The dominant culture does not look kindly on most "public" systems. From housing to hospitals, schools to sewers, parks to prisons, or water to welfare, publicly owned or run systems are frequently portrayed as inefficient, ineffective, expensive, and/or dangerous. "Public" is dark, drab, cold, and old.
The word "private," by contrast, brings forth images of modern, clean, efficient, cheap, and safe. The corporate media, think tanks, and many elected officials perpetually tout the supposed benefits of "private" societal institutions.
But what is "public" and "private" when applied to government and economy? Are existing municipally operated systems best kept under public control or should they be "privatized"?
These are particularly important questions as we face simultaneous breakdowns of multiple realities (i.e. economy, environment, international social order) and search for an all-systems breakthrough.
Public institutions or systems are owned and controlled, quite simply, by the people. Citizens decide, either indirectly through elected officials or directly as members of citizen committees or commissions, how and where public tax dollars will be invested in providing a multitude of services -- fire and police protection, utilities, transportation, education, health care, housing, and parks and recreation facilities, among others.
Since policies and budgets are public, people can have a voice in every stage of the decision-making process -- from the initial planning, to monitoring the operations and evaluating at the end. Virtually all information is accessible to the public. Those who implement programs (public employees) are responsible to their public employer. Public officials who approve policies and budgets are accountable to the public through the ballot. At many municipal and state levels, voters can directly create public programs through passage of citizen initiatives or overturn laws through citizen referenda. Problems citizens or consumers experience with services or rates can be addressed locally through appearing at council meetings or communicating with city service departments.
Since the primary loyalty of those running public-owned systems is to the public being served, theory says that costs for service will be set as low as possible while services, access, quality, and upkeep will be maintained at as high a level as possible.
We know, of course, that the real world isn't true to the most noble visions and theories. Many publicly-owned and run systems, from levels local to national, have been ineffective, inefficient, costly, and dangerous due to any combination of public employee incompetence, corruption of public officials, a starving of public funding, and a multitude of distractions that prevent adequate citizen vigilance and engagement.
This has fueled calls for "privatization," the turning over of public systems to private business corporations.
Democracy Up for Sale
"Privatization is a concerted, purposeful effort by corporations to undercut, limit, shrink, or outright take over any government and any part of the public sector that (1) stands in the way of corporate pursuit of ever larger profits, and (2) could be run for profit." The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy by Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich, Beret Koehler, 2005.
While many are familiar with the term "privatization," a more descriptive term is "corporatization." It's not mom and pop operations taking over public functions and systems, but usually major national or transnational business corporations. They come with no intention to do the community a favor, only to maximize profits.
Literally anything and everything owned, run or operated by municipal and state governments is up for sale (if not already sold) somewhere across the U.S. -- water and sewer systems, turnpikes, road maintenance, airports, solid waste collection, prisons, vehicle fleet maintenance, power systems, accounting functions, community wireless networks, even parking meters. As many as 44 states are currently considering some major sell off of a public asset or function. Assets can be sold, leased or transferred. They sometimes are framed as "Public-Private Partnerships" -- which more often than not means the public pays and the private (i.e. corporation) profits.
Chicago, President Obama's home town, has recently leased its Skyway, a bridge linking Indiana to the Dan Ryan Expressway, for 99 years; Midway Airport for 99 years; and its parking meters for 75 years (parking meter rates are expected to go as high as $6.50 an hour by 2013).
Sandy Springs, a small suburb of Atlanta, is among the newest of many "contract cities" across the country, mostly in California. These are municipalities that have contracted their major municipal
services to outside corporations.
Call it "democracy for sale."
At the federal level, among the many functions being turned over, in part, to business corporations is national security. The Blackwater corporation may be the most notorious example.
Several factors are driving business corporations to push for corporatization of public assets. For one, many elected officials are willing suitors. Faced with crumbling infrastructures following years, if not decades, of neglect and massive budget deficits due to economic recessions/depression, local and state public officials are looking for a near-term cash infusion. Selling off some infrastructure is preferred to raising taxes and/or service fees.
Second, major corporations, including investment firms, want to place their money in a relatively safe place for at least the next few years. Municipal or state assets provide a safe and steady haven compared to the vagaries of oil futures and hedge funds. Also, local assets are available right now at bargain basement prices as local governments needing cash in a hurry are willing to take a lesser amount than the asset would bring in the long term.
Rising Resistance to Privatization
Resistance to corporatization is happening everywhere -- in many nations, over many issues, by many different people, using many different strategies.
The current global economic collapse -- in large part due to the failure of the "free market" and "invisible hand" of corporate capitalism, built on the sands of deregulation and privatization, has strengthened resistance. The free market has been free for "corpses" to operate largely beyond public control, which has been very costly to citizens in ways economic, political and environmental. The invisible hand has been more like a clenched fist applied to the gut of citizens resulting in massive job losses, home foreclosures, retirement fund losses, and home price declines.
Resistance outside the U.S. to major proponents of corporatization has focused on the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. These international financial institutions have for decades conditioned top-down development loans to "structural adjustment programs" (SAPs). These have literally sapped the lifeblood out of nations and people by requiring them to sell public resources and assets to willing global corporations at bargain prices. Resistance in South America has become particularly effective with cessation of repayments, the formation of an alternative regional development bank, and protections for remaining public assets.
