Lame duck Dooley accepted all the blame for the Ferguson chaos.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/dooley-takes-blame-for-ferguson-in-speech-to-business-group/article_f1a461e7-5bf2-5af4-bf46-68365839b9b6.html
Well, someone else's problem now.
Too bad he wasn't on the side of the people sooner. What about Metro and Prop A? C'mon Dooley, as the old song says "why don't you do right/ give me some money too."
Do something that will matter in your last few months of office. Give us the truth about Metro and what they are doing with their money, and what happened to Prop A, and, oh yeah, that 3 or 4 year long 40 million dollar lawsuit from the Shrewsbury line, and the cuts to service in 2009?
One interesting thing, Stenger-- backed by McCulloch-- defeated Dooley in the primary with the charge "10 years in long enough."
Well, Bob "Bubba" McCulloch, 23 years and running unopposed AGAIN in November. THAT is long enough.
Write in Michael Brown on the ballot and vote for him instead of McCulloch. It won't change anything, but it will send a nice message.
And I SERIOUSLY hope that the ENTIRE eligible African American population will vote on November 4th. Vote for everything. With a city that is 49.5 African American and with most north county municipalities 60% or more African American, a 100% voter turnout will create a more serious fright in the Old White Boy Network (actually, the entire political and economic infrastructure) than burning down ten Quik Trips.
Seriously. See you at the polls, black (actually ALL of) St. Louis, PLEASE!
OPTINSTL
OCCUPY! PUBLIC TRANSIT Image by Eric Drooker for Occupy Wall Street, click on image for Drooker's website
Showing posts with label charlie dooley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charlie dooley. Show all posts
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Thursday, July 10, 2014
MORE ON AMENDMENT 7: HIGHWAY ROBBERY BENEFITS ONLY THE CONCRETE AND CONSTRUCTION "CARTELS"
OPTINSTL'S previous post about Amendment 7:
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/06/vote-no-on-amendment-7-proposed.html
The St. Louis Post Dispatch and their St. Louis Today website have been running some really good opinion pieces and articles on the proposed increased sales tax.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-modot-s-list-of-shiny-objects-can-t-obscure/article_20186cfd-9edc-5782-bb59-8b4d54dd2f9b.html
Both terms in this post's title, "Highway Robbery" and "Concrete Cartels", come from this brilliant and well-written Op-Ed:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/stop-missouri-s-highway-robbery/article_68a94d5c-22e8-5af5-b854-a1e0ea14d1b7.html
And this one is great on who is paying for the "pro" Amendment 7 campaign:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/kevin-mcdermott/transportation-interests-donated-k-to-key-sales-tax-proponent/article_f41d8c5e-cdbc-584d-820f-ea9e7ec2ffce.html
Many people have written in that what we need to do is increase gasoline tax-- ours is the lowest in the nation! Let the trucking companies that use the highways the most pay for the roads!
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/no-to-raising-missouri-s-transportation-sales-tax/article_ce043f0d-546f-54f9-a27c-d2a3aeb318bc.html
This is great opinion letter, from a transit rider:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/public-transit-rider-can-t-support-higher-sales-tax/article_87bf77c3-6966-51dc-ab2f-acdd03f577f1.html
And this great piece really spells out the ridiculousness of the few transit related items on the City's wishlist.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/slay-gives-city-residents-reason-to-oppose-transportation-tax/article_b4674df1-ea0f-5eaa-b18a-ee691fc711ef.html
On the project list biking and pedestrian paths are considered "public transit". So you might see a lot of X marks in the transit column but read the descriptions carefully. The few that actually deal with bus, trains and streetcars are nothing more than government subsidies to private developers, such as the Loop Trolley, McKee's Northside "Redevelopment" and a Lindell street car that runs parallel to the Metrolink!
https://stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/mayor/documents/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=402539
MO DOT has released their final "wishlist" draft, but it isn't readily available to the public, which is just OUTRAGEOUS. We are being asked to pay for something, but don't get to see the details? A reporter from Associated Press had to file a Sunshine Act request to get the project, and even then, he only reports on what is in it, we do not get to see the actual list.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/missouri-updates-project-list-for-transportation-tax/article_a5dfaf8f-496c-5e1e-9959-a05bd4466c6a.html
And even if we did see the wishlist, that is all it is. Once they get the money they will do whatever they want with it. Let's not forget April 2010's Prop A. It was going to "save" Metro. And look what they have done with it. Nothing. They get the 11 million a year from the city for the Metrolink, but County Executive Charlie Dooley controls the purse strings on the $78 million the county collects. And even if he is does allot some to Metro, they are still insolvent!
SAY NO TO HIGHWAY ROBBERY!!!!
