via AlterNet:
Wall Street's Next Target: Roads and Bridges
By David Bollier,
OnTheCommons.org. Posted September 9, 2008.
The New York Times has jumped aboard the corporate cheering squad for the privatization of America’s bridges and roads.In a purported news article at the end of August the New York Times business section gave a big wet kiss to the idea of privatizing the nation's bridges, roads and civil infrastructure. In a nearly 40 column inches, reporter Jenny Anderson casts investors as thwarted social workers ready to do their part in helping to fix America's crumbling infrastructure. Nearly everyone quoted in the story is an investment banker or investor. Politicians are quoted only to bemoan the sad state of roads and bridges, cry about their budget deficits, and wring their hands over the lack of viable solutions.
The obvious solution is private investment. Or at least, that's the only solution that the Times explores (notwithstanding a misleading headline on the online version of the story, "Cities Debate Privatizing Public Infrastructure").
Anderson supplies no critical analysis of why governments and politicians are failing to make needed infrastructure investments, or how government might pursue public-spirited alternatives to private equity. Instead, we hear Norman Mineta, a former U.S. transportation secretary and now an adviser to Credit Suisse, blandly explain, "Budget gaps are starting to increase the viability of public-private partnerships."
The Times story amounts to a hot tip to the investor class: "Vulnerable public assets await your predatory attention. Big ROI is assured!"
Republicans and investors have long railed against "big government" while enjoying government's "liquidity backstopping" (Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) and government borrowing to finance reckless foreign wars. Now that such bleeding of government has led to crumbling infrastructure, Wall Street, in a fine thank you to its benefactor, wants to go in for the kill. Groups like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and the Carlyle Group have amassed some $250 billion to take public infrastructure private. .......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/98039/wall_street%27s_next_target%3A_roads_and_bridges/