apepé want to believe in ...
... But I can not. I can not instinctively, for immediate reaction, but more so, I can not therefore I read in the spaces that you are more sympathetic to this new-old form of government. Today I decided to give them the conceptual break the apepés (Public Private Partnership) looking at two sources that even the most conservative of my readers might criticize: the weekly Caribbean Business (which incidentally, warns that the apepés are our last chance, in front) and the portal itself of PPPs .
First the website, which informs us that The Authority's mission is to guide and facilitate the establishment of partnerships between government and private entities ... to facilitate further economic development and enrichment of the quality of life in Puerto Rico. So far, so good. Sounds even pretty. The private and the public come together in order to achieve the common good. Not the "profit" necessarily, but the common good. This is consistent with the governor's insistence that PPPs are not a case of privatization, but something "new". What, did not clear, so I'll most prominent section of the site (a website nice, by the way, with mills and ports that whisper a possible future), art that invites me to access the contents of the recent conference. A conference that was why, incidentally, of a protest against the "privatization" suspicion that the people behind all this.
But nothing, I look for the plan, explanation, whatever it is that makes the different apepés stark and failed privatizations in the failed model we've seen in recent decades in Chile, Argentina, Russia, Poland, Bolivia, Iraq, New Orleans, South Africa ... I look because I believe, and I believe because apparently, I am told my representatives of democracy, I have no choice, everything is broken, everything is a mess ...
I find that the plan be proposed at the site to begin with, it includes ... everything. Here is the list copied whole piece:
Sanitary landfills; Reservoirs; Plants That for electrical power production are alternatives to oil; Mass transportation systems, Health, Security, Education, and Correction and Rehabilitation facilities; Affordable housing projects; Sports, entertainment recreation and culture facilities; Wireless and land communication networks; High technology and mechanization systems; And other kinds of activity or facilities That Are Identified as a priority through legislation.
The list is consistent with what he says Romero Barcelo in his lengthy editorial in the Caribbean Business this week, where passionately argues that although the role of government is to provide public safety, education, health, energy, water, and stuff, those services can pass into private hands because "private enterprise whenever service can Provide a public service more Efficiently and at a lower cost to the public, Should we allow private enterprise to do it. They, in turn, will Provide the jobs. "Inside me, a voice alarm (the angel or the devil of Tom, Jerry cat?) Tells me things like what about profit? When, in the history of this country, perhaps of any, it has been a better health service, water or turning to private security, contrary to public PROFIT need to exist? But promised to read his mind open, read to believe, so I spend column page Romero and keep reading others in the Caribbean Business.
Miro, for example, the list of those invited to the conference held in the Conqueror. They go in the cover story of Caribbean Business, and many. Some names are familiar to me. Sift a little. Just a little. And I find things that keep me from believing in PPP solutions. Meeting, for example, Fluor Corp, the primerito of the guests from the published list on page 21 and a Fortune 500 company, and one of the largest contractors in the "reconstruction" of Iraq and emergency interventions New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Not a good record-both processes were strongly criticized in the international press. In Iraq, for example, the reconstruction was assigned (often without any auction) to companies like Fluor, Halliburton and others, instead of using the much cheaper and displaced Iraqi contractors, thus contributing to the destruction of what remained of Iraqi middle class, educated middle class, secular and willing to work in the reconstruction of their country, a class that I can have been used rather than displaced, humiliated and offended.
In Katrina, we know what happened - the hurricane caused 1,090 deaths in New Orleans and the subsequent handling of the disaster was not only bad, but expensive: the government guys all went to private hands as Carnival, Fluor, and BKR ... Together with organizations such as Bechtel, Chevron, Fluor formed, certainly a roundtable affair after Katrina, to complain to the government as victims of unfair competition by "non profits" who insisted on getting to New Orleans to make Free what they wanted to do for profit ...
And speaking of Bechtel, also appears in the list of special guests. Bechtel What do we know? We know who founded (along with Pepsi and 6 companies) a think tank in the United States that generated a documentary, PBS, to explain and support the use of free-market policies to solve all kinds of problems and social services. We also know, and this is more recent, in 1998, Bechtel reported 12.6 billion in profits, 2.4 of them in Latin America. One of his most important projects was the privatization of water distribution in Bolivia . Under his guidance, the water rose 300% in price for Bolivians - inhabitants of one of the world's poorest countries. But what else gives, we know that water is a human right . The fact is that the Bolivians were tired, were thrown into the street, and demanded that he take off the contract to Bechtel, which incidentally has had similar contracts to manage water in Manila.
Bechtel also won contracts in Iraq for about 2.3 billion, after taking part in a group (like think tanks, these individuals) who devoted himself to influence public opinion through news columns and written by authors in their payroll, as G. Shultz, to promote the war in Iraq (war waiting to take tremendous profits) as a war "necessary". For example, such Shultz wrote in the Washington Post in 2002 that war was imminent because "if there was a rattlesnake in your backyard, do not bitten you expect to then attack self-defense."
Bechtel was also desatre Katrina where the government charged youth (ie youth of citizenship) to provide some trailers for refugees. Speaking of how the private is not necessarily better: In Cuba, where there is no government service is privatized, despite having 90% under water a large city, in six hurricanes (including Katrina) have killed only 16 people . You hate to Cuba all that he pleases-there's a lot to hate there, but that is not the subject of this post. The point is that I find it increasingly clear that there are certain things private hands, by definition, tend to do worse, not better, because contrary to the public, they have to kids, many kids, to its shareholders, to survive . Companies and private corporations obey not the logic of quality of life and the common good in that appeal on the website of the Authority for PPPs, but the logic of profit constantly increasing. Bechtel, recently criticized by, among other things, have family ties to Bin Laden and illegal logging in the Congo, Louisiana won the contract to build housing for refugees without auction, because it is an emergency. The contracts also were criticized so expensive and left out of the process to potential local applicants. Just like in Iraq.
