Today's Must-Read: Bad Publicity Helps

I'm sure you're aware that the small-business loan fund under the CARES Act ran out of money very quickly. Why? Because too much of it was going to companies that in no way could be considered "small busnesses".

The Treasury Department issued new guidance on Thursday encouraging publicly-traded companies to return their coronavirus stimulus loans by May 7 as Shake Shack and other public companies have faced backlash for receiving funds meant for small businesses.

While small business owners struggled to secure loans under the Paycheck Protection Program in the two weeks before the $350 billion fund ran dry, dozens of publicly traded companies secured hundreds of millions of dollars in funds, drawing criticism from watchdog groups and lawmakers.

How could these loans have gone to publicly traded companies to begin with? Well, for starters, Trump fired the inspector general who was supposed to be overseeing these programs -- probably to be sure his own companies (which are not publicly traded) could get their hands in the pot.

And then there's this:

Designed for businesses with 500 employees or less, the initiative also included exceptions for big restaurant and hotel chains, along with franchises, with less than 500 employees per location.

That opening allowed some publicly-traded restaurant and hospitality companies to seek and secure millions of low-interest loans from the government.

(Emphasis added.)

Gee, I wonder who wrote that into the bill? Hint: It wasn't Nancy Pelosi.

Via Joe.My.God. The comments on Joe's post are worth reading, particularly this article from NYT, courtesy of commenter corram nobis.

Today's Must-Read: Business As Usual

This is what happens when you install a sleazy CEO in the White House:

We always hear that Trump thinks of things transactionally. So he will think of the Saudi protection contract as a "new business" contract that he got for the Pentagon. He expects the Pentagon will make money off the deal, after all, "They pay cash!"

With the recent deal that let him move money from military programs to The Wall, Trump can now see the military budget as just one big pool of money--that he just added to by signing a long term protection contract with "The Kingdom"

Trump will now expect the generals and the contractors to be grateful to him. He's a good earner for them. The Wall money, from the military budget, is now rightfully his. After all, he got them the big contract. When he didn't go after MBS for the murder of Khashoggi, he was protecting a huge revenue stream to the military.

The art of the deal, indeed. I suspect this is really the way Trump thinks.

Read the whole thing -- yes, it's pretty snarky, but that's certainly merited.

In Honor of the Senate Judiciary Committee

Fox News, and other right-wing hacks:

Thanks to commenter Jean-Marc in Canada at Joe.My.God.

Today's Must-Read: Warren Throws Down the Gauntlet

Tom Sullivan has an eye-opener at Hullabaloo on two bills Elizabeth Warren introduced this week, which got pretty much lost in the brouhaha over Trump's cronies being convicted.

The first is the Accountable Capitalism Act:

Warren's first, the Accountable Capitalism Act, we discussed here on Saturday. It is nothing less than an attempt to save capitalism from its worst excesses.

A sign Warren's Accountable Capitalism Act has hit its mark are the squeals from the right. A hyperventilating Kevin Williamson claims in the National Review the Accountable Capitalism Act calls for “the wholesale expropriation of private enterprise in the United States, and nothing less.” Adding, "utterly bonkers." A blog headline at Reason blasts, "Elizabeth Warren Plans To Destroy Capitalism By Pretending To ‘Save’ It".

The second is ever worse, from the viewpoint of our elected representatives and their owners:

Warren's followup punch, a nearly 300-page Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act dropped on Tuesday and must have sent D.C. insiders rushing to cover their punch bowls. Except with #TrumpfellasTuesday news alerts booming like a trailer voiced by Don LaFontaine, Warren's roll-out may have been lost among the headlines announcing convictions of Trump's known associates. More the shame. This second bill is an attempt to save Washington from its worst excesses.

She's thrown down the gauntlet, all right, not only for the Republicans and the money guys, but for Democrats as well. (Who, as tristero points out in another post at Hullbaloo, are gearing up once again to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.)

"You're Fired!"

