There is an organization that tracks the privatization of public services–in cities, states, nationally and internationally. It is called “In the Public Interest.”
I urge you to sign up for its online newsletter and reports. You can stay informed about efforts to transfer public assets into private hands and to turn public services into profit-making businesses.
The latest weekly newsletter links to stoties like:
*A new film on efforts to monetize and disrupt higher education
*Privatizing the war in Afghanistan, with Erik Prince–Betsy’s brother–in charge of recruiting mercenaries
*Privatizing the management of national parks and campgrounds
*Privatizing municipal water systems
*Outsourcing the fire department in Orange County, California
*The problems in BrevardC ounty, Florida, when the company that manages its three golf courses quit;
*A rally in Westchester County, New York, against privatizing the local airport
*The victory in Dallas of opponents of a toll road.
And that’s only a sampling.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Don’t forget the privatization of Air Traffic Control. The USA is studying moving to a system similar to the current system in Canada. The transition is popular by all parties concerned, the Federal Aviation Administration, the airline companies, the labor union (PATCO).
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The NYTimes reported, “Democrats argued that [Trump’s] plan [to privatize ATC] would saddle travelers with higher costs and allow private businesses to reap the profits while leaving underserved areas without much-needed improvements… a Trojan horse for undermining workers’ wages and handing massive tax breaks to billionaires and corporations.”
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Read all about it:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/trump-privatize-air-traffic-control/529503/
It works in Canada. It can work here. Since privatizing air-traffic control in 1996, operating costs have fallen, labor relations have improved, and the government has been freed from what was then a loss-making enterprise. If America proceeds carefully, it could see the same.
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Sadly, the plan to privatize ATC is dead on arrival. see
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/senate-bill-ditches-trump-plan-to-privatize-air-traffic-control/article/2626857
(I used to work in Air Route Traffic control). I am disappointed. The plan would have enabled the ATC system to obtain and implement new technology more quickly. The current ATC system in the USA uses obsolete technology, WW2 radar, vacuum-tube systems and so forth.
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“I used to work in…”
You should watch the Disney sitcom “Lab Rats”. One character (who is really more of a caricature) is Principal Perry. No matter what situation comes up, she knows all about it because something like, “Oh, I learned about that when I was [insert some crazy past occupation here].” You remind me of her. No matter what the topic, you either work or have worked in that field. Astounding.
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see my resume
http://www.beyond.com/charlesmartin-va
I have been working since I started at the age of 12, pushing a broom on a factory floor in Bowling Green KY (1967). I have worked from Maine to California, and 16 years in foreign countries. See for yourself.
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“I used to work in…”
You beat me to it, Dienne. Remember when Diane reported that Bill Gates was having trouble getting people in India to buy into his pay to use techno-toilets? (They were sometimes, reminiscent of Gates’ education deform, getting computer auto-locked in the toilet with no chance of escape.) I wonder if she posted that article again, Chahles would say, “I used to work in a toilet.” Hee hee! I couldn’t resist a little bathroom humor. Sorry, Charlie. 🐟
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Watch for certain entities and ideologs to continue and s l o w l y ramp up the generally unconstitutional policy of civil asset forfeiture as a way of getting a bit of money to underfunded police forces. Instead of building trust between the police and the communities they serve, this further erodes it. Campbell’s law and all that. The public outcry will rightfully increase, and so will other Hegelian Dialectic strategies aimed at further burdening publicly funded, publicly accountable law enforcement. Privatized security forces will be held up as an answer for those communities who can afford them. PMC’s like Blackwater, now known as Xe will be the model for domestic versions of the same. Will someone have the audacity to name one of the groups the Pinkerton’s? The poor and what remains of the middle class will have the underfunded dregs of what is left, an occupying force dependent on third world style corruption for their budgets.
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I signed up for the newsletter. Thanks. This curatorial work on news is really vital if the outfit is credible. This seems to be. Thanks
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Thanks for this information!
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Cross-posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/How-to-Follow-the-Creeping-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Assets_Diane-Ravitch_Public-Assets-To-Private-Wealth_Public-Education-170804-59.html
Thank you Diane for this. Capitalism gone astray is here to stay.
Already foreign businesses are taking over the water system in some NY state ccounties. We fight locally.
Foreign Businesses are ‘fixing’ the Garden State Parkway in NJ…and the tolls will increased to cover it, but never be lowered.
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FROM BILL MOYERS SITE:
Taking on the Private Prison Industry’s Corporate Backers
Activists are trying to combat both the accelerated tracking and detaining of immigrants and the use of for-profit prisons to hold them by targeting the big banks that prop up for-profit prison companies.
http://billmoyers.com/story/private-prison-industry-corporate-backers/
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Prison, Profit and Corruption:
– Prison Privatisation Report International
No. 58, October 2003 Published by the Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) University of Greenwich, London, England. http://www.psiru.org/justice
This publication is supported by a grant from the Foundation Open Society Institute.
– Report: 3 ways private prison industry expanding
By Rina Palta 28 Jun 2011 http://informant.kalwnews.org/2011/06/report-3-ways-private-prison-industry-expanding/
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