A message from Thom Hartmann to the Bernie Sanders Campaign:

[JDPriestly]

10. I lived in Europe including in Bruno Kreisky's Austria.

Bruno Kreisky was a Socialist. He was also a democrat.

He's the guy who was responsible for opening the border between Austria and Hungary which eventually led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and communism in Eastern Europe. There were others who contributed a lot, but I have to credit Bruno Kreisky with a snipping the first wires of the Iron Curtain. (Been a long time since I heard that term.)

Austria was a great place to live. The kindergartens were just wonderful and gave my children one huge jump-start in their educations.

Austria was, at that time, a neutral country although it had a military and a draft.

We have seen so much privatization of traditionally government work.

I would like to see some research done on just what the privatization has meant in terms of corruption, cheating and political favors.

I would like to see some research that might tell us in what areas privatization has worked well and in what areas it has not worked so well or failed.

I would like to see some research comparing the real costs including the social costs of privatization versus government doing work.

I'm not taking a particular stance on whether privatization is good or bad. I suspect it is sometimes good and sometimes bad.