Then what about the many private colleges and universities in the United States?


No more Pell Grants for those students? No more government-provided financial aid for students at private universities? I know you said private competition, but still.

bucket in terms of numbers of people served. They aren't a replacement for a public system. It's impossible for private schools to serve some 50 MILLION K-12 students, let alone all of the people who go to college. You have to have a public system although the billionaires and neoliberals are trying to undermine it with the creation of private schools stealing public money (i.e., charters).

A public system from pre-K through graduate school is far more critical to a democracy than private schools people seek out for one reason or another, most of them for religious reasons.

If Private education wants to compete,
....let them do so with private money.
Yale, Harvard, etc. have huge private endowments.

If grants were required to be spent at public schools,
the money from our treasury would go much farther,
and the quality of education at our Public Universities would improve.

and become Presidents of the U.S. Hmm .. I guess I see how it works. No?

This country is plentiful in the number of quality public institutions in any field of study. Giving Pell Grants to go off and attend a (usually expensive) private college isn't so much different from the idea of giving parents vouchers to send their children to private schools (elementary, middle, secondary). The end effect of Pell Grants for private school students is a government subsidy of the private institution. My opinion is that private schools are good and useful, but if they want to be private, they shouldn't rely on the government

public, just that we should have some public services and facilities in all these areas and that they should not be sold to private interests.

are the very the same ones that denounce Democrats while holding their hands out for everything they can take and shouting "more, please".

May be if these private colleges were really held up with their feet to the fire to actually do what they receive the money for - more of their "students' would be employed, paying back their student loans, etc.

You only have to look around at how many for-profit schools there are - and the people/corporations that own them to know that there is something rotten in Denmark.

That would mean all research and development would be solely directed by the federal government? Or do we have to wait for it all to be invented in other countries?

That would also necessitate all funding to come from taxes. Can you imagine if we the people were asked to come up with billions or even trillions of dollars for something unproven?

Or do we pick one area to be test subjects? Who are those lucky or unlucky people?

You may not realize it but there are people who are doing the guinea pig work for us and they are funding and losing their money doing so.

That's how we can post things for everyone to read on the internet.

Oh yes, and UnRec on your reply.

Would the taxpayer have funded all that upfront cost? We can't even fund our roads and bridges.

My God what a disaster.

And with the right sort of regulation AND tax structure we could have a data and cell phone infrastructure that matches Europe and Asia.

Up until recently (30 years ago) they had government run PTT (Post, Telephone, Telegraphy) networks. Ever heard of the Minitel? PTT in France started that and it was government run. Just a little ahead of its time.

Oh, and you avoided the whole DARPA issue. Typical.

Done with you.

dkf is a right-wing troll, always has been

"You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment".

Also, there might be provisions for co-operatives like the rural electric co-ops of the 30's.

Back then they got things done. Nowadays we suck at public investment. We can't even green things when we have funds available and let it sit there unused.

Bridges, roads, dams, the electrical grid, our schools...I could go on and on and on and on about our incompetence and inaction at upkeeping what we have.

It's very sad but the Chinese government is much better at central planning than ours is. We are too dysfunctional to execute plans properly.

I wish government worked better.

refuse to approve any plans or projects that make sense.

The problem is we see the result of what they do. Nothing is changing. Maybe that is the plot, to make sure government can't run anything properly.

I don't know how you fix that.

and it turns out that the Internet in the US is a collection of private networks, run by corporations of all sizes and is not public in any way.

Most innovations are coming from the private sector, including academia

All the computer technology that we now use everyday in everyway.

it would never have taken root. The very nature of the internet being a non-privately owned entity is what made it succeed.

Often, private companies are their own worst enemies, hindering future growth to protect the existing growth. Look at agriculture using slavery. Being private ownership, farm owners abused people (slaves) and could not get beyond what they were growing. But when the slaves were freed and they had to deal with smarter ways to use the land, as well as research from agricultural colleges (public entities, like the Tuskegee Institute and others in that area), they became better farmers.

Enron went broke building up infrastructure as did Worldcom.

sure that is why they went broke.