Looks like the Mooch was too much even for Trump -- oh, wait:

John F. Kelly, President Trump’s new chief of staff, firmly asserted his authority on his first day in the White House on Monday, telling aides he will impose military discipline on a free-for-all West Wing, and he underscored his intent by firing Anthony Scaramucci, the bombastic communications director, 10 days after he was hired.

Mr. Scaramucci was forced out of his post, with the blessing of the president and his family, just days after unloading a crude verbal tirade against other members of the president’s staff, including Reince Priebus, Mr. Kelly’s beleaguered predecessor, and Stephen K. Bannon, the chief White House strategist, in a conversation with a reporter for The New Yorker.

I wonder how long Kelly will last:

Mr. Kelly, the first former general to occupy the gatekeeper’s post since Alexander Haig played that role for President Richard M. Nixon during Watergate, is charged with quelling the chaos that has defined, distracted and often derailed Mr. Trump’s White House. But the president gave Mr. Priebus many of the same assurances of control, and then proceeded to undercut and ignore him — to the point where Mr. Priebus often positioned himself at the door of the Oval Office to find out whom the president was talking to.

Can we expect a change in behavior from The Hairpiece? Not in this lifetime.

Via Joe.My.God.

President Bannon Lays Out His Agenda

C'mon -- we all know who's running the White House. This report on Bannon's speech at CPAC is, for some, an eye-opener, I'm sure:

Steve Bannon — President Trump’s chief White House advisor — just made a very revealing statement while addressing right-wing activists.

The overall theme of Bannon’s speech was “deconstruction of the administrative state,” when taking into account the policies he is pursuing. He also told the audience that Trump’s cabinet appointees “were selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction.”

Bannon’s remarks help give context to President Trump appointing ideological enemies of certain federal agencies to then lead those same agencies. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt was recently confirmed as EPA administrator despite suing the EPA 14 times over environmental regulations, usually on behalf of oil companies. On his own LinkedIn, Pruitt describes himself as a “leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.”

The statement also explains why Trump appointed former Goldman Sachs executives Steve Mnuchin to head the U.S. Treasury and Jay Clayton to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mnuchin is an avowed opponent of financial regulations, and pledged to repeal them as Treasury chief. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson has called for the defunding of public housing, and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who now heads the Department of Energy, couldn’t even remember its name while calling it for it to be abolished during a presidential debate.

Betsy DeVos was appointed Secretary of Education without having any experience in public schools, and stating that she wanted to force public schools to teach Christian dogma. Even Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is purging the State Department of longtime staff, including senior-level officials, suggesting American foreign policy may soon take a “deconstruction” approach.

This should really come as no surprise -- Bannon has described himself as a avowed Leninist who wants to do away with the government, and he has the perfect puppet in Trump, who will go along with it as long as he's free to fill his pockets and watch TV. And being, as they are, sociopaths with no concern for anyone but themselves, they don't care about the consequences for the rest of us.

Via commenter David L. Caster at Joe.My.God., in the comment thread on a story about AG Jefferson Beauregard Sessons III reversing DOJ's move toward eliminating private prisons, which itself is worth a read.

In Case You Had Any Doubts

This:



Any questions?

(Via commenter Picky Pecker at Joe.My.God.)

Some Optimism

And it's sobering to think that the incoming administration not being prepared to fill crucial roles in the agencies and departments can be considered "optimistic." From BooMan:

If you think Betsy DeVos and Ben Carson are going to be guiding the pulse of their departments, you must not have watched any of their confirmation hearings. They know absolutely nothing about what their departments do. They’ll have a few big items on their get-done list, but they wouldn’t know how to shape legislation to name a post office.

Because the folks who will actually need to transform law and policy won’t be fully in place until late spring or early summer, the amount of damage the Trump administration can do in its first year will be reduced.

I suppose it’s possible that the reverse could happen in some select cases. In these cases, the skeleton crews might have been a moderating influence on a radical Congress if they had been staffed up and ready to engage. Overall, however, I think it will prevent the administration from translating The Leader’s will into action.

It's a measure of the sheer ineptitude of not only Trump but his entire team that they have managed to pull off the worst transition in history and will take office completely unprepared to deal with anything.

