MetaFilter posts tagged with privatization

The Age of Disaster Capitalism

y2karl — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:29:22 -0800

...Through all its various name changes - the war on terror, the war on radical Islam, the war against Islamofascism, the third world war, the long war, the generational war - the basic shape of the conflict has remained unchanged. It is limited by neither time nor space nor target. From a military perspective, these sprawling and amorphous traits make the war on terror an unwinnable proposition. But from an economic perspective, they make it an unbeatable one: not a flash-in-the-pan war that could potentially be won but a new and permanent fixture in the global economic architecture. That was the business prospectus that the Bush administration put before corporate America after September 11. The revenue stream was a seemingly bottomless supply of tax dollars to be funnelled from the Pentagon ($270bn in 2005 to private contractors, a $137bn increase since Bush took office), US intelligence agencies and the newest arrival, the department of homeland security. Between September 11 2001 and 2006, the Department of Homeland Security handed out $130bn to contractors - money that was not in the private sector before and that is more than the GDP of Chile or the Czech Republic.

ignored, misreported, or poorly covered

nickyskye — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 09:41:27 -0800

10 big stories the US news media missed in the past year.

public assets and infrastructure go private--and we pay

amberglow — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:49:13 -0800

Roads To Riches (or We've Got a Bridge in Brooklyn to Sell You--Seriously) -- Why investors are clamoring to take over America's highways, bridges, and airports—and why the public should be nervous.--...a slew of Wall Street firms—Goldman, Morgan Stanley, the Carlyle Group, Citigroup, and many others—is piling into infrastructure ... Assets sold now could change hands many times over the next 50 years, with each new buyer feeling increasing pressure to make the deal work financially. It's hardly a stretch to imagine service suffering in such a scenario; already, the record in the U.S. has been spotty. ...

The long, slow death of public health care...

327.ca — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 12:00:10 -0800

Few things are more sacred to Canadians than the nation's medicare system. After years of health spending cutbacks by conservative politicians, debate rages over whether private providers should now be allowed to compete with the public system. In British Columbia, where the government is shovelling tax dollars into the 2010 Olympics, patients are being left to die in emergency rooms and long-term care facilities due to overcrowding and understaffing. Is it too late to save public health care? Should it be saved?

Enron and more

elpapacito — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 08:41:24 -0800

Corporate Scandal 2006. The year of Enron. Some articles (and at least one documentary) attempt to outline the size and proportion of the economic, financial and political dimensions of the scandal involving notorious names. As Sam Buell, a former federal prosecutor with the Justice Department's Enron Task Force puts it ""The deepest, most complex, most system-related case would be the last one to be resolved in all of this". Meanwhile Calpine company operating 90 power plants in U.S.A. recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with debts measured in billions of dollars. Among other problems the company wasn't able to predict negative consequences of an increase of natural gas price on at least eight significant contracts. (But hey they're new to this gas market things, it's my first day at work and I signed eight big contracts ! D'oh !). Who routinely gets it up the arse ?

...shock therapy on countries in various states of shock for at least three decades...

amberglow — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 13:43:32 -0800

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism --...Although hotels and industry have already started reconstructing on the coast, in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and India, governments have passed laws preventing families from rebuilding their oceanfront homes. Hundreds of thousands of people are being forcibly relocated inland, to military style barracks in Aceh and prefab concrete boxes in Thailand. The coast is not being rebuilt as it was--dotted with fishing villages and beaches strewn with handmade nets. Instead, governments, corporations and foreign donors are teaming up to rebuild it as they would like it to be: the beaches as playgrounds for tourists, the oceans as watery mines for corporate fishing fleets, both serviced by privatized airports and highways built on borrowed money....
Naomi Klein on "reconstruction" money after natural disasters--and who benefits. (Makes Wolfowitz seem like a less unlikely choice to head the World Bank after reading, too.)

AARP Opposes Private Social Security Accounts

nathanrudy — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:04:36 -0800

AARP Says No To Bush ... The AARP is coming out strong against private Social security investment accounts, saying they "will actually make the problem worse, not better." In January they plan to spend $50 million on an ad campaign opposing privatization. Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly has also been awesome in pointing out that the common wisdom that Social Security is in trouble is just not true.

Gimme, gimme, gimme

trharlan — Sun, 14 Nov 2004 12:09:04 -0800

Tyler Cowen on Social Security Privatization.
He links to the opinions of Arnold Kling, Brad DeLong, Jane Galt, Matthew Yglesias, and Ed Prescott.

chill — Sun, 08 Sep 2002 12:05:28 -0800

MOD Selects The Carlyle Group as Preferred Bidder for QinetiQ. In a move that seems to be going ahead with very little coverage, Britain's military research agency is being sold off to a foreign company. Given the important role Qinetiq plays in Britain's Defense, and the type of business The Carlyle Group is, this is perhaps surprising...

dejah420 — Sun, 04 Aug 2002 21:49:31 -0800

Reclaiming the Commons "One of the great questions of contemporary American political economy is, who shall control the commons? "The commons" refers to that vast range of resources that the American people collectively own, but which are rapidly being enclosed: privatized, traded in the market, and abused." This is a fairly long, but incredibly well researched article about the "silent theft of our shared assets and civic inheritance".

MAYORBOB — Sat, 08 Dec 2001 23:38:40 -0800

Italy privatizes its culture. At least that's what will happen when a bill turning management of all of its museums sails through the Parliament this week. Critics of the Berlesconi-driven measure say that trying to turn culture into a profit center is foolish as there are only a few attractions that make any money now.

ooklah — Wed, 10 Jan 2001 08:39:29 -0800

The U.S. Post office is a monopoly! or is it? USPS allows rate hike under protest...
We can't choose another vendor for this service. It is illegal for anyone to deliver to a mailbox other than the USPS. Has there ever been a substantial court case challenging this?
Should it be privatized? Your thoughts?