The fire sale of America continues this week with Arizona legislators considering selling their House and Senate buildings and then leasing them back from private companies to raise cash. As we continue to pour billions into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, states are selling off parks and historic sites (here and here). The result is a windfall for private investors who are scooping up deals from legislators who are eager for ready cash.
Like many legislators, politicians in Arizona did little during times of plenty to prepare for lean years. The result is that they are willing now to sell off government buildings and parks to maintain their budgets.
Under this deal, a company will own the house and senate buildings of the government and Arizona citizens will pay leases for their own government facilities. The state is also exploring turning over prisons to private companies.
What is fascinating is that, after spending hundreds of billions on these wars, the Bush Administration left little ability for the federal government to step in to rescue these states. The result is that private companies ultimately not only received windfall profits from war expenditures but other companies are able to buy up state properties at a song. None of this, of course, was planned. However, in the course of just eight years, trillions of dollars will have flowed into private coffers and whole areas of government into private hands. It is quite an achievement — even when unplanned. A combination of these events achieved what some had long dreamed: the privatization of government areas and massive infusion of money into private hands.
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Spelled Sauget
I believe that East St Louis did this in the eighties – sold municipal buildings to raise cash. Monsanto created the island municpality of Sonje to avoid paying property tax to East St. Louis, a predominantly black community across the river from St. Louis. from Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities
Now this is Honesty in Government. They are for sale and they do have a price. Just how much of your soul are you wishing to pay?
This is a neo-liberal policy, and its a testament to the fact that there isn’t much of a difference between the parties.
t was also done in Africa under the encouragement by Clinton. The so-called peace activists Nelson Mandela and ANC sold out their people under the table. He signed a declaration which allowed the land owned by small farmers to be appropriated by the government. It was then it was sold to multinational corporations, and white Boer farmers for the creation of the “Bread Basket” essentially turning the farmers into share croppers. So much for the dismantling of apartheid. 7 days later he was awarded the international peace prize.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/37/076.html
These neobliberal “christian” policies are subscribed to by members of “The Third Way”. Bill/Hillary, Ted Kennedy, Tony Blair and a lot of those C street republicans members. They also are seeking to weaken the second amendment to allow religious education in schools. Something these patriots are calling reconstitutioning. All the signers are at the end of the document.
http://www.mediastudies.org/publications/first/findingcommonground/C02.WilliamsburgCharter.pdf
getplaning,
Obama’s single largest contributor was Goldman Sachs. I think that explains a lot.
What has happened in California and Arizona bears a resemblance to what happened in Russia under Boris Yeltsin. In the next few years we will probably see a new class of super, super-wealthy, who bought all this public trust at fire sale prices today. Goldman Sachs is just one example.
You can’t fight city hall, but you can own it.
Do you know who also did the same??
The Russians, right after they threw communism out the door.
The best and greatest government-run companies were bought by the private sector for nearly nothing, Russia gained a few trillionaires and another people got robbed and screwed up the behind.
How stupid can taxpayers get.. Seems they’re suffering from a different Ponzi scheme every day.
Maybe pwned actually stands for “pawned”, not “owned”.
“However, in the course of just eight years, trillions of dollars will have flowed into private coffers and whole areas of government into private hands. It is quite an achievement — even when unplanned. A combination of these events achieved what some had long dreamed: the privatization of government areas and massive infusion of money into private hands.”
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It may have been planned that way exactly. There’s a very interesting film called “No End in Sight” about PNAC’s plan to destroy Iraq’s civilization and build it up in their idea of a capitalist dream themepark. Naomi Klein is one who believes this is deliberate as well. Her book called, “The Shock Doctrine” explores this very issue and I think she makes her case. The economic disaster is only really beginning, not ending for most people.
Glenn Greenwald did an fascinating column on the financial shenanigans we are now engaged in with the bank bailouts. Here is a short excerpt:
“Barofksy’s clashes with administration officials have intensified of late. Last week, he issued a report documenting that the actual amount of taxpayer money theoretically put at risk in the bank bailout — once Federal Reserve, FDIC and other programs are counted — is $23.7 trillion,…” (of which we are currently on the hook for $3 trillion. Now add in the wars or don’t and you will see this situation cannot end well. There will be unprecedented social choas because these numbers cannot work out and our ability to print money and sell T-Bills to China can’t go on forever. This will collapse. It is Klein’s contention that this collapse, just as with New Orleans, is a deliberate plan to crush our social system and give PNACers the chance to rebuild the US in their image–God Help Us All!
Really, a lot of this is adult thumb sucking. Really.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/07/thumb-sucking-for-power-and-pleasure.html