But if that was a nice profitable business from the get go they wouldn't have needed all those tricks.

There was a nice steady utility that decided to do broadband and that drove them under too. Can't remember who that was off the top of my head.

For a while broadband was an absolute disaster.

Before long, Enron had spent $2 billion building this network that exactly nobody was clamoring to use. Its going to take a lot of time and testimony to determine if the poorly planned broadband build-out contributed to Enrons ultimate demise. But it is clear the company was cloaking the debt piling up during the construction of its broadband operations. And the quarterly returns from last year, which showed the broadband unit nose-diving from $24 million lost in the first quarter to $500 million lost in the fourth quarter, are also troubling.

http://mobile.eweek.com/c/a/Web-Services-Web-20-and-SOA/Enron-Broadband-Delivered-Nothing-But-Trouble/

What Does WorldCom's Bankruptcy Mean for Broadband and Beyond?

Editor's note: Solveig Singleton is a senior policy analyst for the Project on Technology and Innovation at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

WASHINGTON, D.C. ... With WorldCom and Global Crossing bankrupt, Qwest in crisis and downturns in profits for BellSouth and other substantial companies, a lot of people are asking a lot of questions. Among the competing theories of what went wrong, what thread of truth might guide us out of the labyrinth?

The Greed/Hype Theory? Alan Greenspan's "infectious greed" hypothesis caught on in the press. But the "greed" hypothesis explains nothing. A profit motive is often an engine of success. Why would greed yield bankruptcy, not profits, especially across one sector of the economy? Why hype, when there were real opportunities? What cues or incentives led so many systematically astray?

http://wraltechwire.com/business/tech_wire/opinion/story/1150845/

It is not government run but is not private for-profit in the sense that Apple or Microsoft or Sun are.

That is where the heavy investment is and where my expense is. $130 for my phone + data, $40 for broadband and $26 for my ipad monthly.

It is also not "run" by anybody in particular, RWS being a good example of that.

private sector. I think the dichotomy is between for-profit gougers and public sector which includes true non-profits.

Where did you ever get the idea it was public?

It grows everyday. In the U.S. the internet is privately owned and operated. Where the government owns it in other countries is where they can shut it down when there is any trouble.

If the government wanted to shut the internet down, it would. It could also be infiltrated and listened in to. So, I don't say that would happen here. But I do say that any company that is operated for profit is at risk for "accounting shenanigans" and we have seen that ad nauseum in this country. Looking to the future, it seems that the internet will be the only form of communications for everything we do in daily life. The governments involvement should be to prevent monopolies.

Opening up the internet to commercial companies and providers is what really kicked it off.

I was there- I was a sysadmin at a Tennessee university when the NFSNET plug was pulled and the commercial partners who had been major players took over. MCI and IBM were the folks responsible for going from T1 to T3 backbones, and they funded the majority of the upgrade.

You can really thank Rick Boucher (D-Virginia). He, more than anyone, is responsible for the commercialization of the internet.

they are the absolute WORST way to finance anything, as evidenced by our disastrous health "care" system.

Of course there is nationalization too.

Bottom line is that it should be a private/public partnership.

and to sell at whatever price they decide.

Just wondering, because realistically speaking, some of the things you're proposing sound pretty costly.

Look at military contractors, for example. They make way more money individually than people in the military doing the same job. Factor in no-bid contracts and cost overruns and I'm guessing that it is more costly to the US government to use them, but our legislators have their hands in those cooking jars and often end up working for these companies after they leave office.

It's really the point of contractors altogether!

or they pay less and provide less benefits thereby dumping more people on the public dole. Either way it costs the government more money even in those cases the direct cost to the organization was less.

The public university where I work "outsourced" the maintenance - which meant all those full-time janitors who were benefits eligible suddenly ended up with jobs that were not benefits eligible. A "savings" to the company of about 30%, maybe 10% of which was passed on to the university, the rest was higher CEO salaries and profit to the maintenance company. It saved the university money but cost the state more money on SOOO many levels - more people on medicaid, less money circulating in the community and therefore less tax revenue, etc. And the quality of the work went down.

