America Is Being Raped ... Just Like Greece and Other Countries

→ Washington’s Blog

Preface: The war between liberals and
conservatives is a false divide-and-conquer dog-and-pony show created
by the powers that be to keep the American people divided and
distracted. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this. So before assuming that privatization is a good thing, read on.

If these resources had
always been in the private sector, that would be fine ... that would be
free market capitalism.

But if they were purchased with our taxpayer funds and then sold to the big boys for cheap, that is looting.

Greece is thinking of selling some islands. Austria is thinking of selling mountains to pay off their national debt. Cities throughout the U.S. are thinking of privatizing their parking meters.

What's going on?

Well, as I predicted in December 2008, bailing out the giant, insolvent banks would cause a global debt crisis:

The
Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is often called the "central
banks' central bank", as it coordinates transactions between central
banks.

BIS points out in a new report
that the bank rescue packages have transferred significant risks onto
government balance sheets, which is reflected in the corresponding
widening of sovereign credit default swaps:

The
scope and magnitude of the bank rescue packages also meant that
significant risks had been transferred onto government balance sheets.
This was particularly apparent in the market for CDS referencing
sovereigns involved either in large individual bank rescues or in
broad-based support packages for the financial sector, including the
United States. While such CDS were thinly traded prior to the announced
rescue packages, spreads widened suddenly on increased demand for
credit protection, while corresponding financial sector spreads
tightened.

In other words, by assuming huge portions of
the risk from banks trading in toxic derivatives, and by spending
trillions that they don't have, central banks have put their countries
at risk from default.

Top independent experts say that the biggest banks are insolvent (see this, for example), as they have been many times before.

And a study of 124 banking crises by the International Monetary Fund found that propping banks which are only pretending to be solvent hurts the economy:

Existing empirical research has shown that providing assistance to banks and their borrowers can be counterproductive, resulting in increased losses to banks, which often abuse forbearance to take unproductive risks at government expense. The typical result of forbearance is a deeper hole in the net worth of banks, crippling tax burdens to finance bank bailouts, and even more severe credit supply contraction and economic decline than would have occurred in the absence of forbearance.

Cross-country
analysis to date also shows that accommodative policy measures (such
as substantial liquidity support, explicit government guarantee on
financial institutions’ liabilities and forbearance from prudential
regulations) tend to be fiscally costly and that these particular policies do not necessarily accelerate the speed of economic recovery.

***

All too often, central banks privilege stability over cost in the heat of the containment phase: if so, they may too liberally extend loans to an illiquid bank which is almost certain to prove insolvent anyway.
Also, closure of a nonviable bank is often delayed for too long,
even when there are clear signs of insolvency (Lindgren, 2003). Since
bank closures face many obstacles, there is a tendency to rely
instead on blanket government guarantees which, if the government’s
fiscal and political position makes them credible, can work albeit at
the cost of placing the burden on the budget, typically squeezing future provision of needed public services.

By failing to break up the giant banks, governments are forced to take counter-productive emergency measures (see this and this) to try to cover up their insolvency. Those measures drain the life blood out of the real economy ... destroying national economies.

Selling the Farm to Pay for Debt Incurred to Make the Rich Richer

Matt Stoller notes:

Privatization
takes inherently governmental functions — everything from national
defense to mass transit and roads — and turns them over to the control
of private actors, whose goal is to extract maximum revenue while
costing as little as possible.

***

It isn’t true, as a
general rule, that privatization shrinks the public sector. When
investor demand for high returns is combined with the natural
monopolies of public assets, what often results instead is citizens
finding themselves saddled with high fees and poor service.

Even
more perniciously, selling infrastructure such as toll roads puts the
coercive power of the state in the hands of private actors. We have
great public assets built by prior generations. We should and could be
building a better country for our children, rather than liquidating what
we have.

***

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) pointed out
the truth of the Obama administration’s stimulus program: “Larry
Summers hates infrastructure. And some of these other economists — they
don’t like infrastructure. … They want to have a consumer-driven
recovery.”

Both domestic manufacturing and taxation are opposed
by the current corporate and political elites. Take the liberal
establishment economist Alan Blinder, who horrified former Intel chief
Andy Grove when he celebrated
as “success” the fact that America today cannot make televisions. Or
Michael Boskin, an economic adviser to President Reagan, saying potato
chips, microchips, what’s the difference?