But then, that's probably what the Russians wanted. #PutinsPuppet

Stray Thought: "They'll Pay For It"

It just occurred to me, thinking about Trump's insistence that Mexico will pay for his wall, that NATO and our other allies should pick up the tab for having troops stationed on their soil -- that's the way he's always done business: put together a project, line up investors and loans, pocket the cash, and walk away, letting everyone else pick up the tab.

Today's Must-Watch, Part 2

Elizabeth Warren takes no prisoners:

The look on Stumpf's face as Warren finished up is priceless. If looks could kill. . . .

Here's the background.

The manager instructed her to push accounts but not to tell the customers about the downfalls and fees of new accounts. "Make them read the paperwork." She replied, "But you know no one ever reads the paperwork." His response: "Exactly."

Another Reason Not to Shop at Walmart

I don't shop at Walmart. I never have, and won't until they start shouldering their share of their own costs -- like paying their employees a living wage and providing benefits like insurance and sick leave, rather than have us paying for their food stamps and Medicare.

And it turns out that Walmart has found yet another way to stick it to us:

Now the company has found another way to keep profits up: by externalizing the cost of theft prevention. As a result, in Tulsa, Oklahoma and other Walmarts across the country stores are experiencing a crime wave. Shannon Pettypiece and David Voreacos write at Bloomberg Businessweek: Walmart’s Out-of-Control Crime Problem Is Driving Police Crazy. Tulsa PD's Darrell Ross spends so much time there he's known as Officer Walmart:

It’s not unusual for the department to send a van to transport all the criminals Ross arrests at this Walmart. The call log on the store stretches 126 pages, documenting more than 5,000 trips over the past five years. Last year police were called to the store and three other Tulsa Walmarts just under 2,000 times. By comparison, they were called to the city’s four Target stores about 300 times.

The police should start charging them -- Chicago charges for ambulances, and it's not cheap.

There was a Walmart Express over on Broadway. (Chicago won't allow retailers like Walmart and Target to put in big-box stores; they have to occupy existing retail spaces or be part of a new development.) I'm happy to report that after a couple of years, it's closed. I'm sorry for the people who are out of work now, but Target is expanding in the city.

(Side note: I hadn't been to the Loop in a number of years until I started going to the Cultural Center on a regular basis. Carson Pirie & Scott on State Street, in the landmark Louis Sullivan building, is now a Target. Sheesh.)

Today's Must-Read: Privatize Everything, Redux

Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo examines the charter school movement, taking off from this segment of John Oliver's Last Week Tonight:

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight back-to-school segment on charter schools Sunday was a welcome window into the world of education "reform" grifters. (I just found time to watch it last night.) Griftopia, as Matt Taibbi defined it:

There really are two Americas, one for the grifter class and one for everybody else. In everybody-else land, the world of small businesses and wage-earning employees, the government is something to be avoided, an overwhelming, all-powerful entity whose attentions usually presage some kind of financial setback, if not complete ruin. In the grifter world, however, government is a slavish lapdog that the financial companies that will be the major players in this book use as a tool for making money.

Sullivan details a few of the abuses and scams. I found this particularly interesting:

Aside from the happy talk about experimentation and free-market competition (you may genuflect now), the smokescreen that obscures some of the worst results of lax oversight is the notion that these schools run as non-profits. But nonprofit doesn't mean no cash flow. Oliver points out (and this is not unique) how the president of the Richard Allen charter chain in Ohio contracted oversight of its schools to a nonprofit she founded and who contracted $1 million in management and consulting firms she also founded.

Even in non-profits, someone's making money.

And of course, the real victims here are the kids, who are not getting the education we're paying for.

Some Good News

And long overdue, as far as I'm concerned: the feds are easing out of contracting with private prisons. From WaPo:

The Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the government.

Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision on Thursday in a memo that instructs officials to either decline to renew the contracts for private prison operators when they expire or “substantially reduce” the contracts’ scope. The goal, Yates wrote, is “reducing — and ultimately ending — our use of privately operated prisons.”

“They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by the Department’s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security,” Yates wrote.