The private sector only does a job for less by f**king over workers - ALWAYS!

Members of hedge funds and their crony politicians who sign the privatisation bill, that's about it.

Private contractors cost more.

the value of contractors is that they can be hired and fired in a heartbeat. Yes they get paid more on an hourly basis then military people but there is no long term commitment. Enlisting a soldier represents a potential 60 year investment for the government - with 40 years of retirement pay and healthcare after they leave the military and contributing nothing to military readiness.

Paying a contractor more now without commiting to unknown future benefits probably saves money in the long term. It also allow the government to keep the permanent military structure as small (and cheap) as possible while affording them the ability to expand and contract the size of the military as world conditions dictate.

I agree that military contracting needs to be reformed to make in more efficient and transparent.

take your elitist scheme beck to freeperville.

as the MIC and war budget.

The National Parks. The idea was so incredibly stupid I was stunned. I've never taken the time to do the math, but if you take any park and look at the budget divided by the number of visitors, plus a hefty increase to cover the fat salary of a parasitic CEO, and factor in the fact that that would mean fewer visitors and you would come up with a fee that none of us could pay to visit our parks. They would become another playground for the super wealthy.
It was then that I realized the republicans hate people like me (based on economics, I'm white, evangelical christian, military, etc.) and I have hated them passionately every since.

Also, thanks for posting the FDR quote. It should be hung permanently on the front page of DU with a statement saying we won't give up until this is in the constitution (wouldn't Scalia mess his drawers).

Explain the billions of people that attend amusment parks i.e., Disney etc, every year, is it pricey? That is subjective and there is plenty of market competition to keep the price down. So the answer is that of course people would pay to visit privatized national parks, you pay now to visit many national parks and national zoos.... The government is the most inefficient manager of money, because it is not held accountable to the same standard as the private sector. Digest that statement first.... than understand that nothing is free, subsidizing can only work if there is capitalism, if you kill the goose that lays the golden egg eventually it all comes crashing down. The government only exists because we have profitable business that keeps it afloat. Unless of course you are saying that the government should natioanlize everything but then historically we know how that turns out now right!

Principles your argument is based on.
First, volume, it isn't pricey because billions attend. Billions if not managed correctly would destroy the parks and turn them into a "Disneyland" like experience.
You pay a much smaller fee than you would if it was subsidized.
Accountability? Really? OK, I've stopped laughing long enough to type ENRON!!!
Capitalism isn't a goose. It is a way of funnelling money from those that do work to the parasites who don't want to. It's biology 101.
Finally, you have things reversed because without a stable government, how profitable would businesses be? I'll tell you what, I'll discuss this further after you open a franchise in Sudan and tell me how much money you make there.

Nature manages the parks, thousands of people manage amusment parks, you do not attend one for the same reasons you attend the other and didn't you pay the last time you visited the Grand Canyon? Yellowstone? or any number of the national parks of course you did, there is always admission. So the government is charging you to see nature.... Nature isn't free? Can't ride down that stream, without paying Uncle Sam for the privilege, isn't that special, and then the government takes that money and government subisizes the big oil companies so that they can pollute the atmosphere and kill the very forests that you visit, they invest in a war machine that goes about destroying people and the planet, now how comical is that....

Government is the worse manager of money because it is not held accountable, you mention ENRON last I checked they were held accountable, they are no longer a company, many people lost their money and that is capitalism. The key principle is that someone is always more greedy and ready to destroy whatever you build up, because greed runs the country, or didn't you get that memo?

If the rich were altruistic than of course taxes would never be an issue they would all agree that government was a great manager of money and the granter of equality so they would naturally just give up more of their income to government, right? When was the last time your forego a deduction on your taxes? Thought so.....