MORE ON AMENDMENT 7:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/transportation-tax-is-the-wrong-means-to-the-wrong-ends/article_8013b86e-ced2-5e7a-980b-520559989dec.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/increase-the-gasoline-tax-to-pay-for-publicly-maintained-roads/article_05cce727-f345-53d6-8481-84c8f87d6dcb.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/nixon-opposes-missouri-transportation-sales-tax/article_c1ced8f4-3ee6-55db-b05f-269c0ac54195.html
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/06/vote-no-on-amendment-7-proposed.html
The St. Louis Post Dispatch and their St. Louis Today website have been running some really good opinion pieces and articles on the proposed increased sales tax.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-modot-s-list-of-shiny-objects-can-t-obscure/article_20186cfd-9edc-5782-bb59-8b4d54dd2f9b.html
Both terms in this post's title, "Highway Robbery" and "Concrete Cartels", come from this brilliant and well-written Op-Ed:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/stop-missouri-s-highway-robbery/article_68a94d5c-22e8-5af5-b854-a1e0ea14d1b7.html
And this one is great on who is paying for the "pro" Amendment 7 campaign:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/kevin-mcdermott/transportation-interests-donated-k-to-key-sales-tax-proponent/article_f41d8c5e-cdbc-584d-820f-ea9e7ec2ffce.html
Many people have written in that what we need to do is increase gasoline tax-- ours is the lowest in the nation! Let the trucking companies that use the highways the most pay for the roads!
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/no-to-raising-missouri-s-transportation-sales-tax/article_ce043f0d-546f-54f9-a27c-d2a3aeb318bc.html
This is great opinion letter, from a transit rider:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/public-transit-rider-can-t-support-higher-sales-tax/article_87bf77c3-6966-51dc-ab2f-acdd03f577f1.html
And this great piece really spells out the ridiculousness of the few transit related items on the City's wishlist.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/slay-gives-city-residents-reason-to-oppose-transportation-tax/article_b4674df1-ea0f-5eaa-b18a-ee691fc711ef.html
On the project list biking and pedestrian paths are considered "public transit". So you might see a lot of X marks in the transit column but read the descriptions carefully. The few that actually deal with bus, trains and streetcars are nothing more than government subsidies to private developers, such as the Loop Trolley, McKee's Northside "Redevelopment" and a Lindell street car that runs parallel to the Metrolink!
https://stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/mayor/documents/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=402539
MO DOT has released their final "wishlist" draft, but it isn't readily available to the public, which is just OUTRAGEOUS. We are being asked to pay for something, but don't get to see the details? A reporter from Associated Press had to file a Sunshine Act request to get the project, and even then, he only reports on what is in it, we do not get to see the actual list.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/missouri-updates-project-list-for-transportation-tax/article_a5dfaf8f-496c-5e1e-9959-a05bd4466c6a.html
And even if we did see the wishlist, that is all it is. Once they get the money they will do whatever they want with it. Let's not forget April 2010's Prop A. It was going to "save" Metro. And look what they have done with it. Nothing. They get the 11 million a year from the city for the Metrolink, but County Executive Charlie Dooley controls the purse strings on the $78 million the county collects. And even if he is does allot some to Metro, they are still insolvent!
SAY NO TO HIGHWAY ROBBERY!!!!
MORE ON AMENDMENT 7:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/transportation-tax-is-the-wrong-means-to-the-wrong-ends/article_8013b86e-ced2-5e7a-980b-520559989dec.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/increase-the-gasoline-tax-to-pay-for-publicly-maintained-roads/article_05cce727-f345-53d6-8481-84c8f87d6dcb.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/nixon-opposes-missouri-transportation-sales-tax/article_c1ced8f4-3ee6-55db-b05f-269c0ac54195.html
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT 7, PROPOSED STATEWIDE SALES TAX INCREASE
EDIT: St. Louis Today posted this great article on Sunday, June 22nd:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/political-fix/coming-to-a-tv-screen-near-you-missouri-s-sales/article_2b9096df-ce44-5307-9cd2-d1bd34df70bf.html
I have more to say about this topic, but this is the text of the statement to our "leaders" and the leaflet I will be taking to the open hearing tomorrow at the Central Library. (There is also a hearing today at UMSL and one on Thursday in Cottleville. http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/modot-kicks-public-meetings-transportation-tax-list)
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/political-fix/coming-to-a-tv-screen-near-you-missouri-s-sales/article_2b9096df-ce44-5307-9cd2-d1bd34df70bf.html
I have more to say about this topic, but this is the text of the statement to our "leaders" and the leaflet I will be taking to the open hearing tomorrow at the Central Library. (There is also a hearing today at UMSL and one on Thursday in Cottleville. http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/modot-kicks-public-meetings-transportation-tax-list)
17 June 2014
Dear St. Louis City and County, and Missouri “leaders”:
I find it reprehensible that this state is asking its citizens for MORE MONEY! Especially for “roads and bridges”! One thing we have quite enough of here in St. Louis is road, highway, and bridge construction. We need improved public transit, especially in the areas that use it the most. We need a metrolink that runs from north county to south county. We need high speed rail connecting Saint Louis to Jefferson City, Kansas City, and Columbia.
These “wish lists” are just fantasy to sell this tax hike to voters. And even the fantasy allocates only $12 million of the $500 million budget to public transit. Once you get our money you will do whatever you want with it. We were told in April of 2010 that Prop A was going to save Metro. In 2013 Prop A collected $78 million in the county and $11 million in the city. Yet all that money has done is pay off the interest on Metro's outrageous debt for the Shrewbury Metrolink extension. Fares are being increased in July and Metro faces continued insolvency.