The real infrastructure
trend in America today is privatizing what is left. House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica has been
holding
hearings on privatizating Amtrak’s Northeast corridor — ostensibly
because private capital can more easily bring in high-speed rail.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback just turned over
arts funding to the private sector, making Kansas the only state
without a publicly funded arts agency. Cities across California,
meanwhile, are trying to outsource
nearly all municipal functions. Chicago famously sold its parking
meter revenue to a consortium headed by Morgan Stanley. The Arizona
Legislature sold and then leased back its state capitol.

Are
these good deals? History would say no. The granddaddies of
privatization were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the housing giants whose
public role was supporting the secondary mortgage markets. These
companies were “private” in the sense that they operated without public
accountability. But eventually, their losses ended up on the public’s
balance sheet.

Most privatization deals of core public assets
have the same essential structure as Fannie and Freddie. Listen to a
Goldman Sachs managing director, John Ma, who expressed his
reservations about the privatization of Amtrak’s Northeast corridor.

“Structuring
these public-private transactions are always a delicate balancing
act,” Ma explained, “of what risks the public sector will retain and
what risks you’ll try to transfer to the private sector.” Privatization doesn’t actually make something private; it simply divides risks between public and private entities.

In
fact, the real allure of privatization is that it offers what looks
like a free lunch. The public receives revenue, but privatization keeps
the costs hidden by deferring them to the future. Political actors get
to close deficits without raising taxes on wealthy interests. And the
political muscle is provided by the people who ultimately benefit from
the deal — the same way that Countrywide, Fannie Mae and allied private
bankers brutalized their political critics in the name of
homeownership.

***

For Democrats, the benefits are more
subtle. Privatization allows them to paper over the party schism
between liberals and neoliberals by spending money for social aims
through what is, essentially, an off-balance-sheet channel.

Does this sound like Greece? Creating off-balance-sheet shenanigans to hide debt
and try to kick the can down the road, and then having to sell off
public assets and impose austerity to try to climb out of the sinkhole
of debt?

There's a reason for that .

Shock Doctrine

As I explained in 2008:

Well-known Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek wrote:

"Emergencies” have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded.

[Obama's former chief of staff] Rahm Emanuel famously said:

Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before.

Naomi Klein documented in the Shock Doctrine
that the Neoliberals and Chicago school followers advocated a kind of
"disaster capitalism". Specifically, whenever a natural, economic,
war-related, or other disaster strikes, these folks pounce and use the
opportunity to quickly impose a brand of economic policy which benefits
the elite at the cost of everyone else (by increasing unemployment,
pushing the cost of essential goods through the roof, and otherwise
increasing poverty), while people are still in shock and before they can
react.

Publishers Weekly's review of the Shock Doctrine puts it this way:

The
neo-liberal economic policies—privatization, free trade, slashed
social spending—that the Chicago School and the economist Milton
Friedman have foisted on the world are catastrophic in two senses,
argues this vigorous polemic. Because their results are
disastrous—depressions, mass poverty, private corporations looting
public wealth, by the author's accounting—their means must be
cataclysmic, dependent on political upheavals and natural disasters as
coercive pretexts for free-market reforms the public would normally
reject.

Amazon's review of Klein's book states:

"At
the most chaotic juncture in Iraq'' civil war, a new law is unveiled
that will allow Shell and BP to claim the country's vast oil reserves…
Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly
outsources the running of the 'War on Terror' to Halliburton and
Blackwater… After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the
pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts… New Orleans
residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public
housing, hospitals and schools will never be re-opened." Klein not only
kicks butt, she names names, notably economist Milton Friedman and his
radical Chicago School of the 1950s and 60s which she notes "produced
many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose
influence is still profound in Washington today."

And Pulitzer prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston provided an interesting example of disaster capitalism, noting that 2 days after 9/11, Congress was thinking about how to help the ultra-wealthy:

[Johnston]:
Both parties are doing this. They’re doing it because they’re
listening to a narrow group of very well to do people who do not want to
pay taxes, who do not want to share in the expenses of the country
that has made them rich. And they want you to pay their taxes. Those
are the people who get access. Every politician will say you to, you
can’t buy my vote. Generally, that’s true. The problem is that you and I
don’t have the real access, and the
proof that Congress is thinking about the super rich came two days
after 9/11. The House Republican leadership introduced ten bills to
address 9/11. One of them was a tax bill. What did it do? It gave
estate tax relief, which did nothing for the firefighters and police
officers and army sergeants at their desk and nurses and the busboy at
the World Trade Center. All of those people that were killed. A tiny
handful of people, but that’s what Congress thought these people
needed, was estate tax relief even though 99% wouldn’t pay estate taxes.