The article links to this report, which is worth reading: it details a lack of oversight on the part of the Bureau of Prisons and a lack of attention to procedures (not to mention basic common sense) on the part of contract prisons,

Sadly, the shift doesn't really affect all that many prisons or inmates:

While experts said the directive is significant, privately run federal prisons house only a fraction of the overall population of inmates. The vast majority of the incarcerated in America are housed in state prisons — rather than federal ones — and Yates’ memo does not apply to any of those, even the ones that are privately run. Nor does it apply to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Marshals Service detainees, who are technically in the federal system but not under the purview of the federal Bureau of Prisons.

The directive is instead limited to the 13 privately run facilities, housing a little more than 22,000 inmates, in the federal Bureau of Prisons system.

I think one of the most damaging things that the conservative movement has inserted into the public perception is the idea that private businesses are, by definition, more efficient and better run that any government agency. Sounds good on its face, except that it's not true. Private companies are slaves to the profit motive, which means they will cut corners and slide past rules in order to increase the bottom line. I've never understood the rationale for inserting an additional layer of administration into what is properly a function of government, particularly if that extra layer is all about making money.

And there are just some things that shouldn't be subject to profit-taking -- like schools, roads and bridges, and, yes, prisons. We already know that school privatization -- in which school districts contract out to private companies to run schools -- is, while not a disaster, not all that great a solution. And there's no reason to think that privatizing prisons is working out any better.

At any rate, one hopes that state prison systems, which house most of our glut of inmates, will get the hint. I'm not going to hold my breath, though.

Today's Must-Read: "Trade Deals"

From Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo. The meat:

Something I read somewhere the other day highlighted that in a way that stuck with me. Essentially, these are deals written solely from the perspective of corporations. They are treaties of, by, and for corporations. The needs, concerns, and fate of the average citizen in the global economy are not even an afterthought. Politicians and business magnates sell the deals to voters simmering like frogs in increasingly weakened democracies as a kind of transnational trickle-down. In the long run, this deal will be great for you. Trust us. "You're gonna love it. Believe me."

He's got back-up, too. Basically, corporations and their henchmen are sitting at the negotiating table writing these treaties, with the acquiescence, if not active agreement, of our so-called representatives. One of the key factors is that they give the corporations the right to sue countries through a special court:

In one critique of the TPP, Johnson wrote:

Corporations get a special channel of their own for enforcement of rules written by their representatives at the negotiating table. Labor, environment and other stakeholders don’t get that in TPP. This is how TPP will increase corporate power over governments and working people.

In effect, these "trade deals" subordinate nations to corporations.

I might note that it is not only Republicans pushing for this. The Obama administration has been leading the charge.

Read the whole thing.

Today's Must-Read

This post, from Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo. This part struck me:

Eli Saslow reports for the Washington Post on the decline of manufacturing in northeast Indiana where the American Dream is proving to be just that. Chris Setser stands to lose his $17/hr production line job at United Technologies Electronic Controls (UTEC) in Huntington. . . .

Setser leaned into the table and banged it once for emphasis. “They’re throwing our work back in our face,” he said. “China is doing better. Even Mexico is doing better. Don’t you want someone to go kick ass?”

Globalization. Financialization. Greed, one of the deadly sins. Nothing a little ass-whupping won't fix.

It occurs to me that people like Setser are, quite deliberately, being pointed in the wrong direction for the ass-whupping. Mexico and China didn't come over here and steal our jobs. The bosses figured they'd make more money by shipping the jobs to sweatshops in China or Mexico -- American workers are just too darned expensive.

The Hairpiece, being of the class that ships jobs overseas (check out where the clothing in his clothing line is made) is blaming all the wrong people. Of course. And people like Setser are buying it.

Here's the story as WaPo. It's worth reading, too.

Today's Must-Read

Let's just privatize everything! (I have to admit, I've made the comment more than once that I'm expecting to hear any day now that the mayor is selling off the Chicago Park District to Disney. I'm only half joking.)

