Privatization & Contracting
Shadow Elite: If You Believe That, I’ve Got a Bridge to Sell You….
A century ago, con men got away with selling the Brooklyn Bridge to immigrants looking to buy a piece of America and get rich quick. The swindle became standard shorthand and joke for gullibility.
Today it’s no punchline. Mayors and governors staring down massive budget gaps are putting bridges, buildings, parking lots, and more up for sale. Who’s buying? Wall Street, which, in turn, wants to sell off your public assets to investors with the promise of sure-fire returns. Sound familiar, too good to be true? It is. But with layoffs and severe public service cuts looming, the prospect of fast cash – whatever the long-term consequence – is intoxicating. And politicians are drinking it up. Read more »
Privatization track record sparks backlash
As San Diego County supervisors seek to privatize more services, public officials elsewhere are reading the danger signs and starting to move in the opposite direction.
Jailing Teenagers and the Poisoning of Public Purpose
Last month, two Pennsylvania judges pled guilty to accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to the two private detention centers. One judge secured the contracts for the firms to house the teenagers and the other judge kept the centers filled by sentencing enough teens.
The judges, as part of their secret “placement guarantee agreement,” sent hundreds of teenagers to detention facilities for minor and often questionable teen offenses. One high school student was sentenced to three months for mocking her assistant principal on a spoof MySpace page.