[Interviewer:] It’s slipping it in as a very opportune time.

[Johnston]:
That was just for this group of people. That was just for this group
of people, but it’s indicative of what Congress is thinking about,
what’s on the minds of Congress are not the concerns of ordinary
Americans who want to educate their children, you know, who want to
engage in enjoying life. Their concerns are about the super rich and
within the super rich, those who are very anti-tax.

As I noted last year, this is a game which both liberals and conservatives play:

Whether
that agenda is labelled "conservative" or "liberal", it is almost
certain to benefit the powers-that-be, rather than the average
American.

Some inside the halls of power have tried to warn of this risk:

Senator Leahy and the New York Times are questioning Paulson's use of shock and awe:

• Senator Leahy said "If we learned anything from 9/11, the biggest mistake is to pass anything they ask for just because it's an emergency"

• The New York Times wrote:
  

  "The
  rescue is being sold as a must-have emergency measure by an
  administration with a controversial record when it comes to asking
  Congress for special authority in time of duress."

  ***

  Mr.
  Paulson has argued that the powers he seeks are necessary to chase away
  the wolf howling at the door: a potentially swift shredding of the
  American financial system. That would be catastrophic for everyone, he
  argues, not only banks, but also ordinary Americans who depend on their
  finances to buy homes and cars, and to pay for college.

  Some are
  suspicious of Mr. Paulson’s characterizations, finding in his warnings
  and demands for extraordinary powers a parallel with the way the Bush
  administration gained authority for the war in Iraq. Then, the White
  House suggested that mushroom clouds could accompany Congress’s failure
  to act. This time, it is financial Armageddon supposedly on the
  doorstep.

  “This is scare tactics to try to do something that’s in
  the private but not the public interest,” said Allan Meltzer, a former
  economic adviser to President Reagan, and an expert on monetary policy
  at the Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business. “It’s terrible.”

But the first world is still being turned into the third world:

When
the International Monetary Fund or World Bank offer to lend money to a
struggling third-world country (or "emerging market"), they demand "austerity measures".

As Wikipedia describes it:

In economics, austerity is when a national government reduces its spending in
order to pay back creditors. Austerity is usually required when a
government's fiscal deficit spending is felt to be unsustainable.

Development
projects, welfare programs and other social spending are common areas
of spending for cuts. In many countries, austerity measures have been
associated with short-term standard of living declines until economic
conditions improved once fiscal balance was achieved (such as in the
United Kingdom under Margaret Thatcher, Canada under Jean Chrétien, and
Spain under González).

Private banks, or institutions like the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), may require that a country pursues an
'austerity policy' if it wants to re-finance loans that are about to
come due. The government may be asked to stop issuing subsidies or to
otherwise reduce public spending. When the IMF requires such a policy,
the terms are known as 'IMF conditionalities'.

Wikipedia goes on to point out:

Austerity
programs are frequently controversial, as they impact the poorest
segments of the population and often lead to a wider separation between
the rich and poor. In many situations, austerity programs are imposed
on countries that were previously under dictatorial regimes, leading to
criticism that populations are forced to repay the debts of their
oppressors.

What Does This Have to Do With the First World?

Since
the IMF and World Bank lend to third world countries, you may
reasonably assume that this has nothing to do with "first world"
countries like the US and UK.

But England's economy is in dire straight, and rumors have abounded that the UK might have to rely on a loan from the IMF.

And as former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker said :

People seem to think the [American] government has money. The government doesn't have any money.

Indeed, the IMF has already performed a complete audit of the whole US financial system, something which they have only previously done to broke third world nations.

Al
Martin - former contributor to the Presidential Council of Economic
Advisors and retired naval intelligence officer - observed in an April
2005 newsletter that the ratio of total U.S. debt to gross domestic
product (GDP) rose from 78 percent in 2000 to 308 percent in April 2005.
The International Monetary Fund considers a nation-state with a total
debt-to-GDP ratio of 200 percent or more to be a "de-constructed Third
World nation-state."

Martin explained:

What
"de-constructed" actually means is that a political regime in that
country, or series of political regimes, have, through a long period of
fraud, abuse, graft, corruption and mismanagement, effectively
collapsed the economy of that country.

What Does It Mean?

Some have asked
questions like, "Is the goal to force the US into the same kinds of
IMF austerity programs that have caused riots in so many other
nations?" Some predicted years ago that the "international bankers"
would bring down the American economy.