But, on a more fundamental level, the push to privatize municipal water systems has been pretty much ignored by the press. Granted, the press in this country has given into a fascination with shiny things, but someone, somewhere, should be dealing with some real issues, right? Well, some are:

City leaders and a group of organizers here have been fighting state efforts to take over our city's water system for several years. City of Asheville v State of North Carolina, et al. goes before the state Supreme Court next month. The originator of the bill (an ALEC board member before he lost his state House seat) insisted transferring control to a regional authority was not the first step towards privatization. You know, we just didn't believe him. The water situation in Flint, Michigan is sure to come up in oral arguments on May 17.

This is just one effort; there are others throughout the country. What's really sobering is just who is involved:

[Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-WI)] is not happy about the International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank, promoting water privatization and profiting from it. She wrote a letter to Dr. Jim Young Kim, President of the World Bank Group:

The letter, addressed to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, describes the failure of a World Bank-backed water privatization project in Manila, Philippines—the “success story” the IFC uses in marketing around the world—as the foundation of her concern. In Manila, the IFC advised the government to contract with two private corporations to manage the city’s water system, which it did in 1997 in a concession deal that favored one corporation, Manila Water Company, with less debt and better infrastructure. The IFC subsequently took part ownership in MWC only.

Since taking over, MWC has raised rates nearly 850 percent, and has even brought the Manila regulator—and the Philippines Department of Finance—into arbitration in an attempt to hike the cost of water even higher.

As part owner of MWC, the IFC is now in direct opposition to the government’s efforts to keep water affordable for its people. And while the IFC has stood by MWC, it has made $43 million from its initial investment.

Yes, those wonderful people who destroyed the economy of Greece are now investing in private water management companies while they push local governments into selling their water systems to those very companies.

This is, as I noted above, a trend -- charter schools/school vouchers, municipal water systems, city parking (in Chicago, you now pay for parking 24/7 -- you used to be able to park on streets free on Sundays and overnight -- but they do make it really easy to pay), you name it, it's being privatized, or someone's trying to.

Of course, these efforts are all being touted as leading to greater efficiency and lower costs, but that's patently ridiculous. I mean, you start by introducing another layer in the cost structure and introducing the idea that, for example, city services should be profitable. For someone. Like the World Bank. And frankly, anyone who thinks that non-government corporations are necessarily more efficient than government-run services has never worked in the private sector.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but it just seems to be that some things should not be subject to the profit motive -- like the things we're paying taxes for.

In an emailed statement, Moore connected the issue to U.S. water issues:

“Yes, we’ve just now started shedding light on this local and national issue in the United States, but there are global implications to think about as well,” Moore added, pointing to the World Bank’s investments in private water companies. “It has become clear that there are those in positions of great power who are all too willing to prioritize profits over public safety.”

The people of Flint would agree. As I've said for years, we are dealing with the kind of people who would sell you the air you breathe if they could control how it gets to your nose. And if you cannot afford to buy their air, well, you should have worked harder, planned better, and saved more.

Capitalism is not a human-oriented system. It is a commodity-oriented system; people are just consumers. When you stop to think about it, it's pretty immoral.

Just In Case

you were thinking that my "Question of the Day" from yesterday was a little alarmist in assuming that the country is being run by an oligarchy, I just want to reassure you -- it's much worse than that:

In 2008, there were financial bailouts for megabanks and foreclosures for homeowners. There was vulture capitalist Paul Singer seizing an Argentine naval vessel in a dispute over debt in 2012. There was the European Central Bank bringing Greece to heel this summer after voters in January elected Alexis Tsipras to end the “vicious cycle of austerity.” Coming Soon: TPP. There are probably other cases as well. If it was not clear already who is really running the planet, here is another clue.

In Portugal's elections earlier this month, Socialists, Communists, and the Left Bloc had won enough seats to form a coalition government, displacing the center-right Forward Portugal Alliance (PAF). And then?

Elections in Portugal this week offered the latest sign that when an individual European nation’s voters challenge eurozone austerity policies, the monetary union -- and the international creditors it represents -- takes precedence. Portugal’s president, Anibal Cavaco Silva, fueled an ongoing debate about the future of European democracy on Thursday when he reappointed an outgoing center-right prime minister despite election results that gave three left-leaning political parties the majority of seats in parliament.