As far as your funnel principle goes are you saying that capitalist companies that pay taxes to government for government to give handouts to parasites that don't want to work is that the biology you refer to? Because by the time I get my EBT, WIC, SNAP, Sec 8 Housing, free cell phone, grants and subsidies for school, well then I am pretty much set up not to need to work at all.... unless of course I can get an under the table job and really play the system. Must suck for that McDonalds employee who sees me drive up in my nice car to the drive thru window and swipe my EBT while those idiots work for minimum wage... LOL...

Stable government are you delusional, do you really think this government is stable? Unemployment rates out of control, debt through the roof, just how long do you think this country can survive on this unsustainable path? Doesn't matter how we got here the point is we are here and no one is talking about anything close that can stop the ineveitable collapse, sure it may not happen for 20 or 30 years but the debt trajectory we are on now compared to what it was for the prior 200+ years is simply not sustainable.

I know what I would do to fix it but no politicians are talking about what really needs to be done....

Looking forward to your reply...

Last edited Sun Feb 24, 2013, 01:08 AM - Edit history (1)

to a moron, that accepts statements someone pulls out of their backside.
Funny thing is you used the amusement parks to say we should privatize the national parks, and here you rip apart your own argument. Last national park I visited was the most beautiful I have seen and had no admission. Admission to the others would be higher if it was privitized. The little that is charged barely doesn't cover cost and the rest comes from taxes. They are a national treasure and heritage and should be available to anyone no matter their income which is why we subsidize them instead of leaving them to the idle rich.
Nature hasn't been left to manage the parks in years. Or don't you remember that we had to reintroduce wolves to Yellowstone. And believe me I'm no fan of our wars or environmental destruction. But even you state it is the private corporations driving it. The government isn't asking companies to do it, just allowing it, so once again, for the sake of arguing, you are self-defeating.
Not held accountable is ridiculous, we vote and people are getting what the stupid people in this country vote for, which is why the house of rep. is what it is. ENRON collapsed under its own stupidity, no one was prosecuted and they bragged about scamming the poor through gaming the energy market. No reasonable person would call that accountability. The banks that were bailed out weren't held accountable, neither was Silverado Savings and Loan.
Your trying to say I've said things I didn't. I know greed runs the country now, but it was allowed and the people will have to fix it. But again, the reason is the rampant capitalism that allows the greedy scum to have enough wealth to buy a politician. As someone else stated here, if you have the money to buy a congressman, you have enough to pay taxes.
No the parasites are the wealthy. And if you want to mock the minimum wage times, you must be one too. You sound quite sick. A parasite makes nothing, adds nothing, at least the minimum wage folks work. The most disgusting creature on the planet is a CEO. Useless slime. No one makes enough off of the government to live as you describe. Your making stuff up again.
Funny thing is you are trying to blame the government for problems caused by business or that they perpetuate because it benefits business. Remember how the stocks dropped when unemployment hit 4.5%? But problems don't mean the govermental system isn't stable, just not doing their job. Again, if you think that business is propping up the government, you need to move to Sudan, they could use your help propping up a government there.
So you have my reply. Enjoy, because I won't see yours as I am now set up to "ignore" you from my account (congrats you are the first).

not sure if it was Cheech or Chong...
I still get my sunsets for free
and what little is left of the available air
"nothing is free?"
your world view is so sad

industry as well, but that's another conversation.

Eliminating the "For Profit" Insurance industry though is not really a good idea. Insurance as a concept and industry goes back to the Code of Hammarabi.

It's a way of offsetting risk.

Without it, it would be impossible to start a business or own a home.

If a fire starts can you replace your home if you don't have insurance? The list goes on.

disaster is not. This is one of the things our government should do, not private businesses. This is a task worthy of tax dollars and we, the government, can do it far less expensively.

If you think about it, insurance companies refuse to insure in flood plains or other high-risk areas. And who ends up insuring those areas? Or coming in with money needed to help areas that are devastated by "acts of god"? The government. So, if the government could insure everyone's home, etc., it would spread the risk over a larger group and keep prices down for everyone. The same argument as was made for health care can be made for all insurance.

However, dinner is calling and so is some unfinished work.

In the meantime you could read about the history of insurance on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_insurance .
It's extraordinarily interesting.