And you didn't tell us, back in 2010, that County Executive Charlie Dooley could withhold that $78 million he collects on Prop A and allocate it instead to more roads and bridges. And let's just consider what all this construction is really about: making wealthy companies like Clayco wealthier. Which, of course, makes their contributions to your political campaign funds larger, but does absolutely nothing for the public.
Why are we being asked to make the already wealthy contractors and developers and engineers of this city even wealthier, when by U-6 numbers we have 10% unemployment, and our schools are failing? I keep hearing about how “attracting talented young professionals” is the key to St. Louis economic growth. This is not only ridiculous, it is offensive.
Obviously, you do not think that the youth of St. Louis have the capability to become “talented young professionals” with an “entreupreneurial spirit.” If you did you would save our schools, create jobs and internship opportunities, invest in more day care, and give the same investment incentives and tax breaks to local small businesses that you give to these big corporations (who often put the locals out of business!).
If you believed in your citizens, you would be working to abolish right-to-work legislation, increase the state's minimum wage, and make this a better state for workers. Low wage jobs are the only part of the job sector that is growing. I don't trust a state that makes it more difficult to get unemployment so that it can use the unemployment fund to pay off its debts, and keeps milking sales tax like it is a cash cow.
We, the people, deserve real leaders. We do not need a County Executive that gives a museum director a half a million dollar a year salary. We do not need a Mayor that governs only the southern, “white” half of the city. We do not need a Metro CEO that supports “right to work”, refuses to negotiate a new union contract with his drivers, is paid $250,000 a year, and gives $5 million a year in “contributions to outside entities.”
Everything about this city and state's “economic development” is backward and mismanaged (and possibly corrupt). If you can't increase the well being of the people currently living here, with the vast amounts of money we are already giving you, why should we trust you with more money? Why would more people want to move here?
What are you doing to make the quality of our lives better? For the WHOLE city, not just the middle and upper class citizens. What are you doing to close the $32,000 a year income gap, the “Delmar Divide”, where the median income in north St. Louis is just $8,000 a year, and the south is $40,000?
The northern half of this city is treated like a reservation or concentration camp, filled with hostile natives, incarcerated by lack of job opportunity, poverty, crumbling neighborhoods, and miserable public transit options. We don't need more Ballpark Villages and Cortex communities. All this does is shift the wealth, it doesn't create more. (Cortex is especially insulting. That they were given DOT TIGER funding, when the obvious outcome of this development is gentrification. And $9 million of taxpayer money to tear down the existing CWE Metrolink station to build a new one a few blocks away? OUTRAGEOUS!)
The northern half of this city is treated like a reservation or concentration camp, filled with hostile natives, incarcerated by lack of job opportunity, poverty, crumbling neighborhoods, and miserable public transit options. We don't need more Ballpark Villages and Cortex communities. All this does is shift the wealth, it doesn't create more. (Cortex is especially insulting. That they were given DOT TIGER funding, when the obvious outcome of this development is gentrification. And $9 million of taxpayer money to tear down the existing CWE Metrolink station to build a new one a few blocks away? OUTRAGEOUS!)
We don't need more roads and bridges. We don't need another sales tax increase. We need leaders that can effectively manage the money they have now, and who address the real problems facing our city and state.
THE PEOPLE SAY “NO” TO AMENDMENT 7!!!
VOTE NO ON “AMENDMENT 7”
THE PROPOSED MISSOURI STATEWIDE SALES TAX INCREASE ON THE BALLOT AUGUST 2014 !
Your vote counts in local and state elections! And even if you cannot vote, you are still a sales tax paying citizen of this state! And St. Louis city and county already have the highest sales tax rates in the state!
Call your local and state representatives and tell them you are against Amendment 7. Tell them you what we need to make this city and state more economically viable! MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!
WHAT ABOUT OUR SCHOOLS?! Where is all that lottery money going? Why are they asking us for more money for highways and bridges when our kids are suffering in unaccredited and crowded school districts? Where is the funding for after-school and youth programs? Internship opportunities? Scholarships?
WHAT ABOUT PUBLIC TRANSIT AND HIGH SPEED RAIL? In 2010 voters agreed to Prop A to “save” Metro, and yet they are still insolvent! They are raising fares on July 1st and have not put in a single foot of new Metrolink track in 8 years! We need a statewide speed rail system that links St. Louis, Kansas City, Jefferson City, and Columbia. We don't need more highways!
WHAT ABOUT HOUSING? One hundred thousand homes and lots sit vacant in St. Louis city and county, many bank or city/county owned, and yet we have thousands of homeless. The problem is much larger than just 26 houses in the Ranken Technical College neighborhood! And at the least the vacant lots could be turned into urban farms or “edible” parks, and playgrounds!
WHAT ABOUT JOBS? We need more jobs, and better jobs! More job training! A higher minimum wage! More protection for workers! Stronger unions! More daycare!
GET INVOLVED! THIS IS YOUR MONEY! THIS IS YOUR CITY! THIS IS YOUR STATE!