Paris and 40 other French municipalities and urban communities over the last few years have "re-municipalized" water services from global water corporations. The results are improved services at cheaper prices. France joins Mali in West Africa, Uruguay, Buenos Aires and Santa Fe in Argentina, Cochabamba in Bolivia, Hamilton in Canada, Atlanta and other U.S. cities in finding that while privatization/corporatization may have been a financial boon for water corporation shareholders, it was a disaster for citizens, ratepayers, and consumers. In the drive to maximize profits, jobs, service, quality, and corners were cut. Most importantly, local control was all but eliminated.
In November, citizens of Akron, Ohio prevented the lease of the city sewer system to an outside business corporation. The measure went down 2 to 1, despite a $400 000 campaign in support, the full backing of the city newspaper, the city business community, "respected" city leaders, and even cheerleading "robocalls" by NBA Superstar and Akron native LeBron James. Akronites understood that a corporatized sewer system would mean less local control as well as higher rates and lower quality. At the same time a citizen initiative passed 2 to 1 changing the city charter. The new law stipulates that any future proposal to sell, lease or transfer any public utility must be approved by voters.
The mantras of the two Akron initiatives were "keep public utilities public" and "let the people decide."
While jobs, service, quality, and costs are all factors in keeping public assets public, the unifying issue is public control.
Don't put democracy on the auction block. Educate and organize where you are to keep public assets public.
-----------------------
Coleridge is on the POCLAD collective and works for the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. Email: gcoleridge@afsc.org
Article link: http://www.poclad.org/bwa/BWAMarch09.pdf
Article page: http://www.poclad.org/bwa/Mar09.htm
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Dealing with AIG / America's Fiscal Collapse
There’s been plenty of political handwringing and grandstanding over insurance giant AIG handing out $165 million in executive bonuses. The Obama Administration claims it can’t do anything to prevent AIG honoring its contracts to pay out the bonuses. Really.
What about these 4 options (some more “assertive” than others):
1. Reduce by $165 million the amount the feds are pouring into AIG to keep them afloat. If AIG execs say they need every last nickel and can’t afford to lose $165 million, they can be told where they can find that exact amount — in the wallets/foreign bank accounts of their executives.
2. Simply state that any future bailout funds will not be forthcoming unless AIG “renegotiates” with their execs to eliminate their bonuses. The fed is taking this exact strategy with the automobile corporations over union contracts. The fed is demanding if GM, Ford and Chrysler want the rest of their $40 billion aid package, they must renegotiate with labor over their existing wage and benefit contract. Why is it OK to demand that working people tighten their belts (people who, by the way, actually produce something of value), but not OK to demand that bank executives forgo their bonuses (for, by the way, running the entire economy of our nation, if not the planet, into the ground)?
3. The federal government owns 80% of AIG through prior bailout rounds. It sounds as if, however, they don’t possess much formal power over company decisions. There’s a difference between investments and control. If the fed actually controlled AIG, they could simply say, “AIG is under new ownership. The old contracts aren’t valid. No executive bonuses. In fact, all executives are fired.” Corporations take this approach when they acquire other companies. The feds should try to leverage their/our 80% company stake in AIG and see where it goes.
4. Threaten that if the executives accept their bonuses, the government will do everything they can to revoke their charter. It’s not very easy to pay bonuses if there’s no company. It can always be reorganized under new management. How about worker ownership?
There’s no reason why timid politicians can’t at least press for #1 and progressives #2. Don’t hold your breath on any of the others that are more populist inspired. To do nothing but try to score a few populist popularity points as many inside the DC beltway may try to do is unacceptable.
--------------
More than 150 signatures on petitions were submitted today to the offices of US Senators Sherrod Brown and George Voinovich calling on them to stop bailing out Wall Street and to democratize banks. Brown’s aides thanked us and said they’d pass along the petition. Voinovich’s people were none too interested.
Thanks to those of you who signed. Copies are going out tomorrow to all the US Representatives from Ohio.
--------------
Here’s a chilling and insightful piece on the federal budget as it relates to war, Wall Street and debt. You may want to be seated and out of reach of any sharp objects before reading it. Call it the print version of his recent radio interview (link sent last week)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12517
America's Fiscal Collapse
by Michel Chossudovsky
What about these 4 options (some more “assertive” than others):
1. Reduce by $165 million the amount the feds are pouring into AIG to keep them afloat. If AIG execs say they need every last nickel and can’t afford to lose $165 million, they can be told where they can find that exact amount — in the wallets/foreign bank accounts of their executives.
2. Simply state that any future bailout funds will not be forthcoming unless AIG “renegotiates” with their execs to eliminate their bonuses. The fed is taking this exact strategy with the automobile corporations over union contracts. The fed is demanding if GM, Ford and Chrysler want the rest of their $40 billion aid package, they must renegotiate with labor over their existing wage and benefit contract. Why is it OK to demand that working people tighten their belts (people who, by the way, actually produce something of value), but not OK to demand that bank executives forgo their bonuses (for, by the way, running the entire economy of our nation, if not the planet, into the ground)?
