Midterms 2014: The Red Wedding for Democrats
Democrats lost the midterms because they stood up for their principles: Neo-liberalism.
Read more...Category Archives: Privatization
From Public Citizen: Top 10 Most Pernicious Investor-State Dispute Settlement Lawsuits
The Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) under TTP and TTIP erodes state sovereignty and the ability of states to protect citizens.
Read more...G20 Finance Ministers Reveal Impotence in the Face of Rising Stresses
Yves here. It’s hardly uncommon for big international pow-wows like the G20 to produce grand-sounding statements that when read carefully call for unthreatening, which usually means inconsequential, next steps. But this G20 just past was revealing, in a bad way, about the state of international political economy.
Read more...New Jersey Funneling Pension Fund Cash to Wall Street Investment Managers
David Sirota has carved out a much-needed niche lately by poking around in the unseemly deals between public pension funds and Wall Street predators, and he brings yet another scoop, this time in New Jersey:
Read more...Don Quijones: Spain’s Silent Reconquest of Mexico
With the ink still drying on Mexico’s historic energy reform, global oil and gas majors are salivating at the prospect of gaining access to one of the world’s largest and until recently most nationalized energy markets. One of those companies is the Spanish electricity giant Iberdrola, which expects to massively expand its operations in Mexico through increased investments of close to €1 billion.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: €1 billion is chicken feed in this age of inflated corporate balance sheets. Indeed, for some corporations such a sum is probably hardly worth getting out of bed for these days. However, in Mexico it can go a very long way, much further than it can in Europe or the US – especially when you have paid moles lobbying for your every interest at the highest level of government.
Read more...Algorithmic Regulation, “Code is Law,” and the Case of Ferguson
“Algorithmic regulation” is subject to bad and gamed data, accepts closed source code, and isn’t suitable for “automated intervention,” let alone the government of a free people. I also believe it presents problems as tractable that are in fact wicked, leading to project failure. But it’s great for “Investor Storytime!”
Read more...Privatizing America’s Public Universities as “Shock Doctrine” (or Not)
Defund, claim crisis, call for privatization… Profit! [ka-ching!]
Read more...Has America’s Use of Finance as a Foreign Policy Tool Backfired?
How America’ s abject fealty to the financial services industry, and its promotion of open capital markets in emerging economies, privatization and its tolerance of tax havens, have destroyed US credibility in Eastern Europe.
Read more...US University Science: The Shopping Mall Model
US universities resemble high-end shopping malls. They use nice buildings and good reputations to attract good students and good faculty. To pay for this, external funding – once viewed as a luxury – is a necessary condition for tenure and promotion. This column argues that this model emerged at the initiative of universities not the federal government. Today’s stress is the harvest of what universities and faculty sowed in the 1950s and the 1960s.
Read more...Quelle Surprise! New Report Shows How Outsourcing State and Local Government Services is About Looting
For decades, citizens have been sold on the mantra that the hungry private sector can do a better and cheaper job of providing services than “inefficient” government.
Read more...Ilargi: Gordon Gecko Moved To London To Finish Where He Left Off
Last week I saw a headline in the Daily Telegraph that got me thinking. It encapsulates a lot of what poses as philosophy in our world today, as a valid way of thinking and a relevant approach to all the crises we live through simultaneously at the moment. One which, when you look longer and closer, appears at least at first glance to lack all philosophical value – since it doesn’t actually weigh any pros and cons -, and turns out to be a rehash of a hodge-podge of the very failed old theories that have led us into our crises.
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