I used to think, frankly, that such kinds of talk were crazy-talk. I'm not so sure anymore.

Catherine
Austin Fitts - former managing director of a Wall Street investment
bank and Assistant Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) under President George Bush Sr. - calls what is
happening to the economy "a criminal leveraged buyout of America,"
something she defines as "buying a country for cheap with its own money
and then jacking up the rents and fees to steal the rest." She also
calls it the "American Tapeworm" model, explaining:

[T]he
American Tapeworm model is to simply finance the federal deficit
through warfare, currency exports, Treasury and federal credit borrowing
and cutbacks in domestic "discretionary" spending .... This will then
place local municipalities and local leadership in a highly vulnerable
position - one that will allow them to be persuaded with bogus but
high-minded sounding arguments to further cut resources. Then, to
"preserve bond ratings and the rights of creditors," our leaders can he
persuaded to sell our water, natural resources and infrastructure
assets at significant discounts of their true value to global investors
.... This will be described as a plan to "save America" by
recapitalizing it on a sound financial footing. In fact, this process
will simply shift more capital continuously from America to other
continents and from the lower and middle classes to elites.

Writer Mike Whitney wrote in CounterPunch in April 2005:

[T]he
towering [U.S.] national debt coupled with the staggering trade
deficits have put the nation on a precipice and a seismic shift in the
fortunes of middle-class Americans is looking more likely all the
time... The country has been intentionally plundered and will eventually
wind up in the hands of its creditors This same Ponzi scheme has been
carried out repeatedly by the IMF and World Bank throughout the world
Bankruptcy is a fairly straightforward way of delivering valuable public
assets and resources to collaborative industries, and of annihilating
national sovereignty. After a nation is successfully driven to
destitution, public policy decisions are made by creditors and not by
representatives of the people .... The catastrophe that middle class
Americans face is what these elites breezily refer to as "shock
therapy"; a sudden jolt, followed by fundamental changes to the system.
In the near future we can expect tax reform, fiscal discipline,
deregulation, free capital flows, lowered tariffs, reduced public
services, and privatization.

And given that experts on third world banana republics from the IMF and the Federal Reserve have said the U.S. has become a third world banana republic (and see this and this), maybe the process of turning first world into the third world is already complete.

The Raping of America

Dylan Ratigan writes:

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... 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.

***

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."

The
funds themselves are clear when communicating with investors about why
they are good investments -- a public asset is usually a monopoly.
Says Quadrant Real Estate Advisors:
"Most assets are monopolistic in nature and have limited competitors,
creating the opportunity for stable, long-term investment returns.
Investment choices include economic assets and social assets." Quadrant
notes that the market size is between $12-20 trillion, roughly the size
of the American mortgage market. "Given the market and potential
return opportunities, institutional investors should consider
infrastructure a strategic investment allocation."

As with
mortgage securitizations, the conflicts of interest are intense.
Pennsylvania nearly privatized its turnpike, with Morgan Stanley on
multiple sides of the deal as both an advisor to the state and a
potential bidder. As you'll see, these deals are often profitable because they constrain the public's ability to govern, not because they are creating value. For instance, private infrastructure company Transurban, now attempting to privatize a section of the Beltway around DC, is ready to walk away
if local governments insist on an environmental review of the project.
Many of them have clauses enshrining their monopolistic positions,
preventing states and localities from changing zoning, parking, or
transportation options.

While the trend is worldwide,
privatization of public infrastructure only came to America en masse in
the 2000s. It is worth discussing, because where it has happened it
has sparked deep and intense anger.

***

The
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the influential think
tank that targets conservative state and local officials, has launched
an initiative called "Publicopoly",
a play on the board game Monopoly. "Select your game square", says the
webpage, and ALEC will help you privatize one of seven sectors:
government operations, education, transportation and infrastructure,
public safety, environment, health, or telecommunications.

***

The Obama administration has been encouraging Chinese
sovereign wealth funds to invest in American infrastructure as a way
to bring in foreign capital. It was Chicago Mayor and Democratic icon
Richard Daley who privatized Chicago's Midway Airport, Chicago's Skyway
road, and Chicago's Parking Meters. Out of office after 22 years, he
is now a paid advisor to the law firm that negotiated the parking meter
sale.

Ratings agencies are also in the game, rating up municipalities willing to privatize assets,
or even developing potential new profit centers around the trend (see
the chapter titled "Significant Debt issuance Expected with the
Privatization of Military Housing" from this September 2007 Moody's report).