I could go on. The original notes for this entry include other characters, such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. But let us summarize: This is my problem with apepés - I recall a pattern of recent decades, a pattern masterfully described by Naomi Klein in her book , see a pattern that I feared when I started noticing reach ( and I commented on this blog) frequent use of metaphors that allude to "disaster". The pattern, called by Klein "complex mess" is more or less like this: political disaster occurs (such as a coup, like Chile or Iraq), financial (such as fiscal collapse of the Asian "tigers") and natural (as Katrina or the tsunami in Asia), and then the government, preferably recessed in advance to become "small and agile," states that there is "emergency", and proceeds to sell the needs of the population (now called "opportunities" ) to the highest bidder or bidder ... friend ... or best bidder conectao ... anyway.
Curious the name of the place they chose to meet - The Conqueror. Curious because American leftists circles usually refer to requeteneoliberales globalizing processes of the past decades as "the second conquest." In the first, the Europeans took natural resources. In this second, corporations take public goods (mis) managed by the states.
They tell me that those who know more than I, that an investor (an individual, a group, a company) before investing in an idea is fixed in the doers of the same: how are they? What record do they have? As a country, each representing an investment APP ours, people. That is, in this case Puerto Rico is also an investor, and even within the most capitalist logics, has every right to pass judgment on the character of those who want to invest in an alliance with them.
How are they? Record what they have?
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Unfortunately, the investment is in town, but the partner selection rests with a few for whom the line between public and private is just a technicality. Case in point: the famous G. Shultz has skillfully navigated these worlds - surely with the common good always on his mind - profit be damned. Wikipedia Biography of George by George Pratt Shultz (born December 13, 1920) is an American economist, statesman, and businessman. He served as the United States Secretary of Labor from 1969 to 1970, as the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1972 to 1974, and as the U.S. Secretary of State from 1982 to 1989. Before entering politics, I was professor of economics at MIT and the University of Chicago, serving as Dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business from 1962 to 1969. Between 1974 and 1982, Shultz was an executive at Bechtel, Eventually becoming the firm's president. He is currently a distinguished fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
Schultz is a typical example of the revolving door. However, the problem of Puerto Rico is that after decades of operating an economic program that was content to produce jobs, the capital that was created was exported, but increasing consumption was financed and now we are undercapitalized.
I have no problems with PPPs if done well. While the partners are chosen and used its expertise and capital to lift economic sectors that are in total disarray. The problem is that I'm afraid you are in the usual position to share the cake. And not necessarily be the most capable. I mean, the usual, because companies will come out, but there is always a partnership with local private intermediaries. And not that I think that there is a precondition of corruption in all this, is that sometimes I think the people who make economic decisions in this country, have no contact with reality and do not know what they are doing. The reason is that Puerto Rico has never developed a real economy. So those who choose to trust what they know and think that is the only way.
On the other hand, much of this responsibility the decades that we have under the system of patronage and government clientele. I do not think any agency of Puerto Rico is saved. They are fundamentally corrupt in their purposes, a work ethic, a productivity or service, etc.. So what's left? The so-called privatization. Just as did the Cubans when they are just Soviet subsidies. They had to rush off to Europe for its capitalist enclave will mount the fastest production: tourism. Now you will be regretting having trying for the second time via monoculture. (The first was the cane as PR. Were the second our pharmaceutical.) But then came the global crisis and international trade fell Reduced tourism. Now they are sending people to sow. But here you can not do that, because people are offended. And there we go.
Again the trays home run with this post, well researched and accurate. I will recommend to my blog, no remedy .. I wish there were journalists like you but now that you say you do not publish your writings because there is no real press freedom. Thanks for reporting, at least in the blogosphere.
Anonymous: The line between private and public (one line for other important, because it defines the motivations and possibilities in relation to things like "profit" and the common good) is blurred in life Shultz, moving quietly between the two areas and sometimes in both, as in the decision-making of our current government. Thanks to enrich the flicker with that info.
Myrisa person, that is the angle of entry - I want to believe in a solution, either, the app could be ... except that collapse still dealing with its own logic, are deconstructed even limiting ourselves to follow the rules associated with any investment. That we can not choose partners, we can not assess their expertise, but as a country, we need to invest, is a cruel joke. I would like to know more (ie why, except for anger, and suffering) on the patio Schultz, the "revolving door" local - influences our vendors, our characters transformer, political lobbyist of a thinker businessman ....
Nor know any agency that is saved. I hope that this is due to my general ignorance about the inner workings and history of the achievements of the agencies, not that all is lost indeed. In short. For there we go.
Ivonne, I, like you, a lot of press. I wish I had more and better press. Today I read a book pieces Bourdieu called "on television" that describes the hypothetical (but oh so plausible) route to self-censorship of journalists (he speaks on TV, but it could be any). Describe, in one of my favorite parts, as clichés transmitting end, "commonplaces", which carry little something else, some color, some escandalito, past news, and defines the act as one of false communication, because it is a tacit agreement between partners in the background, do not want to know. But nothing. We have blogs, and the occasional journalist brave or interesting. Atesorémoslos! Thank you very much for reading.