Ownership Society: The Enron Model for America
This “Ownership Society” is just great, isn't it; at least if you're part of that one percent who owns everything. When it comes to privatization, more is better. And we’re just about to see a whole lot more.
How’s this for a match made in Heaven: The nation’s infrastructure is crumbling, as we all know. Sinking. And rich investors are always looking for foolproof new investments that will increase their scrotal grip on the rest of the country. Presto!
Let’s privatize our roads and transportation systems. If you liked Enron, you'll love driving on the Bechtel Turnpike and riding Halliburton Transit.
A few years ago, Bolivia discovered how much fun it is to have their water supply owned by a global corporation. Soon we’ll be enjoying the same privilege here in America.
As you're driving over the Exxon Bridge on your way to Du Pont International Airport, you can think of those halcyon days of the Gilded Age. And suddenly you'll realize: those glorious days are here again.
Labels: Bolivia, Du Pont, Enron, Exxon, Gilded Age, Halliburton, infrastructure, ownership society, privatization
posted by Tom Harper @ 12:01 AM
16 Comments:
Would some Chimpleton like to pop on here and point out for me the difference between this and Stalinist collectivization?
Corps own everything.
Corps supply top Government officials.
All production and distribution belongs to corps who also have their officers running the Government.
This is a "free market?"
Yeah, I'm hearing that some new toll-road projects are starting to be privately financed. They will take a bath on it at first and then start slowly upping the price. Then, what can you do? Write your Congressman? Nope, not his problem anymore.
Boycott the toll road? Sure, and get fired from your job.
The worst part will be people in rural areas who depend on long, well maintained highways to get to and fro. These highways with less trafic will be extremely expensive to travel on a user pays basis.
Have we lost our mind for the chase of money?
Can we continue to give away our country to the rich... have we ever own this country?
It seems that the average American has no rights, we are what the government say we are.
We have no true rights of our own property... the city, state and federal has the right to take that from us.
Now we are ready to have our roads paid for and own by the rich... The United States Of Money!
Jolly Roger: Stalinism, the Fascism of Germany/Italy/Spain before WWII, the Corporate State we’re heading for — pretty much interchangeable. If this is what the Right means by a “free market” they have their heads up their asses.
Prague Twin: That’s exactly right. These infrastructure investments won't yield much at first, but in a few years they’ll be a gold mine. And it’s foolproof. They're selling a “product” that’s absolutely necessary and there's no competition.
Some utility companies are already in this position. You're probably familiar with PG&E in California. They do absolutely nothing except jack up their rates again and again, and sit back and rake in the money. It'll be just great when our highways, bus systems and airports are being run this way.
Let’s Talk: That seems to be where we’re heading. One percent of the country will live like kings and queens and the rest of us will be serfs.
To add to what Let's talk said not only have we lost our minds we are also killing for oil now! These Bastards not only want us to be what THEY tell us to be they want us to help them with their crimes too!
Funkytown Fighter: Yup, greed rules. We're invading countries for their oil, and our infrastructure might be bought up by a few corporations. Human life, quality of life -- who cares?
Not only are they privatizing our own country from beneath us, but they put it's infrastructure into the hands of incompetent cronies like Michael Brown.
I am coming to the conclusion that our country is going to go into the shitter before people finally rise up and put a stop to it.
Unfortunately a couple generations will get lost in the frey. But seriously, it's going to take a near destruction of the middle class, elderly people dying in the streets, and a crumbling infrastructure before people realize that giving corporations free reign is a bad idea.
People seem to forget that we already went through this in our history. The 1800's was the golden era of the robber barons.
The net result was the Progressive Movement that ended child labor, establised the public school system, brought about workplace saftey, etc.
We're totally regressing now. How far we need to regress before people finally say "oh shit! what's happening" I don't know but the looks of it now it seems we are going to have to regress pretty far.
One thing is that corporations know no limit to their greed for wealthy and power. They will keep taking and taking and taking. Sooner or later something will give.
Lizzy: Yup, pretty cool, huh? We'll be paying through the nose to drive anywhere, take the bus or go to the airport or train station. And on top of that, people like Heckuvajob Brownie will be running those enterprises.
