Tag: Privatization

Follow the money to understand education reform | Talking Union

Keeping with the topic of the day…..I am in opposition to an educational system that is motivated by profits…….educational reform is just that……all presidents have tried and failed to get a descent system in place……but it seems to always come down to privatization as the only answer…..and our kids suffer……a job well done (sarcasm)……

It is time to lay the blame for the poor education in the US…it is NOT the teachers….it is NOT the unions…..it is the….GOVERNMENT with all their “reforms” that has done nothing to improve the education of children……

Follow the money to understand education reform | Talking Union.

Education, What’s It Good For?

Back in the days when I was younger and more energetic I did some lecturing….I was a popular dude to talk about US foreign policy and wars……especially since it was common knowledge that I spent 2 tours in Southeast Asia…..well I was talking with a class of college freshmen and I began by handing out a blank map of Asia and asked the students to label the countries of China, Vietnam Cambodia and Laos……..after looking at the results I was sadly disappointed because of of 17 students , one knew where Vietnam was only because he also was a vet of that war……more recently I was talking with a group on the same subject and asked them to pick Iraq and Afghanistan off of a blank map….of the 9 students, ZERO could point them out on a map.

I found these results just sad……I mean Vietnam was basically a 10 year war and Afghanistan is going on 13 years and yet it is not important enough for Americans to care……

I decided to do a little research to see if it was just geography that we Americans have a problem with or if it was a symptom of a bigger problem………and in my research I found these things…..

To put the brightest possible spin on this story is to say that three-quarters of Americans are fully aware that the Earth revolves around the sun. The downside, of course, is that means 1 in 4 are in the dark about what Discovery calls “probably the most basic question in science.” The National Science Foundation asked that question and nine others of 2,200 Americans, with the average score on the quiz coming in at 6.5, reports Phys.org.

Some other results noted by NPR:

  • 39% answered correctly that “the universe began with a huge explosion”
  • Fewer than half—48%—agreed that “human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals”
  • 51% knew that antibiotics don’t kill viruses

Meanwhile, about 90% of respondents were enthusiastic about science, and 1 in 3 thought it should get more government funding. The poll was conducted in 2012, but the results were released yesterday at a conference. See page 23 on this PDF for the full survey, which includes older results from other countries.

Or click to read about Bill Nye’s recent debate with a leading creationist.

Studying the data….to me it looks like it is the educational system that is failing…….IMO because we are not teaching students…..we are coaching them on the test process…..there seems to be little to NO emphasis on the retention of data…..and for that I blame the DAMN stupid idea of the privatization of education……we are purposefully dumbing down the population…..privatized education is about the profit not the education…….maximize profits with least amount of effort….that is why it is called capitalism and not a day at the beach……

Now is it intentional?  Or is it just an unfortunate side effect of the privatization process?

Please give me your thoughts……..

Side note—–watch the Bill Nye debate….very interesting……..chuq

Speaking Of The NSA

We all have been outraged by the NSA’s program of violating our right to privacy…..we all have our reasons…none of us will agree….but we are all that much more miffed…..miffed even though retail businesses have been invading our privacy for decades…but that is somehow okay as long as they do it on the up and up……and that defies definition, BTW…….

This Snowden dude to some he is a hero and to others he is a traitor…..does not matter which camp you fall in…….anyway I have heard people talk and ask the question ….how could this happen?

Well to answer that question let us look at the company that vetted this person……

If giving a thumbs up to Edward Snowden and US Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis didn’t get US Investigations Services kicked off the federal government’s Christmas card list, it’s definitely off now. The Justice Department yesterday accused the contractor, which handles roughly 45% of federal background checks, of fraudulently submitting more than 660,000 investigations, the Wall Street Journal and New York Times report. That’s roughly 40% of all the work it did for the government over a four-year stretch—and doesn’t even appear to include Snowden or Alexis. In a practice known as “flushing,” the company would simply mark investigations as complete when they weren’t, according to the feds. “Flushed everything like a dead goldfish,” one USIS official is quoted as saying in the complaint. In another email, an employee wrote, “Have a bit of a backlog building, but fortunately, most people are off this week, so no one will notice!” The Justice Department is accusing former executives of encouraging these practices, which, according to whistleblowers, were designed to meet financial quotas. The company was paid per investigation it completed. The allegations first came to light in a 2011 whistleblower suit, which the government yesterday joined. The company says it has “acted decisively to reinforce our processes” in the years since.