Governor Jay Nixon: (573) 751-3222
Mayor Francis Slay: (314) 534-2009 mayorslay@mayorslay.com
Board of Aldermen: (314) 622-3287
County Executive Charlie Dooley: (314) 615-7016
Learn more about Amendment 7 and the proposed projects:
Join the movement for better public transit: This leaflet was produced by Occupy Public Transportation in St. Louis (OPTINSTL). If you ride public transit, consider boycotting Metro in protest of the fare increase!
JULY 1st! STRIKE CITYWIDE! DON'T RIDE!
please print and share this leaflet
optinstl.blogspot.com optinstl@gmail.com
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
WHAT METRO'S ACCOUNTING HAS TAUGHT ME ABOUT THE NATIONAL AND GLOBAL ECONOMY
I haven't been posting the last few days because I started working on a
plan for unemployed and low-income to get discounted or free passes. (I hope to post both soon.)
I've been looking at the sales tax revenues, and Metro's annual fiscal
reports.
I've also been trying to come up with some sort of model where Metro would be financially solvent.
They don't have an ideal model for solvency. Most public transit agencies operate at a loss, with two-thirds or more of their funding from local, state, and federal sources. They are just going to keep plodding along, doing the same thing everyone else is doing. So it is up to us-- the public transit riders-- to find solutions.
This is some of what I have been learning and thinking about:
Even if Metro raises the fares in July, and again in two years, they will never be viable in their current incarnation.
To be solvent right now, Metro would need between $4.50 to $5.80 per boarding! NOT per person, per boarding-- that 55 million per year statistic they like to throw around. That's just their operating expense. That doesn't include paying off all their debts.
(The $1.30 variance is due to the fact I do not know what their "Depreciation and Amortization" is really hiding. I do know that eliminating 5 million in "Contributions to Outside Entities" would cover the 2.5 million a year they claim they need from the riders.)
As I began to examine Metro's annual fiscal reports, I have had to study how bonds are structured, public/private partnerships, and public transit agencies generally-- in particular how tied they are to local "business development".
I have had to research the structure of government funding for both public entities and private business development. This has further led me to investigate things like "fiat currency" and money generally, foreign "aid", banking and the Federal Reserve, and, of course, bonds.
In my post "Metro Is Juggling A Lot Of Bonds" I compare our public transit agency to Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers before the economic collapse in 2008 and 2009.
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/04/metro-is-juggling-lot-of-bonds.html
Metro isn't the only agency that involves itself in "business development" using (pardon the pun) government funding as a vehicle for private development and individual political careers.
Someone gave me the book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," by John Perkins on Friday, and I read the whole thing on Sunday.
From Wikipedia:
Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.
These days, global dominance is no long dependent on military invasions and "manifest destiny". Instead of sending in an army to "bring freedom and Christianity" to the impoverished heathens of the world (and gain control of their natural resources and cheap labor), private industry-- Like Halliburton, once run by Dick Cheney, to use one familiar example-- go to a place like, say, Ecuador, and convince the rich people and government to "invest" in new roads and bridges (sound familiar, cough-County Executive and Prop A- cough?) and electrical grids, plumbing, and of course, oil and gas pipelines and refineries.
Don't worry, wealthy Ecuadorians and government, you don't have to come up with the money up front! The U.S. government via USAID will loan your country the money to hire our contractors, and your country will pay the loan back with all the money you make from this modernization! We will "create jobs" and "new services" and you will attract lots of "talented young professionals" that will make you even richer, and saddle your country with a debt to the U.S.!
The rich people say "yay, more money for us!" And the U.S. government loans them a bunch of money in "foreign aid" so that they can hire and pay companies like Halliburton. Those companies come in and cut down the rain forest and put oil pipelines and electrical grids to run the pipelines.
Who is paying that debt you ask? Not the wealthy. Not the government. Ecuador, and other countries like it that have accepted U.S. foreign "aid", have become a modern slave plantation. The slave owners owe the U.S. government a lot of money for all those pipelines and modernizations ("business development") and now the slaves better pick a lot of "cotton" (oil) to pay it off.
In all of the places where this has occurred, the average people are actually worse off than they were before the U.S. industry and government loans.
Now, the flip side of this is a place like Saudi Arabia. This oil rich nation doesn't need the U.S., but the U.S. needs Arabian oil. Those crafty developers sold the wealthy of Arabia on the idea of modernized, western-style, skyscraper filled cities. "It will be better than Vegas!" They said. And the Saudi's agreed.
But they are not in debt to us. And the skyscrapers that you see inDubai (EDIT: sorry my bad- Dubai is in the United Arab Emirates- actually a country that has benefitted a lot more than even the Saudis from petro dollars.) were constructed with petrodollars, that is, money the U.S. pays to Saudi Arabia for oil imports. Clever, huh?
Does that benefit the taxpayer of the U.S.? Not really. Of course, our cars keep getting fueled with Saudi oil. But that money the government is "loaning" in "aid" is your tax dollars. And it's all going right into the pockets of Halliburton executives. Many of whom end up as our politicians (not just Cheney).
