How To Sell Off a City: Welcome to Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago, the privatized metropolis of the future

[marmar]

from In These Times:


How To Sell Off a City
Welcome to Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago, the privatized metropolis of the future.

BY RICK PERLSTEIN


In June of 2013, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel made a new appointment to the city’s seven-member school board to replace billionaire heiress Penny Pritzker, who’d decamped to run President Barack Obama’s Department of Commerce. The appointee, Deborah H. Quazzo, is a founder of an investment firm called GSV Advisors, a business whose goal—her cofounder has been paraphrased by Reuters as saying—is to drum up venture capital for “an education revolution in which public schools outsource to private vendors such critical tasks as teaching math, educating disabled students, even writing report cards.”

GSV Advisors has a sister firm, GSV Capital, that holds ownership stakes in education technology companies like “Knewton,” which sells software that replaces the functions of flesh-and-blood teachers. Since joining the school board, Quazzo has invested her own money in companies that sell curricular materials to public schools in 11 states on a subscription basis.

In other words, a key decision-maker for Chicago’s public schools makes money when school boards decide to sell off the functions of public schools.

She’s not alone. For over a decade now, Chicago has been the epicenter of the fashionable trend of “privatization”—the transfer of the ownership or operation of resources that belong to all of us, like schools, roads and government services, to companies that use them to turn a profit. Chicago’s privatization mania began during Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration, which ran from 1989 to 2011. Under his successor, Rahm Emanuel, the trend has continued apace. For Rahm’s investment banker buddies, the trend has been a boon. For citizens? Not so much.

.......(snip).......



Chicago Inc.

Privatization plainly made sense to another witness to the Plan for Transformation: Rahm Emanuel, who served as a Chicago Housing Authority vice chairman from 1999 to 2001. After his time as a top aide in the Clinton White House, he made more than $18 million in two-and-a-half years as an investment banker, brought into the business by the man who just became Illinois’ new Republican governor, billionaire venture capitalist Bruce Rauner. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/17533/how_to_sell_off_a_city

[Faux pas]

1. He's one

slimey tool.

[djean111]

2. Hopefully, he will never be tapped for Congress or VP, right? Right?

Choosing him as a VP candidate wold mean being open and honest about the Third Way.
Corrupt, all of them.

[former9thward]

5. He was in Congress before he became Obama's Chief of Staff.

[djean111]

32. Yes, just remembered that. Hopefully, Clinton would not tap him for anything. Hopefully.

He is another reason I do not want her as the candidate. He IS Bill and Hillary, without the fake liberal face.

[RiverLover]

3. The game is rigged, and we are the chumps.

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/14/hillary-clintons-corporatist-party/

http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/93925:evidence-of-an-american-plutocracy-the-larry-summers-story

Free market, crony capitalist Dems hurt our country & our party. Did he run on the platform of Privatization, I wonder?

Truly despicable info, but its good to know this is happening in Chicago. Thanks for the article marmar. I just wonder how difficult it will be to become un-entrenched from the tentacles of this corporate takeover. And will/would anyone step up to do it?

[yourout]

4. I'm not sure a Republican could have done as much damage as Rahm has.

Republican would have gotten push back from Dems.

[Enthusiast]

22. Precisely.

[Omaha Steve]

6. Aramark has fired 100's of workers across the USA

Simply for trying to start a union where they work!

[ND-Dem]

10. and the jobs which used to pay decently in government jobs -- like janitor -- now pay shit wages,

no benefits, no sick days

[jehop61]

7. His predecessor

Richard M. Daley was the one that privatized parking meters and sold the Skyway toll bridge to privateers. He then took a job with the law firm that put the deal together. This crap has been going on for years. The city council has been a rubber stamp for a long time, and Alderman tend to be elected for life. Hate what has become of my home city

[Jefferson23]

8. Horrendous history. n/t

[wavesofeuphoria]

9. “an education revolution ...

... in which public schools outsource to private vendors such critical tasks as teaching math, educating disabled students, even writing report cards.”

The SOTU address did not include the words "teacher" or "testing".


Public education is losing big ... seems like its losing even bigger under D administrations. Which is among the more confounding pursuits of recent D controlled administrations -- Chicago public education got a big FU from Rahm, Cuomo is trying to do the same in NY, and Duncan ... fuck, don't get me started on his dumb-assed ideas, language, lack of common sense regarding education and the practice of teaching.

[appalachiablue]

24. +100

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. It is happening in different ways all over the country.

The traffic lights and the meter maids are privately owned plus now the target of lawsuits for cheating.
Charter schools paid by the taxpayer are endemic, they have got to go.

Watch Cyprus and watch Greece for how far this theft can go, under the name of austerity.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

12. K & Fucking-R nt

[Phlem]

13. But, but, but, he's a Democrat who worked with Obama.

Yes, an example of unbridled 3rd way policies. See, very different than actual Republican policies......oh wait.

[Scuba]

14. What do you f***ing libt**ds want, a unicorn?

Bend over and take it in the ass or you must want Romney to be President.












sarcasm thingy for those without the gene

[Octafish]

15. Rahm may've learned about Piratization from Cheney who did it to the Pentagon.

Cheney's Multi-Million Dollar Revolving Door

News: As Bush Sr.'s secretary of defense, Dick Cheney steered millions of dollars in government business to a private military contractor -- whose parent company just happened to give him a high-paying job after he left the government.

