www.inthepublicinterest.org

How do I know if my county or city is on the verge or is looking at privatizing a public good?

One of the biggest losses to private contracts, in addition to private takeover of public schools, is public mental health. The results have been disastrous.

^^^

How did the idea that private (for profit) companies could do anything *better* than govt (which is nfp), at any level, gain traction the public eye?

That's a very insightful comment to me that child care is a fully privatized public good. Now I'm very concerned about our public schools being under attack.

Case cite on the Georgia v. Lexis?

If I want to start a watchdog privatization committee in my county/city, what steps should I take? Do you have a simple manual that can be a guide?

The US government has also privatized a lot of their information, eg, The Education Directory, that used to be free as government documents.

The current attack on our public schools in Guilford County is promoting the idea that parents should be in control over everything that is taught.

prohibiting public ownership of internet access

It’s also not ok to share information when it’s been developed it with public funds.

Charter schools could be managed by public schools by using releasing schools from policies like charter schools. Duplicate services are avoided, data is collected and can be evaluated and good practices can be shared.

A bit out of the box questions for both Rob and Donald. You've got a lot of military families in North Carolina. What is the situastion with privatized military housing? There were a lot of scandals a year or two ago. Has anything be done? Are there state level things that are being done? And maybe related for Donald: the biggest government contracting sector is the Pentagon. Any suggestions about how to monitor this?

For that matter, why not hire tax professionals into the IRS to prepare draft returns for taxable parties to review?

It boils down to, how do we fight the culture of greed?

I'm in Georgia and particularly concerned about "cityhood movements" that will drain county coffers and raise taxes that will displace working class and poor families to then turn those tax dollars over to private concerns - selling off the functions of government.One other issue as an example: My county is having an issue with water meters that are not accurate - that continue to be installed. I suspect there are contracts that keep us from knowing the real issues around this.

Privatization causes the loss of belief in one's way of life.

How it happened - Reagan

Please common on the privatization of Medicare through Medicare Advantage and now direct contracting entities. This will move Medicare away from its original purpose of delivering equitable coverage to all seniors. How can we turn this direction around?

How about Newt Gingrich and telling Republicans to stop working with Democrats and call people names and degrade them.

Privatization seems to be another name for demoralization.

Shifts accountability away from elected officials

A big “thank you” should go to Ronald Reagan

There's big money behind privatization over and above the companies that make a profit from privatization. For schools it's the DeVos's, the Waltons, and the usual cast of right wing millionaires whose entire raison d'etre is discrediting the public sector, especially public schools.

Citizens United further empowers these forces

Medicare Advantages costs the govt more than regular Medicare, from what I have read.

You just described the pieces of the ideology of neoliberalism. Why not pull them together and call them that?

yes, medicare advantage has stolen over 10 billion dollars from the govt over the last 10 yrs by upcoding

And, even when Medicare Advantage isn’t committing fraud, the overhead is much higher than traditional Medicare.

oops, it’s 106 billion dollars

The private sector isn't just taking over government functions. Wall St. is so awash in money that private equity firms have bought up most newspapers to squeeze them dry; they are the biggest landlords in the country; and banks have a large share of the college loan business.

I’ve found that at least in eduction and edtech, the marketing teams of these companies interested in privatizing are also using doublespeak strategies to make what they’re doing *appear* to be in the interest of the public… twoard “democracy”… supporting “equity” etc… they also use the term “public-private-partnership” as a selling point, to make it sound ‘collaborative’… in these times of divisiveness, when folks are looking for some kind of cooperation/collaboration, this language can be appealing for those unaware that it’s actually code for privatization.

We can get that money if the politicians had the political will to raises taxes on corporations.

What about End Citizens United? Any hope there?

Another result of the private sector taking over government functions is that it helps to destroy the power of public employee unions--one of the last organized power centers for the public interest.

Efficiency and competition are overrated.

“Affordable” building in Bronx that had fire two weeks ago part of “portfolio” of buildings owned. by a trio of investment firms spread across the country that specialize in buying subsidized housing. Little incentive to make repairs.

"Property" is a legal construction, so is "the commons."

We are the government

Please discuss ramifications, and significance, of the long-time neglected Powell Memorandum. Thank You.

Captured Freedom like they captured religion.

voting rights seem to be an important first priority so that our concerns are addressed. I think this is #1 issue. Nothing will get done if our vote means nothing.

https://thenewpress.com/books/privatization-of-everything

Did you address the use of Artificial intelligence replacing people?

Thank you.

Thank you! This was great.

Thank you to all.

great presentation! this will be my next book

Thank you so much!!!

Excellent discussion. Thank you!