3. The federal government owns 80% of AIG through prior bailout rounds. It sounds as if, however, they don’t possess much formal power over company decisions. There’s a difference between investments and control. If the fed actually controlled AIG, they could simply say, “AIG is under new ownership. The old contracts aren’t valid. No executive bonuses. In fact, all executives are fired.” Corporations take this approach when they acquire other companies. The feds should try to leverage their/our 80% company stake in AIG and see where it goes.
4. Threaten that if the executives accept their bonuses, the government will do everything they can to revoke their charter. It’s not very easy to pay bonuses if there’s no company. It can always be reorganized under new management. How about worker ownership?
There’s no reason why timid politicians can’t at least press for #1 and progressives #2. Don’t hold your breath on any of the others that are more populist inspired. To do nothing but try to score a few populist popularity points as many inside the DC beltway may try to do is unacceptable.
--------------
More than 150 signatures on petitions were submitted today to the offices of US Senators Sherrod Brown and George Voinovich calling on them to stop bailing out Wall Street and to democratize banks. Brown’s aides thanked us and said they’d pass along the petition. Voinovich’s people were none too interested.
Thanks to those of you who signed. Copies are going out tomorrow to all the US Representatives from Ohio.
--------------
Here’s a chilling and insightful piece on the federal budget as it relates to war, Wall Street and debt. You may want to be seated and out of reach of any sharp objects before reading it. Call it the print version of his recent radio interview (link sent last week)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12517
America's Fiscal Collapse
by Michel Chossudovsky
Sunday, March 15, 2009
What is Happening Politically/Economically
Here are 2 interviews (thanks to Gary Goodman for forwarding) well worth listening to which help decipher what is happening economically and politically at this moment. It can only be summarized as pure theft and a profound transfer of power from the many to the few. While it’s tempting to label it true “March Madness,” it’s actually taking place right before us all deliberately with clear logic and strategy.
There are many responses required. All should include maintaining the right to self-governance and protection of our assets from being shifted to the select few connected to financial institutions, military contractors, and other transnational corporations.
No public official should receive a pass. All should be pressured to justify supporting $ for bank bailouts and war (er, “defense”) spending.
If you haven’t already done so, please consider signing the petition linked at the end...as just one action step.
We’ve been focused on this arena for the last few months because it seems to be so pivotal at this moment in history.
Thank you for your patience, interest, and support.
------------
Guns and Butter - "The Way We Were and What We Are Becoming" - March 4, 2009 at 1:00pm
with financial economist and historian, Dr. Michael Hudson. We begin with an analysis of the continuing bailout of insurance giant AIG and Monday's stock market selloff; price and debt deflation; the two sectors of the economy; two definitions of 'free markets'; the classical economists; revolution from the right and the former Soviet states; the threat of war; IMF/World Bank resurgence; the dollar versus the euro; analogies to Rome, neo-feudalism.
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/48892
http://aud1.kpfa.org/data/20090304-Wed1300.mp3
Guns and Butter - "America's Fiscal Collapse - Obama's Budget Will Impoverish America" - March 11, 2009 at 1:00pm
with economist and author, Michel Chossudovsky. The administration's 2010 budget will entail the most drastic curtailment in public spending in American history, leading to social havoc and the potential impoverishment of millions of people. Defense spending and bank bailouts will consume all government revenue resulting in fiscal collapse that will lead to the privatization of the state.
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/49073
http://aud1.kpfa.org/data/20090311-Wed1300.mp3
------------
Petition to Ohio US Senators and Representatives
STOP BAILING OUT WALL STREET EMOCRATIZE CORPORATE BANKS
Please sign the petition: http://www.webpetitions.com/cgi-bin/print_petition.cgi?99504389
Please forward this email
Please circulate the petition and send it back by March 16 (feel free to fill out more than one!)
Download petition at http://www.afsc.net/PDFFiles/DemocratizeBanksPetition.pdf
Please join us on Tuesday, March 17 to turn in collected names to US Senators Sherrod Brown and George Voinovich.
[We will meet at Noon on St. Patrick’s Day in front of Sherrod Brown’s office, 1301 E. 9th St. in Cleveland, deliver the names, then march to George Voinovich’s office where we’ll do the same. St. Patrick’s Day seems an appropriate moment to tell our Senators to “Save our Green by Stop Bailing out Wall St!” Please wear green. We’ll supply green hats. We’ll also send copies of all petitions to each US Representative from Ohio.]
There are many responses required. All should include maintaining the right to self-governance and protection of our assets from being shifted to the select few connected to financial institutions, military contractors, and other transnational corporations.
No public official should receive a pass. All should be pressured to justify supporting $ for bank bailouts and war (er, “defense”) spending.
If you haven’t already done so, please consider signing the petition linked at the end...as just one action step.
We’ve been focused on this arena for the last few months because it seems to be so pivotal at this moment in history.
Thank you for your patience, interest, and support.
------------
Guns and Butter - "The Way We Were and What We Are Becoming" - March 4, 2009 at 1:00pm
with financial economist and historian, Dr. Michael Hudson. We begin with an analysis of the continuing bailout of insurance giant AIG and Monday's stock market selloff; price and debt deflation; the two sectors of the economy; two definitions of 'free markets'; the classical economists; revolution from the right and the former Soviet states; the threat of war; IMF/World Bank resurgence; the dollar versus the euro; analogies to Rome, neo-feudalism.