It happened because of privatization!  You can thank the God of the Right, Reagan, for starting down this path…….his big idea was to save money by letting the private sector do some of the chores of the government……the vetting process is one of those sectors.

Privatization has done more harm than good….the only good thing is making lots of cash for the contractors.

Remember El Salvador?

Back in the 80’s and the Reagan admin there was much delight over El Salvador…….it was a proxy war for the US in their attempt to block the influence of Nicaragua, with its Marxist leader, from extending the “revolution” beyond its borders……I know I am old but I recall this situation vividly…….these were the CONTRAS….remember now?

But all the drama that went with our support and it played out….it played out in reality and in the media…..we had a couple of hearings that were just as humorous as they are today…..and then the 90’s appeared and a new direction……GLOBALIZATION……..the Clinton admin went into a frenzy to get all those free trade agreements passed…..for the jobs and the wealth and the (insert whatever you choose here)……..we can talk about that disaster at a later date…….

But in the 21st century the US is still interfering in the doings in El Salvador……….some things seldom change………

It seems the the US government is doing all they can to promote the privatization of industries in El Salvador…….

Unions in El Salvador are fighting a bill that would auction off everything from highways, ports, and airports to municipal services and higher education to private companies—mainly foreign multinationals.

The United States government, which helped draft the bill, is pushing hard for its passage. If the Public-Private Partnership, or P3, law is approved, workers in those areas will be vulnerable to the massive layoffs, wage cuts, and anti-union persecution that already.

According to economist and National University professor Raul Moreno, the increased foreign investment and privatization promoted under earlier U.S.-backed administrations have only worsened labor conditions and sent profits overseas. P3s, says Moreno, are part of a model that has already “demonstrated its failure in El Salvador and throughout the world.”

At the heart of opposition to the proposed P3 law are El Salvador’s public sector unions, who have been on the frontlines of the country’s labor movement for decades. In the face of a 2003 attempt to privatize health care, for example, 200,000 public health care workers and supporters poured into the streets and forced the government to abandon the effort.

Privatizations at the ports and airports in 2001 had similar results. Security, cargo, and cleaning services at the airport were all privatized. Today, those workers earn about $240 a month, while the unionized airport workers, a principal target of the proposed P3 law, have a minimum salary of $552 a month. At the Acajutla port, nearly 1,000 workers were laid off. Longshoremen’s daily wages dropped 90 percent, and their union was dismantled too.

The U.S. government is exerting ferocious pressure on the Salvadoran legislature to approve the law. Ambassador Mari Carmen Aponte has even publicly threatened to withhold a multimillion-dollar development aid project if P3 is not passed.  (So much for the Obama Admin hates corporations)……….

This massive attack on infrastructure will do little to help El Salvador…..it will make some wealthy people more wealthy….and could lead to a massive upheaval like Chile in the 70’s……….or maybe that is the idea the whole time………after all we will have lots of military hardware laying around once we leave Afghanistan…….I know a stretch…..but ……….

Privatize Social Security?

Advocates for senior citizens and disabled people denounced Republican Presidential nominee John McCain for repeating his call for a Wall Street takeover of Social Security in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

They cited a Sept. 21 interview on CNBC in which McCain reiterated support for President Bush’s privatization scheme, in which workers would put part of their Social Security withholding in private “individual retirement accounts.” McCain told CNBC, “I still believe that young Americans ought to…put some of their money into accounts with their name on it.” He made the comment even though workers with private 401(k) plans are now watching as their retirement nest eggs go up in smoke.

The critics, speaking at an emergency Sept. 19 telephone news conference sponsored by Americans United for Change (AUC), pointed out that tens of millions of seniors and disabled people who depend on monthly Social Security checks would be facing poverty if Bush and the Republican leadership, had succeeded in privatizing the system.

