Marshall Auerback — Trump’s Bogus Infrastructure Plan Takes the U.S. Further Down the Road of Rentier Capitalism

President Trump presented his infrastructure plan last week. If you’re keen on the idea of out-of-control privatized utilities gouging customers and manipulating energy markets, or consortia building overpriced, expensive toll roads (until they go bust), then you’ll love the president’s proposals. His mooted public-private partnerships are another variant of socialism for the rich and free market discipline for the rest of us. PPPs are like a religion that offers its adherents the promise of capitalist heaven via tax breaks, subsidized funding, and guaranteed returns, minus the discipline of private bank credit arrangements or potential bankruptcy, the costs of which are invariably borne by a public already experiencing the hell of significantly more restricted access (think toll roads and bridges), higher user fees or “slower lane” traffic (think the end of net neutrality), and the costs of bailouts if and when the venture goes bust....

No private market discipline is enforced on management because in most cases they are given control of what was once a public monopoly, which is simply converted into a private one. It’s rentier capitalism, plain and simple.... 

In essence, these public-private partnerships are one of the sick jokes that the neoliberal era visited on all of us in the name of economic efficiency and responsible government—a ‘joke’ because the beneficiaries of all this public largesse have been laughing all the way to the bank as stupid public officials continue to fall prey to their lobbying as they joyfully hand over the keys to the public purse. Trump is simply perpetuating the trend of allowing governments to continue to abrogate their true responsibilities to pursue and safeguard public purpose. Governments should never have become agents of private profit.…

Neoliberalism can be viewed as government as agent of private profit based on "free market" ideology that prioritizes private ownership over public because "efficiency," along with public policy that favors capital formation as the basis for growth, under the assumption that "a rising tide lifts all boats" (trickle down).

Naked Capitalism
Trump’s Bogus Infrastructure Plan Takes the U.S. Further Down the Road of Rentier Capitalism

Marshall Auerback

Cross-posted from Alternet

Jordan Haedtler, Andrew Levin, and Valerie Wilson — Making the Federal Reserve Fully Public: Why and How

Abstract: The Federal Reserve’s governance structure is outdated and inadequate for ensuring that the Fed serves the public interest. In this paper, we examine the case for making the Fed fully public (“why”), and then we consider specific proposals for doing so (“how”). Our analysis indicates that pragmatic and nonpartisan reforms can strengthen the Federal Reserve’s governance while enhancing its operational independence to pursue its statutory mandate without political interference. In particular, the Fed should be a fully public institution whose decision-makers are selected by open and transparent processes; indeed, we find that making the Fed fully public also yields significant benefits for American taxpayers. Moreover, the Fed should be held to the same standards of transparency and accountability as every other public agency, including comprehensive annual reviews by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and applicability of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to all aspects of the Fed’s procedures and operations.

Like the Bank of England that was nationalized in 1946 after having been private since its inception in 1694, the Fed, founded in 1913 as public-private partnership, should be made fully public (nationalized) in order  to both eliminate the rampant confusion and also remove the appearance of conflicts of interest.

Making the Federal Reserve Fully Public: Why and How
Jordan Haedtler, Andrew Levin, and Valerie Wilson

Economic Policy Institute, August 2016

Xinhua — China to expand public-private partnerships

China's State Council, the country's cabinet, will expand its public-private partnership (PPP) model in a bid to promote mass entrepreneurship and innovation.

Promotion of PPPs is conducive to innovation-driven development, stabilizing economic growth, increasing jobs and improving people's lives, according to a statement released Friday after a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.

The PPP model facilitates cooperation between the government and businesses to use social capital for projects such as water conservation, transportation and environmental protection.

However, supporting polices are inadequate, and private sector participation is still low, the statement said.

The government should step up reforms to investment and financing mechanisms, relax market access in the public service and infrastructure construction sectors, and simplify approval procedures, the statement said.

China should also improve supporting policies on taxation preferences, land use, financing and capital exit, and set up a reasonable system for investment returns, it said.

The meeting also stressed the importance of national auditing, calling to address problems identified in an audit report released last week in order to better use public funds, according to the statement.

China.org,cn
China to expand public-private partnerships

Xinhua

More on who owns the Fed — United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit

...we conclude that the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City is not a federal agency.

406 F.3d 532
Kennedy C. SCOTT, Appellant,
v.
FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF KANSAS CITY, et al., Appellee.
No. 04-2357.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Submitted: August 23, 2004.
Filed: April 28, 2005.

Open Jurist

For the file.

Bruce Judson — Are Bankers Capitalists?

As I have written before, capitalism involves four basic principles: absolute responsibility for anything and everything that happens to your company (i.e. total accountability), equal justice under the law, compensation based on the real value created for society, and competition, which involves failure and what is often called creative destruction....

By almost any criteria, the banks operate under rules that are so far from capitalism as to be unrecognizable.

 Read it at New Deal 2.0
Are Bankers Capitalists?
by Bruce Judson