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/48892
http://aud1.kpfa.org/data/20090304-Wed1300.mp3
Guns and Butter - "America's Fiscal Collapse - Obama's Budget Will Impoverish America" - March 11, 2009 at 1:00pm
with economist and author, Michel Chossudovsky. The administration's 2010 budget will entail the most drastic curtailment in public spending in American history, leading to social havoc and the potential impoverishment of millions of people. Defense spending and bank bailouts will consume all government revenue resulting in fiscal collapse that will lead to the privatization of the state.
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/49073
http://aud1.kpfa.org/data/20090311-Wed1300.mp3
------------
Petition to Ohio US Senators and Representatives
STOP BAILING OUT WALL STREET EMOCRATIZE CORPORATE BANKS
Please sign the petition: http://www.webpetitions.com/cgi-bin/print_petition.cgi?99504389
Please forward this email
Please circulate the petition and send it back by March 16 (feel free to fill out more than one!)
Download petition at http://www.afsc.net/PDFFiles/DemocratizeBanksPetition.pdf
Please join us on Tuesday, March 17 to turn in collected names to US Senators Sherrod Brown and George Voinovich.
[We will meet at Noon on St. Patrick’s Day in front of Sherrod Brown’s office, 1301 E. 9th St. in Cleveland, deliver the names, then march to George Voinovich’s office where we’ll do the same. St. Patrick’s Day seems an appropriate moment to tell our Senators to “Save our Green by Stop Bailing out Wall St!” Please wear green. We’ll supply green hats. We’ll also send copies of all petitions to each US Representative from Ohio.]
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Resources and Petition on Democratizing Banks
More Than One Way to Take Over a Bank
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/magazine/01wwln-lede-t.html
AFL-CIO: Gov't Should Acquire Controlling Shares of Banks (at Least for a While)
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/03/afl-cio_govt_should_control_banks_at_least_for_a_while.php
Death To Zombies: Nationalize Banks Now
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/henry-blodget/death-to-zombies-national_b_169095.html
Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America
[ Report shows $5 Billion in Wall Street Political Investments, 1998-2008]
http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/reports/sold_out.pdf
An embargoed executive summary is at:
http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/reports/executive_summary.pdf>
An embargoed excerpt with highlights of the campaign contribution and lobbyist data is at:
http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/reports/part2.pdf>.
An embargoed copy of the report introduction by Harvey Rosenfield is at:
http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/reports/introduction.pdf>
Money as Debt
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&pr=goog-sl
The Dow Knows All
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220253&title=the-dow-knows-all
The Secret Government
by Derek Wilson ~ New Zealandnd
Pacific Institute of Resource Management Inc.
http://www.converge.org.nz/pirm/
Early Bailout Scams
by Richard Moore rkm@quaylargo.com
Nasrudin was plodding along the village path on his donkey, minding his own business, when he was approached by a stranger. The stranger was distraught, and explained he had just lost a pile of money gambling. He was upset because he was supposed to host a banquet the next day, and it was too important to cancel.
Nasrudin, being a sympathetic soul, said he'd be glad to bail the stranger out, but he was broke himself. So the stranger says, that's no problem, I'll loan you the money and then you can give it to me. Nasrudin was bit slow in the head, perhaps from the desert sun, and he agreed.
A few days later Nasrudin was once more out on his donkey, and the stranger approached him again. This time he asked Nasrudin to repay the loan. Nasrudin said, "I can't, I gave the money to you." Too bad, the stranger says, I'll have to take your donkey.
SIGN AND CIRCULATE DEMOCRATIZE BANKS PETITION
Petition to Ohio US Senators and Representatives
STOP BAILING OUT WALL STREET:DEMOCRATIZE CORPORATE BANKS
Please sign the petition: http://www.webpetitions.com/cgi-bin/print_petition.cgi?99504389
[64 of you already have. Thank you! If you haven’t, please do so. Another 50 signatures have been collected/submitted on printed petitions to date]
Please forward this email
Please circulate the petition and send it back by March 16 (feel free to fill out more than one!)
Download petition at http://www.afsc.net/PDFFiles/DemocratizeBanksPetition.pdf
Please join us on Tuesday, March 17 to turn in collected names to US Senators Sherrod Brown and George Voinovich.
[We will meet at Noon on St. Patrick’s Day in front of Sherrod Brown’s office, 1301 E. 9th St. in Cleveland, deliver the names, then march to George Voinovich’s office where we’ll do the same. St. Patrick’s Day seems an appropriate moment to tell our Senators to “Save our Green by Stop Bailing out Wall St!” Please wear green. We’ll supply green hats. We’ll also send copies of all petitions to each US Representative from Ohio — unless someone is willing to make a personal delivery to a local Congressional office. If interested, contact us and we’ll send you a copy of collected names.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/magazine/01wwln-lede-t.html
AFL-CIO: Gov't Should Acquire Controlling Shares of Banks (at Least for a While)
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/03/afl-cio_govt_should_control_banks_at_least_for_a_while.php
Death To Zombies: Nationalize Banks Now
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/henry-blodget/death-to-zombies-national_b_169095.html
Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America
[ Report shows $5 Billion in Wall Street Political Investments, 1998-2008]
http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/reports/sold_out.pdf
An embargoed executive summary is at:
http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/reports/executive_summary.pdf>
An embargoed excerpt with highlights of the campaign contribution and lobbyist data is at:
http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/reports/part2.pdf>.