You know, like how John Nations becomes the head of Metro, and receives a $250,000 a year salary to build Metrolink stations for the likes of companies like Cortex. (http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/04/metro-optinstl-is-driven-by-you.html)
John Nations is very vocal about his purpose at Metro. He is there for five years so that he can run for either a Senate seat, or Governor, depending on who you talk to. Public transit? That's an after-thought. That is just a necessary technicality. Nations sole responsibility is to make sure the local Cheney's and Halliburton's are happy, so that they will contribute to his campaign finance fund.
Or how people like County Executive Charlie Dooley need to make sure that his friends at Musick construction get all the construction jobs for the Metrolink.
It is not just that the inflated statistics of the "Economic Hit Men" and croney capitalism have become the new economic success model for "business as usual", it is that profit is funnelled only to a certain section of society: Big business and the already wealthiest individuals, and the two things that keep the wealth flowing to them: the military, and the government.
Substitute the U.S. military for the Saint Louis city and county courts and lawyers. Our lawyers and judges are so wealthy because there is so much crime. There is so much crime because half the city is a 1st world ghetto-- the national version of the 3rd world, international sweat shop.
You know, like those children and prisoners in China working to make t-shirts and stuff? http://www.businessinsider.com/letter-in-saks-bag-from-china-2014-4#!JkEIe
The Chinese government has to accept payment for these manufactured goods. They accept the payment in U.S. Treasury Bonds. That is why you hear that Chinese own 1.5 Trillion of the U.S. Debt. (You know, that debt that equals $55,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. And $155,000 per taxpayer?)
From:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/10/17/china_bond_purchases_stop_being_wrong.html
Many objects are manufactured in China these days, and many of those objects are purchased by people and firms located in the United States of America. And before an American firm can purchase something from a Chinese firm, the American firm needs to trade some of its US dollars for some Chinese money. Thus America ends up with more Chinese-made goods and China ends up with more American money.
From:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ianshepherdson/2013/10/23/four-big-reasons-why-china-will-keep-buying-treasuries/
...once you accept the idea that China’s dollar earnings mostly have to stay as dollars, it is clear that there are no alternatives to owning U.S. securities, government and private. There no other safe, liquid investments available in the necessary quantities. At the margin, China’s sovereign wealth fund can buy equities and real assets like property, but the bulk of the overall portfolio has to be held in liquid securities. These are foreign exchange reserves, remember, not some pot of spare money to be gambled away.
The Chinese government is not going to let their own money's value increase, or demand higher wages and safer conditions for those sweat shop workers, because they need those foreign exchange reserves to make their country wealthy. (And that means make their government and rich families- the Chinese 1%- richer. See it doesn't matter what race or religion or what country. The world is really about the rich profiting from the poor. All the other divisions are to keep us fighting each other instead of them.)
The Chinese government need the U.S. dollar to stay strong. That way they can keep making a profit from all that sweat shop and prison labor.
This works out for the U.S. government, too. U.S. corporations have lots of "aid" and "modernization" and "democracy" to sell to the oil producing nations. And then there is always "re-building" after a war, or a natural disaster.
From:
http://www.truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/68279:henry-pelifian--the-iraq-war-and-crony-democracy
In "Cronies," it is clear why Halliburton hired Mr. Cheney, for he "knew how to vacuum up federal money and federal contracts." Other facts from "Cronies": During Cheney's tenure at Halliburton, he nearly doubled the amount of federal contracts to $2.3 billion. Also, Cheney assisted the parent company, Brown & Root, in receiving a fifteenfold increase in federally backed loans and insurance from the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Mr. Cheney understood the importance of lobbying, for he doubled political donations while at Halliburton. According to the Center for Public Integrity and mentioned in "Cronies," seventy companies and individuals who were substantial contributors to the Bush-Cheney campaign have been awarded billions of dollars in contracts in Iraq.
Have we become a nation of lobbyists, for lobbyists, and by lobbyists? The crony democracy chain links politicians, government appointees, corporations, government contracts and lobbyists. The chain includes interchangeable employment with each successive administration from government officials to corporate CEO or Washington lobbyist. The goal is profit at government expense. What is the financial calculation of waste and abuse in such a system?
(This is also worth reading: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jun/09/arianna-huffington/halliburton-kbr-and-iraq-war-contracting-history-s/)
There is enough money in the world for every single person to have enough to eat, a place to sleep, and medical care.
According to Jeffrey Sachs: http://www.visionofearth.org/economics/ending-poverty/how-much-would-it-cost-to-end-extreme-poverty-in-the-world/
To end extreme poverty worldwide in 20 years, Sachs calculated that the total cost per year would be about $175 billion. This represents less than one percent of the combined income of the richest countries in the world.
...
The military budget in the USA is about $680 billion per year3. A large amount of other funding is directly connected to military spending in the states, bringing the total closer to $1 trillion per year4.Even if we assume the lesser of these numbers, annual defense spending in the US is about four times as much money as is needed to begin rapidly ending extreme poverty in the entire world. If some of the US military’s monstrous budget could be channelled towards humanitarian goals, then extreme poverty in our world could quickly become a thing of the past.
There is enough money, it is just not being distributed in a way that is meaningful. It's all about "profit" for the corporations and corporate leaders.