PoliShifter: I'm afraid you're right, if these problems don't get corrected soon, we're gonna go pretty far down before things get better again. It's like 100 years of progress -- Theodore Roosevelt standing up to the robber barons at the turn of the last century, all of FDR's programs in the 1930s -- are just evaporating.
I wish some of these uneducated voters would crack open a history book and try to learn something. An ignorant population can be led around by their nose-rings, and we seem to have a lot of ignoramuses in our midst.
Yeah, well on our way to total servitude at least vis-a-vis transportation.
I know all about PG&E in CA. My mom used to accuse me of holding stock in the company (because I left the lights on). :)
Prague Twin: PG&E would probably be good stock to own. They have millions of captive customers. Several times they asked the PUC for a huge rate increase; they said if they didn't get it they'd have to lay off thousands of workers. So they'd get their rate increase and then they'd still lay off those thousands of workers. The joy of being a monopoly.
Yep ... kinda like the toll roads they're building in Texas and the midwest???
E
Women on the Verge: More toll roads, that's all we need. And the tolls might keep going up and up.
What a great idea. Sell off stuff that has been the responsibility of the federal government to private investors. That way, something that has been the gevernment's fault can then be blamed on private businesses. There have been plans tossed around such as selling off National Forest land to pay off parts of the national debt. What else would the corporocrats put up for sale? No Child Left Behind is a thinly veiled plan to bankrupt public schools so there will be no alternative but to privatize them. Hell, let's just avoid all that hassle and sell off the schools to the highest bidders now. The government could sell off all the U.S. highways, sell of things such as dams run by the Army Corps of Engineers... and with greed for dollars being the driving force, just imagine all the short-cuts the corporate people would take in building, managing and maintaining all their new properties. I think "quality" would go down the toilet while a handful of people got very, very rich. These new owners would also undoubtedly find ways to make it so people couldn't sue them. What a mess it would be.
I think if the government wanted to keep people employed, it could certainly hire lots of out-of-work people to help rebuild the nation's infrastructure.
I think the government needs to help keep the nation strong, and that it should not say it is keeping America strong by finding a convenient way to make money through the shirking of those responsibilities.
Snave: These wingnuts would just love to turn the clock back to the late 1800s. National parks, public lands, roads, railways -- it's all just a bunch of communism. Turn everything over to the "private sector" and let them bleed the rest of us dry, as God intended.
There seems lately that their is a lot of crap flying in every direction with regard to what is occurring in America as of late!
First of all I have no doubt in my mind that conspiracies of all kinds and shapes are occurring in America and the world, and these conspirators I am sure believe that they are shaping history with their shenanigans! It seems to be some kind of ego trip that a lot of so called conspirators are on.
Their are those that are fighting these maniac idiots because they believe that these idiots are more important in the scheme of things than they actually are! …All of this action and reaction is to my mind, is self serving on all sides and only feeds the paranoia that is exploding in every direction!
The fact of the matter is that what is actually happening in America and elsewhere is that the system that we live under HAS A LIFE OF IT’S OWN, and the changes that are now occurring in America and the world is the result of not conspiracies,.. but of a predictable consequence of the system of capitalism, needing to expand, and become global, because it has outgrown Nationalism, and it needs to expand or die!
To grow you have to feed on something so the system grows a working class and a middle class, and than they feed on that what they created so as to survive and thrive!
What is occurring in America and the world is a transformation of the capitalist system, … and this was predictable over 100 years ago!
The basic nature of the system and the characteristics that flow from that basic nature, is changing dramatically. America and the capitalist world will,… because it is necessary for them to do so,..become a fascist world dictatorship, without even the pretense of representative government, … or democracy!
To survive in this type of environment the ordinary people of this world, must organize on an international level so as to compete with this global fascism!
The only direction that the soon to be dispossessed people of the world can go,…is the direction of establishing a benevolent world welfare dictatorship that will control the means of production for the ordinary people and will outlaw all forms of fascist capitalism.
That will be the first step that will be necessary as the world transforms itself from a world for the greedy few to a world that will eventually be a world for everyone,… under the conditions of social abundance and true individualism … An individualism that does not have to be dictated to by a forceful government or a privileged oligarchy!
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