Quote of the day--what Capitalism and corporations do badly

"Your water, your health care, your kids' schools, they shouldn't be profit based. They should be community based. If, for example, a private enterprise takes over a prison, it will have to show growth from one year to the next. In other words, next year it will have to either have more prisoners or give the existing ones even worse services. Ditto for schools; ditto for hospitals. This is a major reason why the US has 5-10-50 times more domestic incarcerations than any other country that calls itself civilized. Profit."  


Yes, government-run institutions are often poorly-run. But you still have no choice but to re-organize them, since the only alternative is to lose control of what you really can't afford to lose control of. I don’t want to cover all services right here and now, but you don’t for instance want to let some private company uphold and police the law in your community. After all, what would be next? Let them make the laws too? What, we’re not close enough to exactly that yet? Really, you tell me, what's the difference between making the laws on the one hand versus interpreting the existing ones on the other? Blackwater, anyone?

"Outsource every public sector job possible", Mish? I don't think so. It's the road to hell, because the Carlyle Group and Blackrock and a bunch of Chinese and Arab multi-billion dollar enterprises and sovereign wealth funds will wind up telling you what you can do and say, what health care you can get, and whether or not you’ll have clean water in the morning. And the decisions between these options will be based on profit, not on whether your kids get a good education, or a good doctor, or whether they can drink their tap water or not. "Sorry, no profit in that."


--The Automatic Earth Blog, "The United States of Disintegration


You really should read about the debt and debts of states in the country and what it portends for the coming year.


That said, Merry Christmas


Link:  http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/12/december-20-2010-united-states-of.html