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research, said the current “turbulence” on Wall Street underlines the importance of Social Security’s ironclad guarantees. “This illustrates the risk” of “relying on private accounts,” Baker said. “Furthermore, the collapse of the housing bubble has destroyed much of the wealth of middle class baby boomers, making them even more dependent than ever on Social Security.”

Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute said, “After the events of this week, to not recognize the folly of privatizing Social Security suggests an imperviousness to evidence that is really quite scary in someone who wants to be president.”
Funk said AUC’s “Bush Legacy” bus, now half-way through its nationwide tour, focuses on the Bush-McCain drive to privatize Social Security. During the 2006 election AUC, which spearheaded the fightback against Social Security privatization, initiated the “Golden Promise Pledge to Protect Social Security and Oppose Privatization.” It was presented to every House and Senate candidate with the demand that they swear they will not support Bush’s drive to destroy Social Security. “The Bush Legacy bus just arrived at the offices of Republican Congressman, Tim Walberg in Battle Creek, Michigan, to ask him to sign the pledge,” Funk said. “Democrats are 100 percent unified in opposition to privatization. The Republicans like to play word games. We’re uncertain where they stand so we are going to confront them: Do you or don’t you support the Bush-McCain privatization scheme?”

JUst think what yoiur Social Security would be worth with the present crisis.

Blackwater Enters The World Of James Bond

Jeremy Scahill is worried about the giant mercenary firm’s latest foray into private intelligence. “They’re marketing their services to not only foreign governments, but to Fortune 500 corporations,” he recently told an interviewer.

The forthcoming paperback edition of Scahill’s book on Blackwater, which appeared in hardcover in February 2007, will include 100 pages of new material, including a discussion of last September’s shooting spree in Baghdad by Blackwater operatives — which killed 17 Iraqi civilians but for which nobody has ever been charged.

This is a company that has been accused of murdering Iraqi civilians,” Scahill pointed out, “of shooting the bodyguard to the Iraqi vice-president, of causing blowback attacks on United States troops, of hurting the morale of the United States military — that has cost United States taxpayers over a billion dollars for its operations in Iraq.”

However, Scahill’s greatest concern at present appears to be Blackwater’s venture into the private intelligence business.

“Blackwater started a private intelligence company,” he explained, “a private CIA essentially, called Total Intelligence Solutions. And the man running Total Intelligence Solutions is J. Cofer Black. He’s a thirty-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency. He also was the guy who ran the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, the government-sanctioned kidnap-and-torture program.”

Is the governemtn out sourcing our intel?  Is that why we need and Intel Czar?  Someone to co-ordinate the info furnished by private companies??

Here We Go Again: Social Security

This has never been a good idea and you would think the with all his “experience”, John McCain would realize this fact.

McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, spoke several times last week about changing how the popular retirement program is funded, at one point calling it a “disgrace” that younger workers are forced to pay for a plan that, in his view, is unlikely to benefit them when they retire.

Democrats are gearing up to turn McCain’s stand on Social Security, and his willingness to consider a privatization plan, into a key campaign issue. They say changing the program in that way would undermine retirees’ benefits, and they hope to use the issue to harm the Arizona senator’s support among a set of voters who tilt toward him — seniors.

His comments seemed to suggest that McCain favored a new funding mechanism for Social Security benefits, such as private accounts. Later, on CNN, McCain seemed to fully embrace the idea of private accounts. “I want young workers to be able to, if they choose, to take part of their own money, which is their taxes, and put it in an account which has their name on it,” he said. Participation would be a “voluntary thing,” he said, and “would not affect any present-day retirees or the system as necessary.”

The remarks drew fire from Democrats, who accused McCain of failing to understand a system that since its creation in the 1930s has relied on payroll taxes from current workers to fund benefits for current retirees. Some supporters of this system say that allowing younger workers to divert money into private accounts would reduce the tax money needed to provide benefits for older workers once they retired.

Considering that McCain has been trying to demonstrate his understanding of Americans’ economic woes, his timing was odd — endorsing a new reliance on the stock market in the same week that the Dow Jones industrial average dipped to its lowest point in two years.