Scott Walker Will "Open the State up to a Corporate Asset-grab Not Seen Since the Robber Barons"

"Scott Walker's real agenda in Wisconsin: The Republican governor's budget plan would open the state up to a corporate asset-grab not seen since robber baron capitalism."

That headline is not from BuzzFlash at Truthout; it's from The Guardian UK http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/10/wisconsin-usa, and it pretty much nails where the current GOP is at: Milton Friedman on a triple dose of steroids.

Yesterday, BuzzFlash at Truthout http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12477 speculated about the trend of the government selling off public assets. In the end, this would lead to Grover Norquist's dream of "strangling government and drowning it in a bathtub" (a paraphrase). BuzzFlash, alas, was not being entirely sardonic when we predicted that we will have a manufactured "education crisis" resolved by selling off corporate naming rights (and perhaps ownership) to high schools, privatized teaching (mostly through computers), Wackenhut school security and even pay toilets to cover the costs of privatized sanitation services.

For anyone who thought that this was a parody, read this from The Guardian:

Fast-forward to Scott Walker today. Representing a new breed apart from Wisconsin's earlier Republicans, he is seeking to reopen the asset-grabbing, Gilded Age-style. A plague of rent-seekers is seeking quick gains by privatizing the public sector and erecting tollbooths to charge access fees to roads, power plants and other basic infrastructure....

But who is one to steal from? Most wealth in history has been acquired either by armed conquest of the land, or by political insider dealing, such as the great US railroad land giveaways of the mid-19th century. The great American fortunes have been founded by prying land, public enterprises and monopoly rights from the public domain, because (to paraphrase Willie Sutton) that's where the assets are to take. Throughout history, the world's most successful economies have been those that have kept this kind of primitive accumulation in check. The US economy today is faltering largely because its past barriers against rent-seeking are being breached.


Nowhere is this more disturbingly on display than in Wisconsin. Today, Milwaukee - Wisconsin's largest city, and once the richest in America - is ranked among the four poorest large cities in the United States. Wisconsin is just the most recent case in this great heist. The US government and its regulatory agencies are effectively being privatized as the "final stage" of neoliberal economic doctrine.

*snip*

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12479

Edited to add links...

Now he has to pay his political debts and has nothing but the peoples assets and he fought hard to get those.

Every time someone mentions privatization, this is what happens. The right is giving away things the people paid for.

Someone else getting rich of the public.

Nothing to do with the rest of this article, I just have my doubts about Milwaukee ever being the richest city in America, certainly compared to New York or Chicago.

In the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, most of Chicago's breweries were destroyed, so they had to get most of their beer from Milwaukee. This created a huge boon to the Milwaukee breweries, especially Schlitz -the beer that made Milwaukee famous. Maybe Milwaukee was one of the richest cities for a short time back then?

they need new territory, whether we like how our tax dollars are spent on them or not.

From the looks of things, he has about 10 months in which to do it, and I'd say he'll be using every last day of them.

When he is recalled, the Kochs will have that villa out on California for him for life--which, knowing how these people
operate, will last long enough for Walker to fade from the public eye, and then take this small airplane chartered by the
Koch brothers that runs into a storm, and....well, you know the rest of the plot.

First off, Wisconsin supplies none of it's own raw energy outside of the wind mill farm generation which happens to be in Dodge(Fitzgerald's home district) and Fondulac counties because of more ideal wind conditions.. Koch brothers own 4000 miles of natural gas pipelines, coal distribution, and Georgia Pacific now and who know what services or resources it will provide or own soon.

In energy alone Wisconsin outlays more then 6 billion dollars a year for power... so when Krugman said it was about power he wasn't just kidding. The first thing Walker did when he came into office was to stop the building of a combination bio energy and gas boiler for the UW Madison campus because of short term costs but more likely to inhibit a trend in this states ability to provide it's own raw energy.

Splitting off the UW Madison campus gives WARF (Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation) who patents the discoveries of UW-Madison researchers and licenses those technologies to leading companies in Wisconsin, (you know like Warfarin) it's own little fiefdom, and this ain't chump change, over a Billion to the Madison Campus alone since it's inception. And as a center for bio-engineering the UW Madison campus has yet to bear much fruit and it will bear... orchards worth.

State owned land is some of the last pristine property around and there's a ton of it. Here's just a few parks

Not far from Milwaukee - Kettle Moraine State Forest-Northern Unit
A 29,268-acre gift of the glacier--the rolling, wooded landscape is dotted with serene lakes and offers a unique outdoor recreational experience of endless variety.

Kettle Moraine State Forest-Southern Unit
The glacier left 21,000 acres of rolling hills and numerous lakes.


Farther North

Willow Flowage Scenic Waters Area
Described as "almost Canada," this flowage in Oneida County has a wild flavor. The area has more than 17,000 acres, 73 miles of shoreline, 106 islands, and seven boat landings. Rustic campsites around the shoreline and on the islands offer scenery and solitude. There are abundant walleye and panfish; northern pike, muskellunge, and bass; hunting and hiking opportunities; deer, bear, ruffed grouse, ducks, loons, and wolves.

These are just a few of the many parks and resources Wisconsin owns
http://dnr.wi.gov/Org/land/parks/specific/findapark.html#map

I have no doubt given his choice he'll sell anything he can before we stop him and that it's all ready been divied up amongst the cronies.

That takes time and money, of which they've robbed us. But yes, I wish we could organize and prevent these privatizations of public assets.

Starting with no strikes by teachers.

the degree of anyone's power is the proportional inverse of their degree of wealth.

tried to sell off some state buildings before he left last november, but when jerry brown was elected, he cut that soff fast! the former "buyers" are now suing the state of california for the broken deal.

About 100,000 people showed up at the Capitol to say "no" to Walker's agenda. I was there too. This local article has a good slidwshow from the demonstration: http://www.examiner.com/independent-in-madison/largest-political-rally-madison-s-history-yesterday