I'd actually forgotten that Ben Franklin was the founder of one of the first American fire insurance companies. For profit btw.

The only way to make insurance sustainable is to manage the risk/cost ratio. The insurer gambles on whether the income from the insurers will cover the cost of coverage. If the risk is high that the coverage cost will be high the cost to the insurer MUST be high.

Adding profit on top of that is just a guarantee to profit even if the gamble pays off.

What many think of as insurance today, including what the ACA intends to create, is NOT insurance. It is more of a health care services payment system, where the risk/cost ratio is not really a factor and profits are still allowed.

I was always against the push to force more and more people into buying a product, then corrupting the product to offer no long term sustainability.


Spreading the risk over a larger group, allowing the risk/cost ration to be a factor, and eliminating the profit motivation creates the foundation for a sustainable and valuable insurance system. It does not have to be run by the government, in fact I would prefer it not be. Leaving decisions about my insurance in the hands of the ever swinging pendulum of Republican -> Democrat -> Republican -> Democrat nightmare makes the option of government control even more frightening than corporate control. An insurer owned non-profit co-op style system would be MUCH better.

This is a big reason why my family has Kaiser for our Health care.

*Manufactures NOTHING

*Produces NO Wealth (value added)

*Provides no useful service.

It is a completely parasitic industry,
and deserves not a single penny of Taxpayer Money.

The Private For Profit Health Insurance Industry will be free to compete with the National Publicly Owned/Government Administered Health Insurance Plan.
No democracy would forbid THAT,
so Go Ahead.
If they can provide better service at a cheaper cost.... be my guest.

Private Insurance would also be free to sell additional Boutique Policies
that cover things like elective Cosmetic Surgery.
Some RICH people will buy anything, so there IS a market there for Private Enterprise.

....just like I don't want to have the government manufacturing automobiles,
or building my home.

Somethings, where an end product is produced, do better with competitive Private Enterprise. Health "CARE" IS and end product.
I prefer competition and a citizen's right to choose.

If we are allowed to choose WHO we patronize for our Health "CARE",
the Care Delivery system WILL respond to market pressures,
even though our Government Insurance pays the bill.


Health "INSURANCE" is a completely different matter.
The Health Insurance Industry:
*Manufactures Nothing

*Has no infrastructure or inventory overhead beyond an office & a telephone

*Produces no value added wealth

*Provides no useful service

...now THAT is a job that government has proved that it can do well.


I am speaking in broad terms, but there IS a difference that I believe is important.
I am aware of the counter arguments, and there is need of debate and discussion.

the doctors work for the government. It's not as good as SP, but way better than the US

I don't know what the phobia of "government run health care" is all about, but if it makes people feel better, so be it.

I do know through extensive and intimate experience that the very last person I want to bet my life on is the person that went into medicine because it pays well.

the government owns the two best hospitals closest to my neighborhood.

The University of California San Francisco --government owned.
San Francisco General Hospital --government owned.

I assume if you had an emergency and you were taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital, you would tell them to bring you somewhere else, maybe somewhere private?

Medicare for All ... Woot!

shouldn't be privatized either. A company's main goal is it's bottom line and not the well being of the patients.

I can only rec this once.

Thanks bvar22 for this post.

This needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

There is too much manipulation and coercion. Too much carefully plotted effort to get women and girls to relinquish when they clearly don't want to. Too many lies about what the future holds for them or their baby if they don't "do the right thing." Too many lies about "councilors" who are supposedly working with them to figure out what is right for them, but in fact work for the adoption agencies, who only profit if the girls and women surrender their children.

Of course, the coercion and duress comes from other places too, like people telling them that this is God's way, and how they can redeem themselves from sin. But having a profit-motivated industry at the center of adoption definitely fuels the fire.

And this doesn't even begin to tough on the out right baby-stealing that happens in many intra-country adoption.

If only people really knew where all of those shinny new infants come from, infant adoption would almost cease immediately.

If they think she is a "slut" or a "whore," who doesn't deserve to be a mom, then they may feel they have the right to get the child to a "more deserving" couple.