An embargoed copy of the report introduction by Harvey Rosenfield is at:
http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/reports/introduction.pdf>
Money as Debt
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&pr=goog-sl
The Dow Knows All
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220253&title=the-dow-knows-all
The Secret Government
by Derek Wilson ~ New Zealandnd
Pacific Institute of Resource Management Inc.
http://www.converge.org.nz/pirm/
Early Bailout Scams
by Richard Moore rkm@quaylargo.com
Nasrudin was plodding along the village path on his donkey, minding his own business, when he was approached by a stranger. The stranger was distraught, and explained he had just lost a pile of money gambling. He was upset because he was supposed to host a banquet the next day, and it was too important to cancel.
Nasrudin, being a sympathetic soul, said he'd be glad to bail the stranger out, but he was broke himself. So the stranger says, that's no problem, I'll loan you the money and then you can give it to me. Nasrudin was bit slow in the head, perhaps from the desert sun, and he agreed.
A few days later Nasrudin was once more out on his donkey, and the stranger approached him again. This time he asked Nasrudin to repay the loan. Nasrudin said, "I can't, I gave the money to you." Too bad, the stranger says, I'll have to take your donkey.
SIGN AND CIRCULATE DEMOCRATIZE BANKS PETITION
Petition to Ohio US Senators and Representatives
STOP BAILING OUT WALL STREET:DEMOCRATIZE CORPORATE BANKS
Please sign the petition: http://www.webpetitions.com/cgi-bin/print_petition.cgi?99504389
[64 of you already have. Thank you! If you haven’t, please do so. Another 50 signatures have been collected/submitted on printed petitions to date]
Please forward this email
Please circulate the petition and send it back by March 16 (feel free to fill out more than one!)
Download petition at http://www.afsc.net/PDFFiles/DemocratizeBanksPetition.pdf
Please join us on Tuesday, March 17 to turn in collected names to US Senators Sherrod Brown and George Voinovich.
[We will meet at Noon on St. Patrick’s Day in front of Sherrod Brown’s office, 1301 E. 9th St. in Cleveland, deliver the names, then march to George Voinovich’s office where we’ll do the same. St. Patrick’s Day seems an appropriate moment to tell our Senators to “Save our Green by Stop Bailing out Wall St!” Please wear green. We’ll supply green hats. We’ll also send copies of all petitions to each US Representative from Ohio — unless someone is willing to make a personal delivery to a local Congressional office. If interested, contact us and we’ll send you a copy of collected names.]
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Changing Laws Asserting Local Self-Governance
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/40335
Maine Town Passes Ordinance Asserting Local Self-Governance and Stripping Corporate Personhood
The citizens of Shapleigh, Maine voted recently at a special town meeting to pass a groundbreaking Rights-Based Ordinance. This revolutionary ordinance give its citizens the right to local self-governance and gives rights to ecosystems but denies the rights of personhood to corporations.
http://www.afsc.net/PDFFiles/MoneyDownDrain.pdf
Money Down the Drain: How Private Control of Water Wastes Public Resources
Food and Water Watch, Washington, DC 2009
The successful citizen campaign in Akron, Ohio to keep public utilities public and letting citizens decide who should control their water/sewer system is prominently featured in the report. Akron voters overwhelmingly defeated a ballot measure sponsored by the mayor to privatize/corporatize the city sewer system and overwhelmingly passed a citizen initiative changing the city charter to prevent the future sale, lease or transfer of any public utility without a public vote.
Maine Town Passes Ordinance Asserting Local Self-Governance and Stripping Corporate Personhood
The citizens of Shapleigh, Maine voted recently at a special town meeting to pass a groundbreaking Rights-Based Ordinance. This revolutionary ordinance give its citizens the right to local self-governance and gives rights to ecosystems but denies the rights of personhood to corporations.
http://www.afsc.net/PDFFiles/MoneyDownDrain.pdf
Money Down the Drain: How Private Control of Water Wastes Public Resources
Food and Water Watch, Washington, DC 2009
The successful citizen campaign in Akron, Ohio to keep public utilities public and letting citizens decide who should control their water/sewer system is prominently featured in the report. Akron voters overwhelmingly defeated a ballot measure sponsored by the mayor to privatize/corporatize the city sewer system and overwhelmingly passed a citizen initiative changing the city charter to prevent the future sale, lease or transfer of any public utility without a public vote.
Friday, February 27, 2009
It's Time to Democratize Banks
The time has arrived for public takeover of major US banks. The corporate model of banking has led to irresponsible investments, lavish executive gains, further bank consolidations, and, in part, to home foreclosures that have ravished communities.
An increasing number of economists, including Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, are calling for at least a temporary public takeover of the largest banks.
More tax dollars to bailout insolvent banks will only benefit shareholders and executives – widening the gap between the very rich and everyone else. Congress should protect taxpayers by opposing any further bailouts.
The FDIC has in the past taken over insolvent banks, wiped out debts, and placed them back on the market. The only difference now is scale.