Silva asked incumbent Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho to remain and to form a new government. Opposition Socialists threaten to bring down his government with an immediate vote of no confidence.

If you're reading this blog, you're probably too well aware of what's going on in this country to think "It can't happen here," especially if you look at what the Republicans in office have been doing to "reform" the tax code and "save" Social Security ever since Reagan.

And we've got our "liberal" media flogging the ideology -- even once-respectable journalists are on board:

On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked [Bob] Woodward what he expects from Paul Ryan. Well, since Bob spent hours interviewing him three years ago, he just thinks the world of the Budget Munster. Woodward thinks he's

a real Conservative, the 'big ideas person.' He vibrates reasonableness, he is calm, he has a possible path for doing deals with Obama in the last year.

Since we are on Fox 'News,' no one asks exactly what these big ideas are and who will suffer the most as a result of his bold plans.

Woodward truly thinks that Ryan wants to 'fix the government' by reforming entitlement spending. Fixing the government by hurting the poor is hardly considered a solution for millions of Americans who will suffer from his bold ideas.

As I recall from the last time Ryan came up with an economic policy, those "big ideas" were a little short on details and amounted to yet another giveaway to those who already own everything.

And I don't even want to start with the policy outlines (such as they are) from the candidates for the Republican nomination. Just as a sample, take Ben Carson's plan for Medicare and Medicaid, which is more or less incoherent. The idea of "medical savings accounts" being adequate to cover health-care costs is ludicrous, especially at the level Carson is proposing. Once again, short on details, and let's face it, the devil's in the details. One detail that pertains to today's topic: who administers these savings accounts? Do you really want Bank of America or Wells Fargo handling your health-care money, when they did such a good job with mortgages?

The rest of the news seems to be 90% on the 2016 election, which is just over a year away and I'm already sick of hearing about it. I think campaigning for national office should be limited to law by no more than thirty days -- and the US should adopt mandatory voting.

Then maybe we could do something about the oligarchs. But, given the example of Portugal, I wonder if it's even possible any more.

Today's Must Read

This post, from Gaius Publius at Hullabaloo:

I had a different group of pieces I've been working on recently, revolving around a recent interview by Noam Chomsky that touches on our so-called "capitalism" and also on the Bernie Sanders candidacy. But this video sets that up nicely. It's a ten-minute speech by long-time British politico and Labour Party member Tony Benn, sadly recently deceased.

Here's the video:

GP has done a partial transcript at the link. Key quote:

So privatization is a deliberate policy, along with the destruction of local democracy and the destruction of the trade unions to restore power back to to where it was. And what we're now back in, that's what the whole crisis is about, the restoration of power to those who've always controlled the world, the people who own the land and the resources and all the rest of it. And that is something we need to understand. ...

Since I live in a state and city with a governor and mayor who belief fervently in privatization (one Republican, one Democrat, but both oligarchs), this sort of hits home -- aside from the fact that I can see it happening across the country.

I think I need a long walk in the park.

Today's Must Read: The Perils of Privatization

I started thinking about privatization of public facilities after reading this article at Crooks and Liars:

A controversial bill signed into law this afternoon by Gov. Chris Christie would allow for fast-tracking the privatization of many public water systems in New Jersey.

The Water Infrastructure Protection Act removes the public vote requirement to sell water systems throughout the state under emergency conditions that many systems currently meet.

Hmm -- "removes the public vote requirement." How very democratic of them -- will of the people, and all that.

Then I ran across this one at Baloon Juice, which focuses on my home town:

Looting the public treasury for private benefit — it’s bipartisan! At In These Times, Rick Perlstein (The Invisible Bridge, Nixonland, Before the Storm) introduces us to “Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago, the privatized metropolis of the future“:

… For over a decade now, Chicago has been the epicenter of the fashionable trend of “privatization”—the transfer of the ownership or operation of resources that belong to all of us, like schools, roads and government services, to companies that use them to turn a profit. Chicago’s privatization mania began during Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration, which ran from 1989 to 2011. Under his successor, Rahm Emanuel, the trend has continued apace. For Rahm’s investment banker buddies, the trend has been a boon. For citizens? Not so much.

