Tom Hartmann

[don]

19 JULY 2014

Thom Hartmann: The Crash of 2016








This is a view of how we got here and where we are going that you are unlikely to hear from the mainstream media.

Jess's Cafe Americain

[vt]

Re: Tom Hartmann

Tom Hartmann and his wife have done very admirable work with abused and learning disabled children. They also have done quite a bit of international relief work; helping set up hospitals, famine relief programs, schools, and refugee centers.

Unfortunately he has not overcome his SDS days and his solutions are straight out of Pitekky's playbook. Print more debt and soak the rich. cap and trade, and more government control.

The endorsers of the book are a whos who of the today's left

The ITulip solutions of far less FIRE, much more TECI, and public-private partnerships are far, far superior than Hartmann's failed SDS socialist agenda.

[don]

Re: Tom Hartmann

The ITulip solutions of far less FIRE, much more TECI, and public-private partnerships are far, far superior

far less FIRE
+1

more TECI
I assume - not sure what the acronym literally stands for - a larger role for engineers in the economy?

public-private partnerships
These have become the norm, the salient characteristic of oligarchy capitalism.

So we have ambitious, bright entrepreneurial engineers, financed with government grants, unencumbered by FIRE, leading us out of our political-economic morass.

Nice story.

Didn't Isaac Asimov write this back in the 60s?

[Slimprofits]

Re: Tom Hartmann

This caught my attention earlier in the week:

http://blogs.rollcall.com/the-contai...ps-obama/?dcz=

In Delaware on Thursday, President Barack Obama will announce a new “one-stop shop” for state and local governments who need guidance on how to partner with private-sector investors raise money for infrastructure projects.

Obama will unveil the Build America Transportation Investment Center, to be housed at the Department of Transportation.

The center will offer advice to state and local officials on public-private partnerships, or P3s, and will encourage use of existing programs such as Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loans, the White House said in its background briefing on the president’s announcement.

Obama’s Delaware event comes as a major P3 conference opens in Washington, sponsored by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.

[vt]

Re: Tom Hartmann

Don it takes money to do these things.

Does it all come from governments alone, along with the inefficiencies of bureaucracies? Or does it come from a partnership with the efficiency of private companies
managing the projects. With a partnership you can have government oversight to insure fairness.

[GRG55]

Re: Tom Hartmann

far less FIRE
+1

more TECI
I assume - not sure what the acronym literally stands for - a larger role for engineers in the economy?

TECI stands for Transportation, Energy and Communications Infrastructure. My recollection first coming across the acronym and the reformed economic model it represents was in EJ's 2010 book "The Postcatastrophe Economy".

public-private partnerships
These have become the norm, the salient characteristic of oligarchy capitalism.

These have become the norm of the rentier FIRE economy...which our worthless politicians and large numbers of our so-called public civil servants (hardly any of which would seem to qualify as oligarchs) seem to have embraced passionately as the means to fund their endless growing empires.

So we have ambitious, bright entrepreneurial engineers, financed with government grants, unencumbered by FIRE, leading us out of our political-economic morass.

Nice story.

Didn't Isaac Asimov write this back in the 60s?

Who knows. Some of those "ambitious, bright entrepreneurial engineers" might even create a few durable long term jobs in the homeland. Stranger things have happened. Beats the hell out of another "Cash for Clunkers" mentality government stimulus program, QE v.7, or some other short term "job growth" program that comes at the expense of even more long term public debt.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Tom Hartmann

http://www.ppp-disasters.com/

[vt]

Re: Tom Hartmann

Public private partnerships can also be positive. Not every one is a success.

http://www.ncppp.org/ppp-basics/top-...ts-about-ppps/

Please note:

FIRE, TECI, and the use of public private partnerships are all part of what EJ has been discussing for years. TECI overtaking FIRE as the dominate part of the economy, and
public-private partnerships as one way to finance them

[GRG55]

Re: Tom Hartmann

Public private partnerships can also be positive. Not every one is a success.

http://www.ncppp.org/ppp-basics/top-...ts-about-ppps/

Please note:

FIRE, TECI, and the use of public private partnerships are all part of what EJ has been discussing for years. TECI overtaking FIRE as the dominate part of the economy, and
public-private partnerships as one way to finance them

No disagreement.

Investment banking, Federal Reserve stimulus, home mortgage debt, Big Macs, frozen pizza and a host of other things including P3 can be enjoyable (and some perhaps even beneficial) in moderation and under the appropriate circumstances.

Unfortunately our self-centered, immediate gratification, me-first societies now seem incapable of anything but bingeing on all of the above, and more. And therein lies the danger...the belief that P3 is the holy grail of solutions to the problem of inadequate funding of public infrastructure, or incompetent administration of public funds on large scale projects. The private sector has always played a significant role in our national infrastructure, bidding on contracts and bringing the best and most competitive technologies and project management/project execution skills to the table. The resulting infrastructure was of high quality and generally accessible without (excessive) charge to everyone regardless of income level. What I see too often now is publicly owned infrastructure being sold off for a song to eliminate the maintenance cost line item on the budget before the next election, or the replacement of public infrastructure with toll facilities that disadvantage the low income cohort who most need and use those very same roads, bridges, trains and subways to get to their minimum wage jobs. The rich don't need public parks or municipal water supply systems...they can buy their own. I don't think it's a good idea to let them buy up the ones that everyone else depends on.

[shiny!]

Re: Tom Hartmann

No disagreement.

Investment banking, Federal Reserve stimulus, home mortgage debt, Big Macs, frozen pizza and a host of other things including P3 can be enjoyable (and some perhaps even beneficial) in moderation and under the appropriate circumstances.

Unfortunately our self-centered, immediate gratification, me-first societies now seem incapable of anything but bingeing on all of the above, and more. And therein lies the danger...the belief that P3 is the holy grail of solutions to the problem of inadequate funding of public infrastructure, or incompetent administration of public funds on large scale projects. The private sector has always played a significant role in our national infrastructure, bidding on contracts and bringing the best and most competitive technologies and project management/project execution skills to the table. The resulting infrastructure was of high quality and generally accessible without (excessive) charge to everyone regardless of income level. What I see too often now is publicly owned infrastructure being sold off for a song to eliminate the maintenance cost line item on the budget before the next election, or the replacement of public infrastructure with toll facilities that disadvantage the low income cohort who most need and use those very same roads, bridges, trains and subways to get to their minimum wage jobs. The rich don't need public parks or municipal water supply systems...they can buy their own. I don't think it's a good idea to let them buy up the ones that everyone else depends on.

+1.

Perhaps instead of "Transportation, Energy and Communications Infrastructure," TECI could stand for "Transportation, Energy, Communications AND Infrastructure." Highways, bridges, municipal water and sewage systems, electric grids, even schools... Better to create good blue collar jobs in these areas than in new home construction.