Nobody owes another person a baby. And no loving God would ever demand it as retribution for "sin."

You're right--it's the baby scoop era-lite.

Where we were when FDR came up with this plan. It isn't possible for the president to sign an executive order and make it happen.

The question is: if that's really where we want to go; where do we start?

That's where the problems arise. It takes a critical mass on any single issue in order for any change to occur in that area. The reason it's a problem is that everyone has their pet issue.

What happens is this: The state is doing something, doing it well but not that efficiently. A private entity watches this and says they can do it for 10% less, but then take on the contract, do all kinds of clever things so they are doing or like 60% less, and pocketing all the profits. The question is, why couldn't the state workers have come up with their own clever things?

I think the reason why is that they're just not compelled to. Their income is the same whatever happens. I think you need systematic bonuses for cost savings, where innovative state workers can make a lot by saving the state money.

I don't think we should have private prisons or private contractors in war zones. I also think that we don't want to turn over any government function to the private sector that creates a lot of difficulty for the government to take back over.

There are times when the government needs private contractors for 'over-flow'. For example the highway department needs additional mowing crews over the summer. Hiring private contractors to meet demand just makes sense. The same is true with design engineers.

The difference is: who maintains overall control of the projects. There should be no government service provided by a private contractor that you can't pick up the phone, call the government, and know that there is oversight.

I think that's what we've gotten too far away from.

Any government contract should guarantee that the employees are paid at the same rate as their government counterpart. Then we know that if a company is 'more profitable' it isn't because they are squeezing it out of the workers.

It is difficult too motivate government employees at times, and I agree there should be some kind of financial incentive for good ideas.

*public libraries
*sewage treatment
*refuge processing
*social security
*established public resources in general
-airplane

After all, it is one of the things humans need in order to live. Humans need air in order to live, and yet that's free. So why can't water also be free? Why do we have to pay for bottled water and pay water bills? That's ridiculous.

Can't tell. But there is a cost to making water potable. If there were no meters and no charge there would be no incentive to conserve it.

Have decent filtration devices. Some areas of the country have good sanitation departments - others have deplorable ones. Chicago and Palo Alto Calif come to mind as places where decent water is offered throught he efforts of the water sanitation department.

Anyone who lives in an area where the provided water is not drinkable (I live in such an area, ) should really think about getting their own filtration device. Even an expensive system pays for itself over a short period of time,as bottled water is very expensive.

It is what we as Democrats should stand for. Thank you.

"My party has become too dependent on entitlements"

But hey, I want a few hundred rec's - maybe I'll make an OP saying "Obama for Rushmore!!!!"

possibly the biggest disaster of them all

Privatizing the counting of the votes is a travesty.

Otherwise another excellent post from Bvar.

Don't know HOW I forgot THAT one.

There are very few infant adoptions that should happen at all, and when they do it should be handled by the state and not by the multi-billion dollar infant adoption ring.

think of all the families that have been needlessly separated. Forcing/coercing a woman into becoming a birth mother is an inhuman thing to do. Hopefully, someday we will reform our system like the way the Australians have. Now THERE is a model for the nation (to borrow the absurd phrase the Utah officials use to describe their state's adoption laws).

Put them up for adoption. it really is a travesty!

Also,a very large percentage of the profits made from the sale of any of our natural resources should go to us.

The belief "capitalism can do everything" is really just the belief "greed is good" described in different words.

A belief that capitalism can do it all also ignores the need for a healthy competition achieved through regulation.

Banking and currency control.

A far too powerful and dangerous weapon to leave in the hands of private enterprise.

A belief that capitalism can do it all denies the belief “it’s not all about me” that comes with morality, responsibility, and religion.

The clean up of millions of gallons of radioactive waste.

One could call that privatized or one could call that not privatized.

Regardless, it is our responsibility whether we run in directly or indirectly.

back again and actually move to nationalize our energy, health, and the rest of education .. i personally feel those are issues of national security as well as just 'the right thing to do' for the people of the country...

not that it cant be done with out it...
but it sure would help get others on board and really get the train going