When wealthy people buy a bond, whether it the Chinese government buying Treasury bonds, or William "Bucky" Bush's St. Louis neighbor buying a Metro municipal bond, they expect not only a nice return on their investment financially, they expect to be catered to.
That means no Metrolink running through the northside neighborhoods that serve only to supply surplus labor that will work cheap and not complain. Keep those people incarcerated by lack of decent public transportation. Make sure the slave-maid has to ride the bus for two or three hours to get to the plantation house.
That money is also not to be spent improving those neighborhoods. They aren't earning enough to pay for improved street services. How can they, on such low wages?
In St. Louis, there is enough money for public transit to be absolutely free of charge. Rider revenues could be easily covered by Prop A's one half of one percent sales tax in the county and one quarter of one percent in the city, if the full amount was used for operating expenses.
But it can't. Even though Prop A is straight revenue, most of the money Metro receives (or so the man at Dooley's office told me) goes to paying its bonds-- it's IOU's.
Metro operated at a loss of $249,514,470 in 2013. So no matter how often they raise fares, they will never have enough.
And it is so burdened by debt that another fluctuation in the market could cripple it completely.
And if you have read this whole post, you probably understand as I do, that this current global economic model is destined to crash-- again and again.
This system needs constant, voracious expansion. That can only occur if more construction and "business development" is needed, paying the lowest possible wages and providing the fewest possible services.
Find a reason to invade another country, like the Russians in the Ukraine. Or start a war, as the Bush-Cheney regime did in Iraq.
Or if you're lucky, there will be a natural disaster, like Hurricane Sandy:
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/feb/19/lawrence-odonnell/lawrence-odonnell-says-chris-christie-steered-6-mi/
Or an earthquake in Haiti. (Sorry, did you think the Red Cross was sacred?)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/red-cross-earthquake-haiti-where-did-the-money-go_n_1228334.html
This system is not going to change by itself. Not globally, nationally, or locally. These people make money whether there is war or peace. They make MORE money the smaller the middle class is and the more poor people there are.
It is only going to change when enough of us DEMAND our fair share. And frankly, that time is long passed.
OCCUPY!
PS: if you read all the way through this, you might be interested in this stuff as well:
On "Foreign Aid":
http://www.transparency.org/topic/detail/humanitarian_assistance
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/10/03/The-Scandal-That-Is-Foreign-Aid
On the Economics of the 1%:
http://www.upworthy.com/what-the-1-dont-want-you-to-know?g=3&c=hpstream
BILL MOYERS: Here’s Piketty’s main point: capital tends to produce real returns of 4 to 5 percent, and economic growth is much slower. What's the practical result of that?
PAUL KRUGMAN: What that means is that if you have a large fortune, or a family has a large fortune, they can -- the inheritors of that large fortune -- can live very, very well. They can live an extraordinary standard of living and still put a large fraction of the income from that fortune aside and the fortune will grow faster than the economy.
On Fiat currency:
http://dailyreckoning.com/fiat-currency/
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-the-fiat-system-works.html
I've also been trying to come up with some sort of model where Metro would be financially solvent.
They don't have an ideal model for solvency. Most public transit agencies operate at a loss, with two-thirds or more of their funding from local, state, and federal sources. They are just going to keep plodding along, doing the same thing everyone else is doing. So it is up to us-- the public transit riders-- to find solutions.
This is some of what I have been learning and thinking about:
Even if Metro raises the fares in July, and again in two years, they will never be viable in their current incarnation.
To be solvent right now, Metro would need between $4.50 to $5.80 per boarding! NOT per person, per boarding-- that 55 million per year statistic they like to throw around. That's just their operating expense. That doesn't include paying off all their debts.
(The $1.30 variance is due to the fact I do not know what their "Depreciation and Amortization" is really hiding. I do know that eliminating 5 million in "Contributions to Outside Entities" would cover the 2.5 million a year they claim they need from the riders.)
As I began to examine Metro's annual fiscal reports, I have had to study how bonds are structured, public/private partnerships, and public transit agencies generally-- in particular how tied they are to local "business development".
I have had to research the structure of government funding for both public entities and private business development. This has further led me to investigate things like "fiat currency" and money generally, foreign "aid", banking and the Federal Reserve, and, of course, bonds.
In my post "Metro Is Juggling A Lot Of Bonds" I compare our public transit agency to Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers before the economic collapse in 2008 and 2009.
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/04/metro-is-juggling-lot-of-bonds.html
Metro isn't the only agency that involves itself in "business development" using (pardon the pun) government funding as a vehicle for private development and individual political careers.
Someone gave me the book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," by John Perkins on Friday, and I read the whole thing on Sunday.
From Wikipedia:
Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.
These days, global dominance is no long dependent on military invasions and "manifest destiny". Instead of sending in an army to "bring freedom and Christianity" to the impoverished heathens of the world (and gain control of their natural resources and cheap labor), private industry-- Like Halliburton, once run by Dick Cheney, to use one familiar example-- go to a place like, say, Ecuador, and convince the rich people and government to "invest" in new roads and bridges (sound familiar, cough-County Executive and Prop A- cough?) and electrical grids, plumbing, and of course, oil and gas pipelines and refineries.