By Robert Bryce
Mother Jones
August 2, 2000

EXCERPT...

In 1992, the Pentagon, then under Cheney's direction, paid Texas-based Brown & Root Services $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies -- like itself -- could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones around the world. BRS specializes in such work; from 1962 to 1972, for instance, the company worked in the former South Vietnam building roads, landing strips, harbors, and military bases. Later in 1992, the Pentagon gave the company an additional $5 million to update its report. That same year, BRS won a massive, five-year logistics contract from the US Army Corps of Engineers to work alongside American GIs in places like Zaire, Haiti, Somalia, Kosovo, the Balkans, and Saudi Arabia.

After Bill Clinton's election cost Cheney his government job, he wound up in 1995 as CEO of Halliburton Company, the Dallas-based oil services giant -- which just happens to own Brown & Root Services. Since then, Cheney has collected more than $10 million in salary and stock payments from the company. In addition, he is currently the company's largest individual shareholder, holding stock and options worth another $40 million. Those holdings have undoubtedly been made more valuable by the ever-more lucrative contracts BRS continues to score with the Pentagon.

Between 1992 and 1999, the Pentagon paid BRS more than $1.2 billion for its work in trouble spots around the globe. In May of 1999, the US Army Corps of Engineers re-enlisted the company's help in the Balkans, giving it a new five-year contract worth $731 million.

CONTINUED...

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/08/cheney.html

Money brings people together like nothing else.

[mikeysnot]

26. So much for the "Government had nothing to do with my wealth..."

Instead we got our media concentrating on Love Story and Earth Tone colors....

[Octafish]

33. Joementum was lost.

Lieberman could have DESTROYED Cheney at that moment in their veep debate sit-down.

Instead, he smiled and Sneer went along lying and warring and making money upon his return to office.

[jeff47]

16. DLC Democrats are the best!! (nt)

[brooklynite]

17. UNREC

The Ventra contract was for fare vending and fare collection equipment. Even if you required everyone to buy/load their card from a CTA employee, you'd need equipment for them to use. The turnstiles and fare card they used BEFORE Emanuel were from the private sector. The turnstiles and tokens before that were from the private sector. How is this remotely "privatization"?

[Dan de Lyons]

18. Rahm also a buddy of our new GOP Gov

Rahm is also a friend of Rauner:
[link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/bruce-rauner-rahm-emanuel/|
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/bruce-rauner-rahm-emanuel/]

[sabrina 1]

19. Third Way Rahm! Selling the country to the highest bidders. He hates the Left, like all Third Way

members, because they are not going to be silent about the harm they are doing to this country.

[appalachiablue]

29. Can't we sell, I mean privatize him, to some extreme RW remote country? One can wish.

Unfortunately he's representative of a crop in the Dem. Party that's actively participating in the sweep of our cities, displacing workers and middle class residents, all for the tech bonanza and WS $. Chicago's a wonderful city, Best of the Midwest, Gem of the Prairie. But becoming part of a fast growing domestic neoliberal nightmare.

[WillyT]

20. K & R !!!

[supercats]

21. Rahn Emanuel....

Another uber republican disguised as a democrat. He played a big part in ruining Obamas' first term. He's an odious mother fucker. He needs to be forced out of politics through some kind of scandal or something, because he hurts America just as much or even more so than any republican out there, but it's more painful to America and the party because he has a "D" in front of his name.

[appalachiablue]

31. +100. Welcome to DU.

[Enthusiast]

23. When we complain about Third Way "Democrats" this is what we mean.

[alcibiades_mystery]

25. Parking meters was Daley, not Rahm

[marmar]

27. there's an asterisk next to that in the chart

[mikeysnot]

28. Rahm made it worse

He took an already bad deal and made it worse...

The problem is that none of the claims holds up under scrutiny. Since the financials are based on uncertain projections, as they were the last time, the public could very well pay more to CPM and its investors as a result of the Sunday swap. And the city may still get bills for removing meters in the years to come.

Worst of all, a number of attorneys have told me that by voting to approve the core of the meter deal again, the council made it even tougher to break or challenge in the future. In essence, Mayor Emanuel decided to trade a few concessions for keeping the deal in place for 71 more years.

It wasn't just parking meters it was parking garages also.

I used to be able in the 90's take my wife to Water Tower place and put four quarters in a meter and have a few hours of parking, across the street from the Mall. NO you can't even park there and if there is meters it is a quarter for 8 minutes of parking...

[appalachiablue]

30. Thanks for this important post & graphics. The ugly reality. 'Metropolis' is the dystopian truth,

what's happening to our cities, neoliberal style. Like a plague, moving fast and horrible. No one but the wealthiest Repugs and Third Way Dems. will be able to live in NYC, DC, San Fran, Chicago, London, others at this rate. Forget displaced, abandoned middle class families, workers, teachers, bus drivers, small business owners and artists. Just like Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping portray well and often in their performances and appearances in WS banks, Ferguson and Disneyworld.