He goes on about the supposed benefits:

That is the promise of privatization in a nutshell: that the profit motive can serve not just those making the profits, but society as a whole, by bypassing inefficient government bureaucracies that thrive whether they deliver services effectively or not, and empower grubby, corrupt politicians and their pals to dip their hands in the pie of guaranteed government money…

What no one seems to want to talk about -- at least, no one who is touting privatization as the remedy for our tottering infrastructure, not to mention the perennial manufactured "crises" in Social Security and Medicare -- is that you're inserted another layer of potential abuse into the system: suddenly, someone has to make a profit off of something that has been functioning without having to make a profit.

However, the rush to outsource responsibility for housing the poor became a textbook example of one peril of privatization: Companies frequently get paid whether they deliver the goods or not (one of the reasons investors like privatization deals). For example, in 2004, city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations at Lawndale Restoration, the largest privately owned, publicly subsidized apartment project in Chicago. Guaranteed a steady revenue stream whether they did right by the tenants or not—from 1997 to 2003, the project generated $4.4 million in management fees and $14.6 million in salaries and wages—the developers were apparently satisfied to just let the place rot…

The head-scratcher here is that the taxpayer is going to have to pay for this, ultimately, by reimbursing the new owners for the purchase price (often inflated) and by paying for any maintenance the owners care to do. Higher rates for everyone, coupled with a decrease in service. Something else that no one wants to talk about.

I'm not going to point fingers at Republicans or Democrats on this one -- it's a bipartisan effort.

And from the standpoint of value for the dollar, it's really, really stupid.

Some things really should not be subject to the profit motive. Like just about anything that we, as taxpayers, are footing the bill for.

Welcome to Feudal America (Update)

This story is just unbelievable:

To get the $15-an-hour job last spring, Almeida was required to sign a “restriction on competition” clause that said if he leaves, he can’t work for two years for any firm doing similar work in ServiceMaster’s “geographic area” — which the company’s lawyer told me means King, Snohomish, Island, Yakima and Kittitas counties.

ServiceMaster of Seattle, a franchise in a $3.4 billion national corporation, now is trying to force Almeida to forfeit his $18-an-hour job at Superior Cleaning of Woodinville.

The noncompete clause would mean Almeida also couldn’t work in any water- or fire-damage job, janitorial, office cleaning, window washing, floor or carpet cleaning or other job ServiceMaster does.

I've had to sign non-competition agreements, but I was a highly placed employee with inside information on clients, as well as personal relationships with many of them. But for a $15/hr janitorial job?

If something like this goes to the Supreme Court, expect a 5-4 decision in favor of the corporation.

Read the whole story at the link. It's pretty appalling.

Update: And they have all sorts of ways of screwing us. Just ran across this story, via Balloon Juice:

Tens of thousands of Americans who went through bankruptcy are still haunted by debts long after — sometimes as long as a decade after — federal judges have extinguished the bills in court.

The problem, state and federal officials suspect, is that some of the nation’s biggest banks ignore bankruptcy court discharges, which render the debts void. Paying no heed to the courts, the banks keep the debts alive on credit reports, essentially forcing borrowers to make payments on bills that they do not legally owe.

But there's a ray of hope?

Now lawyers with the United States Trustee Program, an arm of the Justice Department, are investigating JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Synchrony Financial, formerly known as GE Capital Retail Finance, suspecting the banks of violating federal bankruptcy law by ignoring the discharge injunction, say people briefed on the investigations.

The banks say that they comply with all federal laws in their collection and sale of debt.

Really. This is the Obama/Holder Justice Department. Frankly, I'm surprised they're investigating at all, especially with Holder getting ready to step down. I mean, what will he do for a job if he alienates the banksters?

Best case scenario: the banks get a slap on a wrist and maybe -- just maybe -- stop doing it for a while. Until no one's looking.