Don't worry, wealthy Ecuadorians and government, you don't have to come up with the money up front! The U.S. government via USAID will loan your country the money to hire our contractors, and your country will pay the loan back with all the money you make from this modernization! We will "create jobs" and "new services" and you will attract lots of "talented young professionals" that will make you even richer, and saddle your country with a debt to the U.S.!
The rich people say "yay, more money for us!" And the U.S. government loans them a bunch of money in "foreign aid" so that they can hire and pay companies like Halliburton. Those companies come in and cut down the rain forest and put oil pipelines and electrical grids to run the pipelines.
Who is paying that debt you ask? Not the wealthy. Not the government. Ecuador, and other countries like it that have accepted U.S. foreign "aid", have become a modern slave plantation. The slave owners owe the U.S. government a lot of money for all those pipelines and modernizations ("business development") and now the slaves better pick a lot of "cotton" (oil) to pay it off.
In all of the places where this has occurred, the average people are actually worse off than they were before the U.S. industry and government loans.
Now, the flip side of this is a place like Saudi Arabia. This oil rich nation doesn't need the U.S., but the U.S. needs Arabian oil. Those crafty developers sold the wealthy of Arabia on the idea of modernized, western-style, skyscraper filled cities. "It will be better than Vegas!" They said. And the Saudi's agreed.
But they are not in debt to us. And the skyscrapers that you see in
Does that benefit the taxpayer of the U.S.? Not really. Of course, our cars keep getting fueled with Saudi oil. But that money the government is "loaning" in "aid" is your tax dollars. And it's all going right into the pockets of Halliburton executives. Many of whom end up as our politicians (not just Cheney).
You know, like how John Nations becomes the head of Metro, and receives a $250,000 a year salary to build Metrolink stations for the likes of companies like Cortex. (http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/04/metro-optinstl-is-driven-by-you.html)
John Nations is very vocal about his purpose at Metro. He is there for five years so that he can run for either a Senate seat, or Governor, depending on who you talk to. Public transit? That's an after-thought. That is just a necessary technicality. Nations sole responsibility is to make sure the local Cheney's and Halliburton's are happy, so that they will contribute to his campaign finance fund.
Or how people like County Executive Charlie Dooley need to make sure that his friends at Musick construction get all the construction jobs for the Metrolink.
It is not just that the inflated statistics of the "Economic Hit Men" and croney capitalism have become the new economic success model for "business as usual", it is that profit is funnelled only to a certain section of society: Big business and the already wealthiest individuals, and the two things that keep the wealth flowing to them: the military, and the government.
Substitute the U.S. military for the Saint Louis city and county courts and lawyers. Our lawyers and judges are so wealthy because there is so much crime. There is so much crime because half the city is a 1st world ghetto-- the national version of the 3rd world, international sweat shop.
You know, like those children and prisoners in China working to make t-shirts and stuff? http://www.businessinsider.com/letter-in-saks-bag-from-china-2014-4#!JkEIe
The Chinese government has to accept payment for these manufactured goods. They accept the payment in U.S. Treasury Bonds. That is why you hear that Chinese own 1.5 Trillion of the U.S. Debt. (You know, that debt that equals $55,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. And $155,000 per taxpayer?)
From:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/10/17/china_bond_purchases_stop_being_wrong.html
Many objects are manufactured in China these days, and many of those objects are purchased by people and firms located in the United States of America. And before an American firm can purchase something from a Chinese firm, the American firm needs to trade some of its US dollars for some Chinese money. Thus America ends up with more Chinese-made goods and China ends up with more American money.
Now in the natural course of floating exchange rates what would
happen here is that the dollar price of Chinese money would rise, and
this would increase the price of Chinese-made stuff in America and
decrease the price of American-made stuff in China. That in turn would
tend to discourage the flow of Chinese-made stuff to the United States
of America.
But the Chinese government for various reasons wants to subsidize
Chinese manufacturing. So they want to send those dollars they
accumulate back to the United States
From:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ianshepherdson/2013/10/23/four-big-reasons-why-china-will-keep-buying-treasuries/
...once you accept the idea that China’s dollar earnings mostly have to stay as dollars, it is clear that there are no alternatives to owning U.S. securities, government and private. There no other safe, liquid investments available in the necessary quantities. At the margin, China’s sovereign wealth fund can buy equities and real assets like property, but the bulk of the overall portfolio has to be held in liquid securities. These are foreign exchange reserves, remember, not some pot of spare money to be gambled away.
The Chinese government is not going to let their own money's value increase, or demand higher wages and safer conditions for those sweat shop workers, because they need those foreign exchange reserves to make their country wealthy. (And that means make their government and rich families- the Chinese 1%- richer. See it doesn't matter what race or religion or what country. The world is really about the rich profiting from the poor. All the other divisions are to keep us fighting each other instead of them.)
The Chinese government need the U.S. dollar to stay strong. That way they can keep making a profit from all that sweat shop and prison labor.
This works out for the U.S. government, too. U.S. corporations have lots of "aid" and "modernization" and "democracy" to sell to the oil producing nations. And then there is always "re-building" after a war, or a natural disaster.
