Mammon category archive

Via Job’s Anger.

Via Job’s Anger.

Another example of the privatization scam at work:

The North Carolina State Board of Education has issued a warning to a charter-school chain for failing to comply with an agency order to disclose the salaries of school administrators. The schools have been put on “financial probationary status,” which could lead to sanctions if their board does not comply within 10 business days.

(snip)

In an earlier response to regulators, the schools’ board chairman, John Ferrante, stated that the schools are “contractually bound to preserve [the management company’s] trade secrets.” He also said that the nonprofit does not actually have the salary information for management company employees.

Whatcha wanna bet that the trade secret is that too much “education” money is really going for country club memberships?

See more examples here.

Students at a troubled charter school in Philadelphia got a surprise Monday morning – they found the high school portion of it closed.

Some say they received a robo call last night telling them not to come to class. Others say they showed up ready for school only to be turned away.

The banner hanging on the front of the charter school says they’re enrolling students through the 12th grade. But parents and students at Walter D Palmer Leadership Learning Partners Charter School in Frankford say, in fact, their high school has closed, effective immediately.

This is an example what happens when you try to privatize the public good.

The fee hand of the market ensures that, in some states, forget buying, or even test driving, Tesla because free markets, baby.

In Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder signed a law effectively banning Tesla Motors, the high-end electric car manufacturer, from selling its cars in the state. It is the fifth state to do so, following Texas, Arizona, New Jersey and Maryland, and a slew of other states are erecting other creative restrictions that make it harder for the Silicon Valley upstart to sell cars locally.

To clarify, none of these states has explicitly singled out Tesla in legislative language; instead, they just require anyone wishing to sell a car to consumers to do so through an independent dealership. The middleman, you see, wants his cut.

Why is this so obviously targeting Tesla? Tesla prefers to sell through its own corporate-owned stores and, for various reasons, has refused to participate in the traditional franchise dealership model.

This is the fee hand of the market at its best.

(Error fixed.)

Via Kos.

Giving new meaning to the term “wage slavery” . . . .

Thom considers the cost of greed.

Part One:

Part Two:

Via C&L.

Randy Salzman wants to know “what gives?”

With the $3.8 billion Indiana Toll Road joining the list last month, there are almost a dozen American transportation “public-private partnerships” in bankruptcy court.

Few of the rest, including Virginia’s 22 P3s, are meeting their toll and income projections. Maryland’s “Intercounty Connector” quadrupled in cost to $4 billion and is now carrying less than half of projected vehicles.

But media continue to write as if private money is rescuing crumbling American highways.

Even Congress is questioning if taxpayers are throwing good money after bad – and much more of it than if we build the highways ourselves. Too many have forgotten what our grandmothers once told us: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

It becomes increasingly clear that outfits out for their own enrichment cannot be trusted with the public’s business.

George Smith discusses the scam of the “sharing economy.” A nugget:

The phrase sharing economy now begins to leave a bad taste. This is because it’s not sharing at all. You pay for a cheap service, provided by someone Silicon Valley technology can take advantage of and leverage in the desperation economy.

Read it.

Charter schools have become another part of the privatization scam.

Facing South reports.

Meanwhile, our local privatization scam continues.

Via PoliticalProf. Follow the link for his comment.

Learn more from Jim Hightower.

Via Facing South.

Chris Shorr explains that Uber isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.*

Just read it.

Also, there is some good news about dot-com artists who wish to run businesses while denying responsibility for their conduct.

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*One of these days, I have to investigate the history of that expression, as it seems make no sense whatsoever.