Congress should also create financial incentives for worker ownership of banks returned to the market. Worker-owned cooperatives exist in every state and all over the world – including banks. Cooperative businesses in general are more transparent, democratic, and responsible.
Credit unions are one form of financial cooperatives. They serve their local communities, not stockholders who may live in another state or country. They are responsible to their owner-members who are also their customers. The do not engage is wild speculative investments.
The time has arrived to democratize banks.
An increasing number of economists, including Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, are calling for at least a temporary public takeover of the largest banks.
More tax dollars to bailout insolvent banks will only benefit shareholders and executives – widening the gap between the very rich and everyone else. Congress should protect taxpayers by opposing any further bailouts.
The FDIC has in the past taken over insolvent banks, wiped out debts, and placed them back on the market. The only difference now is scale.
Congress should also create financial incentives for worker ownership of banks returned to the market. Worker-owned cooperatives exist in every state and all over the world – including banks. Cooperative businesses in general are more transparent, democratic, and responsible.
Credit unions are one form of financial cooperatives. They serve their local communities, not stockholders who may live in another state or country. They are responsible to their owner-members who are also their customers. The do not engage is wild speculative investments.
The time has arrived to democratize banks.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Vision of Hope on Economic Systems
February 9, 2009
Vision of Hope Speaker Series, Xavier University
It’s impossible to explore economics, economic systems, and a vision for an inclusive economy in a vacuum. Economics is not a silo but rather a web with vast interconnections
We live in a time of immense crisis - multiple crises which together threaten not only our economy, but society and like support system itself.
We also live in a time of immense opportunity with vast possibilities for improvement of the human condition and a more right relationship between human beings and the rest of the natural world.
The crises and opportunities are at their root more than any single or even multiple issues. It involves the prevailing economic myth, what others might call the dominant paradigm, still others the accepted story, while still others the major framework.
Whatever you’re preferred term (I’ll use framework), it’s the one that says economic growth is good and more growth is better because it means more stuff is created which we can consume -- which is the definition of self-worth and meaning since, as Madison avenue says “You are what you drive.”
“Endless more” is the major economic goal.
Another element of the dominant framework is the belief that econometric, macro/micro, monetary/fiscal, inflation/deflation, the federal reserve, fiat currency, the GDP, and other economic stuff is so incredibly complicated that only a select few can understand it all -- only the paternalistic and benevolent economic sages. Economics is treated as a virtual branch of physics because we’re told the economy seems to operate by forces beyond human control via “the Market,” the “Invisible Hand,” or some other cosmic force akin to gravity. Government should have little or any regulatory or controlling role because to try to tinker with natural forces is inefficient or impossible – similar to trying to regulate the tides or the sunset.
Well, it turns out the uncontrolled and unregulated economic tides have created a global economic and ecological tsunami that has washed away jobs, companies, pensions, home values, security, and a good deal of the ozone. That’s the negative. The positive is that the economic crisis has exposed the inherent failure of the dominant economic framework – an economic system one that has become increasingly detached from serving the interests of people, our communities, and the earth’s caring capacities.
The economic paragons who we were told to entrust all power and authority pursued their own interests at the expense of everyone else and the planet. The Invisible Hand was actually a clenched fist that landed in the midsection of the middle class and poor. The Market it turns out is incapable of addressing serious environmental problems.
Fashioning an economy for all, an inclusive economy, must begin not with an economic prescription but a political one, actually a human prescription. The basic principle should be this: people must have a right to decide issues that affect their lives, their communities, their environment. People must possess the right to decide.
Under our current economic system, this is for the most part not possible. Economic decisions are considered private decisions – even those made by transnational business corporations – top down economic institutions with the power to determine the fates of millions of workers and communities and where the Bill of Rights have no relevance.
The most important sector of the economy to address is the financial sector. The power to coin and distribute money is at the root of all others. Banks and other financial institutions have long been deemed as potential threats to self-governance – from Revolutionary times through the Populists of the 1870’s-1890’s to the present.
In an 1802 letter to his Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, President Thomas Jefferson reflected:
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
My vision of hope in constructing an inclusive economy…and inclusive government, thus, is focused on financial institutitions.
I’ve developed a 10 point plan – the first 5 focused on the financial sector, the 2nd 5 on related issues.
1. Hold those responsible for the current crisis responsible – both individuals and companies. Bank CEO’s and other officers who have used bank bailout money for lavish bonuses or golden parachutes should be jailed and funds returned. Banking corporations that have misused bank funds for CEO buyout or bank acquisitions should be forced to return taypayer funds. Companies responsible for the home foreclosure crisis should have their corporate charters revoked and reorganized. This would serve as an important deterrent of future abuse.
2. It’s time to democratize banks. Bailing out banks simply because they’re too big to fail means their too big to exist. More bailout funds, as economist and Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz says in a recent article calling for government take over of banks, would simply waste hundreds of billions of dollars and not solve the credit crisis. Banks would simply further consolidate with the few that remain more politically and economically powerful. Democratizing banks would mean bank investors would lose out. It would also mean money could finally be directed to help those facing home foreclosures.
3. Democratize issuance of currency by making the Federal Reserve a total public entity – a 4th branch of the government with checks and balance of issuing money decided by Congress – as many are suggesting. It’s absurd to permit a entity that is partially private to determine our nation’s money supply.
