Every June the Campaign for America’s Future hosts the well-attended and content-rich Take Back America Conference in Washington, D.C. This year Van Jones, one of the most dynamic speakers in America, with a list of accomplishments long enough that I’ll simply refer you to Wikipedia, delivered an inspiring Keynote Address in which he offered his perspective … Read More
A new video, released on June 15th by the Canadian Union for Public Employees proves you can communicate a big idea–the privatization of municipal services–by looking at the issue through the eyes of school children. The 5 minute video, made by Winnipeg artists Sean and Christian Procter, uses a light touch and animated figures to convey … Read More
Handicapping occurs in sports to equalize the winning chances of contestants of varying abilities. Sometimes, as in horse racing, superior horses, based on past performance, are required to carry more weight. Sometimes, as in golf, poorer players are allowed more strokes. Unbeknownst to most of us, the competition between the public and private sectors is also … Read More
A private corporation has one legal obligation: to maximize the return to its shareholders. As Milton Friedman famously remarked, “There is one and only one social responsibility of business-to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profit….” A city is also legally structured as a corporation, but a municipal corporation has a … Read More
As every 6 year old learns, there is real and there is make believe. The massive Post Office deficit that is driving management to commit institutional suicide by ending 6 day delivery, closing half of the nations’ 30,000 or so post offices and half it’s 500 mail processing centers, and laying off over 200,000 workers, is … Read More
The hottest phrase on the campaign trail right now is “private equity”. Mitt Romney made his hundreds of millions as head of Bain Capital, a major private equity firm and insists the company has created jobs and improved the efficiency of the American economy. President Obama just as strongly insists that Bain and other private equity … Read More
In May 1998 the European Union voted to adopt a single European currency. A few days later David Morris set down his thoughts about that momentous decision from a local self-reliance perspective. Fourteen years later, as Greece and Europe revisit the costs and benefits of the Euro, we thought it appropriate to offer that column on … Read More
On May 15, 2012 Mark Jamison wrote a heartfelt valedictory letter to his community. He begins, “It’s likely that I will be the last postmaster to serve the town of Webster, North Carolina.” And goes on to tell us what he thinks the post office was and should be and what it is becoming. As most … Read More
Still one more empirical study finds that privatization costs taxpayers dearly. This time the issue is school bus transportation. In a new report, Runaway Spending: Private Contractors Increase the Cost of School Student Transportation Services in Pennsylvania the Keystone Research Center concludes, “Contracting out substantially increases state spending on transportation services. We estimate that if all … Read More
