Dylan Ratigan, HuffPo: America for Sale: Is Goldman Sachs Buying Your City?

[highplainsdem]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/america-for-sale-is-goldm_b_877285.html

Also at Business Insider:

http://www.businessinsider.com/america-for-sale-is-goldman-sachs-buying-your-city-2011-6

In Chicago, it's the sale of parking meters to the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi. In Indiana, it's the sale of the northern toll road to a Spanish and Australian joint venture. In Wisconsin it's public health and food programs, in California it's libraries. It's water treatment plants, schools, toll roads, airports, and power plants. It's Amtrak. There are revolving doors of corrupt politicians, big banks, and rating agencies. There are conflicts of interest. It's bipartisan.

And it's coming to a city near you -- it may already be there. We're talking about the sale of public assets to private investors. You may have heard of one-off deals, but what we'll be exploring with the Huffington Post is the scale and scope of what is a national and organized campaign to shift the way we govern ourselves. In an era of increasingly stretched local and state budgets, privatization of public assets may be so tempting to local politicians that the trend seems unstoppable. Yet, public outrage has stopped and slowed a number of initiatives.

While there are no televised debates around this issue, there is no polling, and there are no elections, who wins it will determine the literal shape of modern America. The Dylan Ratigan show is teaming up with the Huffington Post to do a three part series called "America for Sale", showing the pros and cons, and the politics and economics, of a new and far more privatized government.

On Wall Street, setting up and running "Infrastructure Funds" is big business, with over $140 billion run by such banks as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Australian infrastructure specialist Macquarie. Goldman's 2010 SEC filing should give you some sense of the scope of the campaign. Goldman says it will be involved with "ownership and operation of public services, such as airports, toll roads and shipping ports, as well as power generation facilities, physical commodities and other commodities infrastructure components, both within and outside the United States." While the bank sees increased opportunity in "distressed assets" (ie. Cities and states gone broke because of the financial crisis), the bank also recognizes "reputational concerns with the manner in which these assets are being operated or held."

-snip-

Ratigan goes on to explain that these funds are explaining to potential investors that these are good investments because they're usually a monopoly. As Quadrant Real Estate Advisors is telling investors about its Global Diversified Infrastructure Fund: "Most assets are monopolistic in nature and have limited competitors, creating the opportunity for stable, long-term investment returns."

http://www.quadrantrealestateadvisors.com/investments/public/uploads/documents%5CGlobal%20Diversified%20Infrastructure%20Fund%20of%20Funds.pdf

ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is deeply involved in this, too, and with a new initiative, which I'll post about separately (here).

[RandomThoughts]

1. Race to the bottom

[girl gone mad]

2. The parking meter sale in Chicago was a clusterfuck.

People need to start adopting "we won't pay" tactics here.

[highplainsdem]

3. kick

[JDPriestly]

4. This is a crazy, desparate scheme to keep up the appearance of wealth

in our country as we fall deeper and deeper into poverty.

We will continue to be an impoverished nation as long as we have free trade.

People complain about immigration. It's not the influx of people that diminishes our nation. It is the influx of products and money that is corrupting our the very soil of our country. Horrors.

Why bother to fly the American flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance if you buy all that foreign-made junk?

If you are an American, live your life to improve the lives of other Americans.