4. Fundamentally restructure the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. It’s time to abolish odios debt of underdeveloped nations who in most cases long ago paid back the principle of their original loan with hefty interest. End the Structural Adjustment Program which link loans to gutting a nation’s economic sovereignty. Focus on micro loans promoting sustainability and decentralization.
5. Fund a new federal program that provides financial and technical incentives to democratize banks and corporations via cooperatives. Other nation’s have hundreds, if not thousands, of economic cooperatives that supply everything from manufacturing to banking. They are democratically run. It’s time for our nation to provide major incentives for that here.
6. Abolish corporate personhood. The notion that business corporations can possess Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections must cease. Corporate rights threatens the economic health of communities but also what is little left of our democracy.
7. Reverse Buckley v Valeo, the 1976 Supreme Court decision equating money with free speech. Money isn’t speech. It’s property. When invested in politics, money from the wealthy drowns out the voices of those without money. The ever-widening income and wealth gap, perpetuated by government policies, will never be narrowed unless the political power of the wealthy is minimized. Reserving Buckley is an important step in this direction.
8. Keep public assets public. It seems every public asset has at one point or another been targeted for sale at the municipal, state and federal government. Privatization/corporation of public assets reduces public control. Keeping public assets public is the surest way to maximize transparency and responsibility of workers and directors who are unable to hide behind the legal shield erected by corporations in the name of protecting “trade secrets” or “propriety information.”
9. Develop new measurements of well being. The Growth Domestic Product (GDP) merely measures economic growth – be it good or bad. Building a needed house or a unneeded nuclear bomb factory both add to the GDP. We need a different economic ruler – one that measures not just economic advancements but also quality of life which involves more than mere economics – such as happiness.
10. Replace the “endless more” growth economic model with a sustainable and just model based on tenants of respect, dignity, equity, democracy, cooperation, and meeting basic physical needs, not insatiable wants. This involves two tracks. We need macro economic institutions and policies (some of which mentioned earlier) along with programs like social security, environmental protections, green technologies, minimum wage, and labor regulations. We also need micro economic alternatives (i.e. cooperatives, land trusts, local currencies, community supported agriculture, participatory budgeting).
It is time for us to take charge of our economy. It is complicated but we can not be intimated. We can demystify and demythologize it. There are people who are working on popular economics. We the People have in the past come together in powerful social movements to educate ourselves and then take action on nuclear power, nuclear weapons/war, the wars in Central America and Iraq, and numerous environmental problems. Each time we were told: “leave it to the experts,” or “they know best.” Each time we educated ourselves and came to know enough to know what we were being told was not true and was against the interests of the vast majority of our fellow citizens.
When it comes to economics, we all have PhDs in what it’s like to live through what is arguably the most severe economic crisis in the history of this nation outside of the great depression.
At its core, we must remember that economics is about morals and values -- not pie charts, graphs, percentiles, or trends. It’s not a cosmic force. Virtually everything that has, is and will happen is due to conscious and willful decisions made by human beings – often times who are accountable and responsible to few if any others. That’s the problem. Others making decisions for us.
Shouldn’t we have the power and authority to make decisions affecting our lives and communties? Real democracy. Real participation. Real inclusion. And real soon.
Vision of Hope Speaker Series, Xavier University
It’s impossible to explore economics, economic systems, and a vision for an inclusive economy in a vacuum. Economics is not a silo but rather a web with vast interconnections
We live in a time of immense crisis - multiple crises which together threaten not only our economy, but society and like support system itself.
We also live in a time of immense opportunity with vast possibilities for improvement of the human condition and a more right relationship between human beings and the rest of the natural world.
The crises and opportunities are at their root more than any single or even multiple issues. It involves the prevailing economic myth, what others might call the dominant paradigm, still others the accepted story, while still others the major framework.
Whatever you’re preferred term (I’ll use framework), it’s the one that says economic growth is good and more growth is better because it means more stuff is created which we can consume -- which is the definition of self-worth and meaning since, as Madison avenue says “You are what you drive.”
“Endless more” is the major economic goal.
Another element of the dominant framework is the belief that econometric, macro/micro, monetary/fiscal, inflation/deflation, the federal reserve, fiat currency, the GDP, and other economic stuff is so incredibly complicated that only a select few can understand it all -- only the paternalistic and benevolent economic sages. Economics is treated as a virtual branch of physics because we’re told the economy seems to operate by forces beyond human control via “the Market,” the “Invisible Hand,” or some other cosmic force akin to gravity. Government should have little or any regulatory or controlling role because to try to tinker with natural forces is inefficient or impossible – similar to trying to regulate the tides or the sunset.
Well, it turns out the uncontrolled and unregulated economic tides have created a global economic and ecological tsunami that has washed away jobs, companies, pensions, home values, security, and a good deal of the ozone. That’s the negative. The positive is that the economic crisis has exposed the inherent failure of the dominant economic framework – an economic system one that has become increasingly detached from serving the interests of people, our communities, and the earth’s caring capacities.
The economic paragons who we were told to entrust all power and authority pursued their own interests at the expense of everyone else and the planet. The Invisible Hand was actually a clenched fist that landed in the midsection of the middle class and poor. The Market it turns out is incapable of addressing serious environmental problems.