Where To?

The strikes and riots in Greece, Spain, England and elsewhere are one reaction to the raping of their countries by creditors and politicians.

Others talk about taking the power to create debt away from the giant banks. But the banks (and the politicians which they own) - are obviously against that idea.

Max Keiser believes that Americans will simply stop making their mortgage payments en masse, an idea which many have discussed (and see this).

Will
people stand up and demand that the bondholders and other creditors
take haircuts? Or will we all be scalped of our national assets, our
pension funds, our money ... and our freedom? Remember, more and more
national security and police services are being outsourced to the
private sector, and such military, intelligence and police powers are being used to protect big business. And see this.

Comments

[dexter_morgan]

++, but be ready to be junked like crazy for not towing the Keynsian line brother.

[Freddie]

+10

[walküre]

Most don't reflect on their "educated" opinions and before they know it, they are supporting some form of facism or communism themselves.

Who has proposed and fought for public pension plans, public health care, public education?

The banks? God, no. The elites, oligarchs, rich and powerful? Njet.

People organising as groups under the guise of equality demanding safety nets, access to education, welfare and so on.

Now that it's apparent none of these programs are sustainable, the people revolt and riot against the banks and the rich which have supported and financed the programs over decades but always warned about the day of reckoning.

Fuck, what can I say. People are stupid. The majority never gets it.

Give them bread & circus, the propaganda, the lie and their goodies.

[RKDS]

That's a load of bull and you know it.

I once heard that "time makes all things possible" and propose that "greed makes anything impossible."

[dexter_morgan]

amen

[plocequ1]

If i cant live, I will die

[pirea]

You have another option. You can stay in coma for a few years.

[ratso]

You are writing complete crap.

[Shell Game]

Please expand and explain your POV..

[Chris88]

Privatization is owning yourself and your property.  The author is clueless, though I'd expect nothing less from a guy who has his screen name the same as a slave owner.  Anything "public" is funded with stolen money, anything private is funded voluntarily.  Idiots like this make me not even want to read this blog.

[dexter_morgan]

+666 - very well said. But, again, defending freedom and privacy is gonna get you \junked like crazy on this site.

[Freddie]

+1

LOL!  5 junks and 6 junks.

Hilarious how idiots here are against private property like Stalin was and Obama is - unless it is their czar pals who are doing the looting.

Yeah the bankers are shit as they donate to Democrats with their hedge fund buddies.  Goldman, Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook - all the chosen oligarchs love Mugabe.  

The Greeks have no comparative advantage in trade yet want Germany's standard of living.  The collectivist fvcks posting here never took Econ 101.

[sitenine]

Consumers don't give a shit about any of this. They just want to consume. When told they are going to have to consume less, they freak the fuck out. Sustainability, responsibility, productivity, etc. are all meaningless and unimportant to a know-nothing cow of a worthless dipshit consumer. 'My standard of living', they all chime in with a pathetic ignorance of how to actually improve their own lots in life. Never does it cross their mind that resources should be allocated to those who actually produce them. Stupid, lazy, cowardly slaves to an idea that you really can "get your money for nothing, and your chicks for free" (this Dire Straight song is banned in Canada BTW). The great awakening is not what the stupid cow consumers expected. The rest of the world wants theirs, and that is going to make it harder and harder to steal from them any longer, which means 'my standard of living' is Fucking over forever! Let the consumers die in their self pity. Live free or die!

Thanks GW for trying to keep it real, even if you are a bit misguided!

[ipahophead]

+2. Allocation of resources to the most productive use is key to survival.

[Version 7]

The western culture is so moronic, it would be a surprise if it wouldn't go bankrupt.

[equity_momo]

WTF - that song is banned in Canada? Seriously ?

[RKDS]

Because it has the word "faggot" and making supersensitive (bordering on paranoid) homosexuals upset is a "hate crime" there.

[Abitdodgie]

Thank You someone else that gets it and is not afraid to say it and do something about it  

[Vlad Tepid]

+1

I like both what you say and how you say it.

[allenaki]

The human bodies in Greece are already privatized.

Health Minister passes tonight the "presumed consensus" law.

Every Greek citizen is obligatory from now on an organ donor, unless he declares with an official notar's document, that he does not wish to be an organ donor. ?n Greece the fatal traffic accidents rate is very high among young men (18 -30) so, this organ pool is their target group.

