NY are not going to show any profits for quite a while, hence no taxes paid to NY State.

Patterson is doing all he can to keep NY State solvent. This is one issue I won't knock him on.