Fashioning an economy for all, an inclusive economy, must begin not with an economic prescription but a political one, actually a human prescription. The basic principle should be this: people must have a right to decide issues that affect their lives, their communities, their environment. People must possess the right to decide.
Under our current economic system, this is for the most part not possible. Economic decisions are considered private decisions – even those made by transnational business corporations – top down economic institutions with the power to determine the fates of millions of workers and communities and where the Bill of Rights have no relevance.
The most important sector of the economy to address is the financial sector. The power to coin and distribute money is at the root of all others. Banks and other financial institutions have long been deemed as potential threats to self-governance – from Revolutionary times through the Populists of the 1870’s-1890’s to the present.
In an 1802 letter to his Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, President Thomas Jefferson reflected:
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
My vision of hope in constructing an inclusive economy…and inclusive government, thus, is focused on financial institutitions.
I’ve developed a 10 point plan – the first 5 focused on the financial sector, the 2nd 5 on related issues.
1. Hold those responsible for the current crisis responsible – both individuals and companies. Bank CEO’s and other officers who have used bank bailout money for lavish bonuses or golden parachutes should be jailed and funds returned. Banking corporations that have misused bank funds for CEO buyout or bank acquisitions should be forced to return taypayer funds. Companies responsible for the home foreclosure crisis should have their corporate charters revoked and reorganized. This would serve as an important deterrent of future abuse.
2. It’s time to democratize banks. Bailing out banks simply because they’re too big to fail means their too big to exist. More bailout funds, as economist and Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz says in a recent article calling for government take over of banks, would simply waste hundreds of billions of dollars and not solve the credit crisis. Banks would simply further consolidate with the few that remain more politically and economically powerful. Democratizing banks would mean bank investors would lose out. It would also mean money could finally be directed to help those facing home foreclosures.
3. Democratize issuance of currency by making the Federal Reserve a total public entity – a 4th branch of the government with checks and balance of issuing money decided by Congress – as many are suggesting. It’s absurd to permit a entity that is partially private to determine our nation’s money supply.
4. Fundamentally restructure the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. It’s time to abolish odios debt of underdeveloped nations who in most cases long ago paid back the principle of their original loan with hefty interest. End the Structural Adjustment Program which link loans to gutting a nation’s economic sovereignty. Focus on micro loans promoting sustainability and decentralization.
5. Fund a new federal program that provides financial and technical incentives to democratize banks and corporations via cooperatives. Other nation’s have hundreds, if not thousands, of economic cooperatives that supply everything from manufacturing to banking. They are democratically run. It’s time for our nation to provide major incentives for that here.
6. Abolish corporate personhood. The notion that business corporations can possess Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections must cease. Corporate rights threatens the economic health of communities but also what is little left of our democracy.
7. Reverse Buckley v Valeo, the 1976 Supreme Court decision equating money with free speech. Money isn’t speech. It’s property. When invested in politics, money from the wealthy drowns out the voices of those without money. The ever-widening income and wealth gap, perpetuated by government policies, will never be narrowed unless the political power of the wealthy is minimized. Reserving Buckley is an important step in this direction.
8. Keep public assets public. It seems every public asset has at one point or another been targeted for sale at the municipal, state and federal government. Privatization/corporation of public assets reduces public control. Keeping public assets public is the surest way to maximize transparency and responsibility of workers and directors who are unable to hide behind the legal shield erected by corporations in the name of protecting “trade secrets” or “propriety information.”
9. Develop new measurements of well being. The Growth Domestic Product (GDP) merely measures economic growth – be it good or bad. Building a needed house or a unneeded nuclear bomb factory both add to the GDP. We need a different economic ruler – one that measures not just economic advancements but also quality of life which involves more than mere economics – such as happiness.
10. Replace the “endless more” growth economic model with a sustainable and just model based on tenants of respect, dignity, equity, democracy, cooperation, and meeting basic physical needs, not insatiable wants. This involves two tracks. We need macro economic institutions and policies (some of which mentioned earlier) along with programs like social security, environmental protections, green technologies, minimum wage, and labor regulations. We also need micro economic alternatives (i.e. cooperatives, land trusts, local currencies, community supported agriculture, participatory budgeting).
It is time for us to take charge of our economy. It is complicated but we can not be intimated. We can demystify and demythologize it. There are people who are working on popular economics. We the People have in the past come together in powerful social movements to educate ourselves and then take action on nuclear power, nuclear weapons/war, the wars in Central America and Iraq, and numerous environmental problems. Each time we were told: “leave it to the experts,” or “they know best.” Each time we educated ourselves and came to know enough to know what we were being told was not true and was against the interests of the vast majority of our fellow citizens.
When it comes to economics, we all have PhDs in what it’s like to live through what is arguably the most severe economic crisis in the history of this nation outside of the great depression.
At its core, we must remember that economics is about morals and values -- not pie charts, graphs, percentiles, or trends. It’s not a cosmic force. Virtually everything that has, is and will happen is due to conscious and willful decisions made by human beings – often times who are accountable and responsible to few if any others. That’s the problem. Others making decisions for us.
Shouldn’t we have the power and authority to make decisions affecting our lives and communties? Real democracy. Real participation. Real inclusion. And real soon.
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