And with the austerity programm, and the costs of the intensive care treatments at the public hospitals, you can easily consider how many young people will be left to a premature death, so they can feed with their organs maybe 10 other people waiting...

[falak pema]

Governments should be regulators, like  umpires in a ball game. Not Napoleons in mink and sable.

[High Plains Drifter]

gee, flacid penis, you are a very clever person...........

[Milestones]

Clever post!!    Milestones

[jo6pac]

I used to think, frankly, that such kinds of talk were crazy-talk. I'm not so sure anymore.

Thanks, glad see you are coming around. I might still be crazy but have been saying this for yrs but in the end it might just backfire on the elite. I can alway hope.

[Shell Game]

Nice article, GW.  How does one prevent politico-economic rape of any/all citizenry?  A:  one must have a government with very little power under an honest monetary system..

[Freddie]

How does one prevent politico-economic rape of any/all citizenry?

Don't vote for Democrats.  Not that Repubs are that great but Dems are pure evil.

Note the Obama voters here who scream the parties are all the same then junk you of you say anything bad about their comrade Obama.

[barkingbill]

yeah those dems are pure evil....ha ha. man you see the world like a 4th grader. you are part of the problem man, not the solution. 

[Freddie]

I love the Dems who post here saying all the parties are the same with Obam-Hussein-Mugabe's FIVE wars plus he doubled the debt in two wars.  Dems did that not the Repubs.  Your boy, Pelosi and Reid.  Rule of law? What laws?  

[Snake]

one must have a strong and honest government able and willing to defend the people against the greedy corporations (banks et al) that brought us where we are, no?

[Shell Game]

Do you repeat yourself every half hour?

Summary:  the relationship between corporatism and despot government is one of parasitic mutualism.

[Snake]

one must have a strong and honest government able and willing to defend the people against the greedy corporations (banks et al), no?

[Shell Game]

You are right:  "No".  Corporatization is directly proportional to government power. Remember, power corrupts. Always. Every time.  'Strong' and 'honest' are mutually exclusive in government.

[Milestones]

Wrong--weakness induces corruption. Think it through.      Milestones

[Shell Game]

I would postulate that the only morally strong government this planet has ever seen has been of limited size and power.  Thought through enough for you, Copernicus?

[nmewn]

No morals, no ethics = weakness.

One of the phrases to look for?

"Its just how things are done."

Exactly.

Then you know without having to be told.

[alien-IQ]

any government that does not fear (or at the very least respect) it's people will abuse it's power.

we can hope for respect or instill some fear.

pick it.

[George Washington]

Amen ...

[Green Leader]

 You might want to take a look at this book: 

http://www.missiontoisrael.org/biblelaw-constitutionalism-pt1.php

[aheady]

You might want to fuck off.

[Bansters-in-my-...]

...Is Star search on yet...???

[the black arrow]

Chicagos midway airport has not yet been privatized. Parking meters and skyway toll road have been sold. Selling the airport is very different animal because of long history of federal funding.

[Freddie]

Illinois/Chicago is a kleptocratic Dem slush fund that Dems, unions, govt workers loot over and over.  The state is in far worse shape than Greece. 

[pirea]

This is nonsense. If you sell the parkings, airports, highways, and keep people without income, how the hell are you going to make money from their use? This is the break in the chain, the greed does not get it. They are viruses with a simple design: suck the host until is dead.

[angelsand]

Privatization seemed to work for the Cali electricity market.

[illyia]

But,"We ask why not...?"

Ha.

[illyia]

But,"We ask why not...?"

Ha.

[MarketWizard]

Just like I said in an earlier post everyone needs to rally behind the Greeks because if not out asses are next!!!

[Azannoth]

Have your actually read what the Greeks are shouting about ? It's not 'Give us a sound currency and a free market' it's 'Extend my social security benefits another 99 weeks'

and no your asses are already there you just don't know it yet

[nmewn]

"Have your actually read what the Greeks are shouting about ? It's not 'Give us a sound currency and a free market' it's 'Extend my social security benefits another 99 weeks'"

Oh geez...now you've done it, that's way too close to the Keynesian bone...LOL!!!

I'll take some heat off ya ;-)

[MarketWizard]

No they are not asking for 99 weeks of benefits....Most Greeks understand the current system needs to be changed..They are protesting cause their politicians are corrupt, too many scandolous delas, bribes, stolen money, no punishment for rich tax evaders and most of all they are against the fire sale of the state assets on pennies on the dollar!!