From:
http://www.truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/68279:henry-pelifian--the-iraq-war-and-crony-democracy
In "Cronies," it is clear why Halliburton hired Mr. Cheney, for he "knew how to vacuum up federal money and federal contracts." Other facts from "Cronies": During Cheney's tenure at Halliburton, he nearly doubled the amount of federal contracts to $2.3 billion. Also, Cheney assisted the parent company, Brown & Root, in receiving a fifteenfold increase in federally backed loans and insurance from the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Mr. Cheney understood the importance of lobbying, for he doubled political donations while at Halliburton. According to the Center for Public Integrity and mentioned in "Cronies," seventy companies and individuals who were substantial contributors to the Bush-Cheney campaign have been awarded billions of dollars in contracts in Iraq.
Have we become a nation of lobbyists, for lobbyists, and by lobbyists? The crony democracy chain links politicians, government appointees, corporations, government contracts and lobbyists. The chain includes interchangeable employment with each successive administration from government officials to corporate CEO or Washington lobbyist. The goal is profit at government expense. What is the financial calculation of waste and abuse in such a system?
(This is also worth reading: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jun/09/arianna-huffington/halliburton-kbr-and-iraq-war-contracting-history-s/)
There is enough money in the world for every single person to have enough to eat, a place to sleep, and medical care.
According to Jeffrey Sachs: http://www.visionofearth.org/economics/ending-poverty/how-much-would-it-cost-to-end-extreme-poverty-in-the-world/
To end extreme poverty worldwide in 20 years, Sachs calculated that the total cost per year would be about $175 billion. This represents less than one percent of the combined income of the richest countries in the world.
...
The military budget in the USA is about $680 billion per year3. A large amount of other funding is directly connected to military spending in the states, bringing the total closer to $1 trillion per year4.Even if we assume the lesser of these numbers, annual defense spending in the US is about four times as much money as is needed to begin rapidly ending extreme poverty in the entire world. If some of the US military’s monstrous budget could be channelled towards humanitarian goals, then extreme poverty in our world could quickly become a thing of the past.
There is enough money, it is just not being distributed in a way that is meaningful. It's all about "profit" for the corporations and corporate leaders.
When wealthy people buy a bond, whether it the Chinese government buying Treasury bonds, or William "Bucky" Bush's St. Louis neighbor buying a Metro municipal bond, they expect not only a nice return on their investment financially, they expect to be catered to.
That means no Metrolink running through the northside neighborhoods that serve only to supply surplus labor that will work cheap and not complain. Keep those people incarcerated by lack of decent public transportation. Make sure the slave-maid has to ride the bus for two or three hours to get to the plantation house.
That money is also not to be spent improving those neighborhoods. They aren't earning enough to pay for improved street services. How can they, on such low wages?
In St. Louis, there is enough money for public transit to be absolutely free of charge. Rider revenues could be easily covered by Prop A's one half of one percent sales tax in the county and one quarter of one percent in the city, if the full amount was used for operating expenses.
But it can't. Even though Prop A is straight revenue, most of the money Metro receives (or so the man at Dooley's office told me) goes to paying its bonds-- it's IOU's.
Metro operated at a loss of $249,514,470 in 2013. So no matter how often they raise fares, they will never have enough.
And it is so burdened by debt that another fluctuation in the market could cripple it completely.
And if you have read this whole post, you probably understand as I do, that this current global economic model is destined to crash-- again and again.
This system needs constant, voracious expansion. That can only occur if more construction and "business development" is needed, paying the lowest possible wages and providing the fewest possible services.
Find a reason to invade another country, like the Russians in the Ukraine. Or start a war, as the Bush-Cheney regime did in Iraq.
Or if you're lucky, there will be a natural disaster, like Hurricane Sandy:
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/feb/19/lawrence-odonnell/lawrence-odonnell-says-chris-christie-steered-6-mi/
Or an earthquake in Haiti. (Sorry, did you think the Red Cross was sacred?)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/red-cross-earthquake-haiti-where-did-the-money-go_n_1228334.html
This system is not going to change by itself. Not globally, nationally, or locally. These people make money whether there is war or peace. They make MORE money the smaller the middle class is and the more poor people there are.
It is only going to change when enough of us DEMAND our fair share. And frankly, that time is long passed.
OCCUPY!
PS: if you read all the way through this, you might be interested in this stuff as well:
On "Foreign Aid":
http://www.transparency.org/topic/detail/humanitarian_assistance
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/10/03/The-Scandal-That-Is-Foreign-Aid
On the Economics of the 1%:
http://www.upworthy.com/what-the-1-dont-want-you-to-know?g=3&c=hpstream
BILL MOYERS: Here’s Piketty’s main point: capital tends to produce real returns of 4 to 5 percent, and economic growth is much slower. What's the practical result of that?
PAUL KRUGMAN: What that means is that if you have a large fortune, or a family has a large fortune, they can -- the inheritors of that large fortune -- can live very, very well. They can live an extraordinary standard of living and still put a large fraction of the income from that fortune aside and the fortune will grow faster than the economy.
On Fiat currency:
http://dailyreckoning.com/fiat-currency/
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-the-fiat-system-works.html
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