Monday, October 26, 2020

Bill Mitchell — Drain the (corporate) swamp

Today, I celebrate – my home town of Melbourne has recorded zero new infections for the second time since June 9, 2020 and zero deaths. A consecutive day of double zero. My Melbourne band Pressure Drop is planning a live streamed gig soon – our first time playing since March. Details will come when we know more about when we can do it. Something to celebrate in a bleak year. Today I am writing about the underside of neoliberalism though. Nothing to celebrate about this at all. Revolving doors, corporatisation of public service and introducing the excesses and corruption that is endemic in that private sector, more on that, and a federal government that is refusing to introduce a federal corruption body despite the evidence of widespread malpractice at that level. Why this matters is because to build a better world we need to reverse the demolition of the traditional public service by the neoliberals over several decades, which has turned a once wonderful bureaucracy (departmental structure) from a public service delivery capacity into a contract brokerage for outsourced and deregulated service delivery units, chasing profits in the private sector and cutting as many corners as they can get away with. With lax oversight these days, they can get away with a lot. And when public agencies start behaving as if they are corporations then things really come unstuck. And then we see the alarming necrosis that exists at the top levels of Australian corporations. No wonder we have just had Royal Commissions into the banking and finance sector and into the (privatised) aged care sector which have delivered such shocking results. Nothing to celebrate at all.…
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Drain the (corporate) swamp
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

9 comments:

Matt Franko said...

Sounds like Bill is down for Trump....

Matt Franko said...

“ and gambling industries”, and those industries are continually trying to distort policy to advance their own interests, even if that compromises the general well-being of society.

That is the nature of capitalism.“

Ok we have a referendum on the ballot in my state this year to allow the expansion of gaming to now include sports book or not.... If you Mark yes then sports book will be allowed and if you vote no then sports book will continue to be barred...

I will let you know how it goes... (I’m voting “NO”)

Bill obviously thinks “capitalism!” and Democracy are synonymous...,



S400 said...

No he doesn’t.

Tom Hickey said...

Sounds like Bill is down for Trump....

From the title of the post one might think so, but it's obviously satire.

Trump aside, the swamp needs draining. Whether he is the man for the job is matter for debate. So far, not much accomplished, but he has had ferocious opposition in trying to the extent he has, and I give him credit for that. But the swamp is winning bigly.

Peter Pan said...

To paraphrase Lawrence Wilkerson: "One of those swamp critters has emerged and grabbed Trump by the neck."

Matt Franko said...

I’m hoping a hot poker up the ass of all those mfers if he wins re-election Tom...

“Get even!”....

Matt Franko said...

“ No he doesn’t”

lol I have you checkmated again here... all you can do is the Art Degree shuffle and assert the thesis “ No he doesn’t”...

Joke..,

Peter Pan said...

Bookies are giving 80% odds for Biden. I wonder if Bill is a high roller...

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Occasional reminder

Corporate corruption is bad, but scientific corruption is the worst crime of all. Bill Mitchell tries to divert attention away from the abuse of the academic platform for political agenda pushing. Political fraud is the modus operandi of economics in general and of MMT, in particular.

Macroeconomics: Drain the scientific swamp
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/11/macroeconomics-drain-scientific-swamp.html

The end of political economics (II)
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-end-of-political-economics-ii.html

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke