Scam Inc: How Government Pays for Privatization and Other Matters

Probably the biggest scam this side of Wall Street banking is privatization.  Promoted in the Reagan years as giving the private sector the chance to cut costs and be efficient in what normally was done by the public sector, the result time after time has been that a few folks are getting rich by privatizing prisons, the military and now higher education--all primarily with tax money.  Notes an opinion piece on the New York Times site:

"The worst problems, though, occur at for-profit schools like those run by the Apollo Group (which owns the University of Phoenix), the Education Management Corporation or Corinthian Colleges. These schools cater to low-income students and veterans, but too often they turn hopes for a better life into the despair of financial ruin.

Nearly all of their students take out loans to attend, and the amounts are staggering. Among holders of bachelor’s degrees, 94 percent borrow. They take on median debt of $33,000 per student, compared with just $18,000 at the nonprofits and $22,000 at the publics. The for-profit graduates have trouble finding jobs that pay enough to afford their debts, and 23 percent of borrowers default within three years, compared with just 7 percent from nonprofits and 8 percent from publics."

 So how do they stay in business?  Like those big "security firms" and prisons, they are lapping it up at the government trough.

"Congress, by loosening regulations, permitted for-profit colleges to thrive on the government’s dime. These schools, which enroll nearly a tenth of college students, use nearly a quarter of federal student aid dollars allocated through Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, and they account for nearly half of all student loan defaults. A 1998 rule allows them to gain up to 90 percent of their revenues from Title IV alone — a figure that does not include their substantial use of military education money. Even during the 2008 financial downturn, the top publicly traded for-profits enjoyed growth. Their upper management and shareholders benefit at the expense of American taxpayers and students."

Other matters:

The Obama Derangement Syndrome Comes Home: This demonization of President Obama has its most obvious and unprecedented consequences in foreign affairs, as Josh Marshall noted.  But it has become the excuse for Republicans to avoid dealing with domestic issues like immigration reform, as Kevin Drum writes in Mother Jones.

However, there's some statistical evidence that while President Obama's reelection has made mad-dog GOPers even madder, it has (temporarily, I would guess) deflated officially designated hate groups.

Paul Ryan has been caught cooking the research to support his war on the war on poverty.

On the subject of poverty and the Rabid Right, is there an alternative brewing within US conservatism?  Or was listening to the Dalai Lama just a stunt?

Speaking of cooking the research, a catalog of Putin's lies about Ukraine.  Nevertheless, Josh Marshall warns that fears of at least some members of the new government aren't baseless: there is a strong fascist faction.  But Marshall's chief conclusion is that Putin is showing weakness, not strength.  As well as showing his true KGB colors.