The "America Is Going Out-of-Business Sale": All Public Assets Must Go!

[marmar]

from the NY Times:



Cities Debate Privatizing Public Infrastructure
By JENNY ANDERSON
Published: August 26, 2008



Cleaning up road kill and maintaining runways may not sound like cutting-edge investments. But banks and funds with big money seem to think so.

Reeling from more exotic investments that imploded during the credit crisis, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the Carlyle Group, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse are among the investors who have amassed an estimated $250 billion war chest — much of it raised in the last two years — to finance a tidal wave of infrastructure projects in the United States and overseas.

Their strategy is gaining steam in the United States as federal, state and local governments previously wary of private funds struggle under mounting deficits that have curbed their ability to improve crumbling roads, bridges and even airports with taxpayer money.

With politicians like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California warning of a national infrastructure crisis, public resistance to private financing may start to ease.

“Budget gaps are starting to increase the viability of public-private partnerships,” said Norman Y. Mineta, a former secretary of transportation who was recently hired by Credit Suisse as a senior adviser to such deals.

This fall, Midway Airport of Chicago could become the first to pass into the hands of private investors. Just outside the nation’s capital, a $1.9 billion public-private partnership will finance new high-occupancy toll lanes around Washington. This week, Florida gave the green light to six groups that included JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers and the Carlyle Group to bid for a 50- to 75 -year lease on Alligator Alley, a toll road known for sightings of sleeping alligators that stretches 78 miles down I-75 in South Florida. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/business/27fund.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[NMDemDist2]

1. cleaning up roadkill??

we have big birds with red heads for that around here

:shrug:

[MadHound]

2. More of the neo-con's wet dream, privatize everything

Making more money off of shoddier work, oh, yeah, privatization really works well:eyes:

[FiveGoodMen]

3. Not just about money. If you privatize EVERYTHING, then Democracy is gone.

That's the big point: Privatizing takes all power out of the hands of little guys. Then governments don't mean anything at all.

[marmar]

4. Yup.....A corporate totalitarian state.

n/t

[apnu]

6. bathtubs for everybody!

Want some bananas for your Republic?

Incidentally, this is just one of the things Hillary was talking about last night when she said we cannot afford more of the same.

[truedelphi]

14. The United States of The BIG BANANA Republic

Our congress critters and local representatives, from the city council on up, bought and paid for.

No more a democracy than Guatemala in the nineteen fifties.

And with GMO's in our future, we will probably be growing bananas, even in the northern most states.

[Greyhound]

5. Another piece falls into place.

But don't listen to us, we're all just a bunch of nutters.
:kick: & R#5

[lurky]

7. I'm pretty sure this is The Grand Plan.

Post offices, schools, the military, transportation networks: all directly under the control of private power. This takes them farther from the oversight of those pesky citizens.

[lonestarnot]

8. Dats de plan stan. So that could mean we are no longer the united United States as we will have no

bonds to bind us! Fine you pugs get outta my state! We libs will take care of the road kill!

[Hannah Bell]

10. yep. if you control the money & property, you control the game.

[Locrian]

12. winner winner chicken dinner

Been the plan all along. Wreck it, privatize it. After the gov money trough dries up, the "privatized" industry will then turn on the public DIRECTLY. It'll cost you to BREATH by the time we are done.

[bdamomma]

9. vote for McCain and kiss everything good bye

[arikara]

11. Public / private partnerships...

Public pays and private profits.

[earth mom]

13. The plan all along has been to destroy the U.S. so TPTB could swoop in & profit from it.

Just read Confessions of an Economic Hitman and Shock Doctrine to find out what the game plan is. :puke: