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Something that has been overlooked in the Wisconsin situation related to the Koch Brothers. The bill gives the Koch Brothers no-bid contracts and gives the right to buy up utilities.
From the EconomicPolicyJournal.com and Rortybomb
Rotrybomb identifies what may be a huge benefit for the Koch Brothers in the Governor Walker’s “Budget Repair Bill”: No-Bid Energy Assets Firesales. Huh, just by coincidence the Koch Brothers are the largest private controllers of energy in the world.
the department may sell any state−owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state.
As I state above, I doubt the breaking up of unions isn’t in the interest of the Kochs, but this new find in the budget “repair” bill, makes it clear that this isn’t about the promotion of free markets, though it is packaged that way. It really is about the special interest edge. In this case it provides for energy buyers, such as the Kochs, to grab assets without having to actually bid against others for them. This isn’t a play coming from the books of Mises, Hayek and Rothbrad. It’s a play coming out of the playbook of the Russian oligarchs who used the confusion of the collapse of the Soviet Union, under the guise of privatization, to grab as much of the wealth of Russia as they could before anyone noticed what was going on.
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Walker also stopped work on converting a coal-powered energy plant for UW-Madison into burning biomass. He decided it was too expensive to limit carbon emissions.
However, it will be converted to burn natural gas, which was part of the conversion process.
http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/5238/new-wisconsin-governor-ends-uw-madison-biomass-project
Hhhmmm…. Walker doesn’t do green, unless its greenbacks from the Koch Bros.
This is a real find, fml!
No wonder Walker wanted the Wisconsin Senate to vote on that bill without hearings.
Who here has not yet read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine? First we had 9/11, then we had the Great Recession. The shccks will be felt for a long time; we can expect more grabs set up by the elected ‘leadership’ at all levels of government.
great job,, thanks
Good post, FML. Recommended.
Now where is the MSM when you need them?
Why squawking about the need for shared sacrifice, of course!
first we had the goldman sux devouring octopus,now we have KochFIREBREATHING coal and oil stealing dragon
who will be ST.George to come and slay these monsters?
Tit for tat. The MSM squeal on the Koch Brothers and their puppet gubner?
The Koch Brothers and their friends own the MSM including NPR.
The tactics here are what the Russian Oligarchs with help from Goldman , Larry Summers and other did to the remains of the Soviet Union. These are fucking Pirates and the Union busting is just part of their game. Looting the State of it’s public assets like Power plants etc. is their main goal.
you got that right
Great find! Something stinks in Wisconsin, and it ain’t cheese…
Very important catch!
This is exactly what will expose Walker as a stooge of the corporatocracy (and most particularly, the Kochs) — that is, if the mainstream press can be shamed into reporting it.
naGonnahappen
This is an example of what the Kleptocracy calls free-market capitalism.
That’s a market, free of competition.
Free-market capitalists like the Koch boys endeavor to arrange for monopolistic control of the markets in which they operate.
They have idiots like Walker hold us down so they can show the workings of the invisible hand.
Recommended.
I remember the public outcry in the early 2000s when the Governor of Maryland said he was going to sell state forests to private entities. There was an immediate stop put to that. This was before the wave of identity/asset canvassing, followed by the identity thefts then the onset of the early illegal mortgage foreclosure attempts that I saw.
So, this very important strategic discovery means communities must keep their collective hands on the public wallet and, like a hawk, keep an eye on all public properties/monies and other assets all the way down to the village water supply.
every time we repeat the words ‘budget repair bill’, with or without quotes, we are repeating a republican frame. It oughta be, simply and accurately, the’budget bill’. The Wisconsin budget was not broke and it did not need repair. Frames are powerful, folks. Just ask George Lakoff. (who must feel like some kinda Cassandra. the left keeps ignoring him while the right goes on winning the frame wars.)
“The Wisconsin budget was not broke and it did not need repair”
Really? I thought the state’s deficit was expected to grow to three billion over the next two years.
The governor gave away tax cuts to his bidness buddies of $140M at the very start of his admin and this year’s budget is supposed to be short $137M – maybe not giving away revenues to bidness buddies might have kept the Wisconsin budget from needing repair.
And the source of the $3B out of balance is the governor who created the mess who states that the concessions offered by the public sector unions are not enough so he has to lay off workers if he can’t get hsi banning of collective bargaining rights?
Surely that vaunted ironymeter of yours is buried on the irony involved, right?
Walker began his tenure as Governor on January 3, 2011: which Governor created the $3B mess?
Try not to let your personal animosity for me obscure the facts.
Well it wouldn’t be the governor who left office with a budget that was going to be showing a surplus would it? And again, if the budget was so dire when Walker came into office, why did he cut all those taxes for his cronies?
“Well it wouldn’t be the governor who left office with a budget that was going to be showing a surplus would it?”
Do you have a link to that budget, please?
Here is a plot for a spy thriller.
This could be the plot:
A couple of rich brothers “buy” a (third world) state election. The brothers corrupt the executive and legislative branch of state government. The brothers get no bid contract to take over energy production for the state.
Wait, wait, wasn’t this the plot of Quantum of Solace?
Wisconsin tax payers are screwed once Koch gots the power then rate increases with Walker in charge are a given. In the old days people invested in power companies because it was safe and profits were regulated to pay for expected increases in power demand from growth of population.
Deregulation led to Enron speculation the Koach brothers want a captive monopoly.
I am not sure no bid contracts are legal fixing bids so a specific person or firm is the only choice to get a government contract I think is illegal.
And the hits keep coming……I really think,after CUvFEC that the republicans who got “elected” with corporate campaign cash really just got “loans” to pay back in the hides of their states citizens.
In my state it was all of a sudden the “deficit was the same amount the governor-elect got in campaign contributions.
A license to steal.
Let’s hope they get a little leery after Wisconsin and all but they can always lay back in the tall grass and hit us when we forget…which will be about 2 weeks after the protests stop.
This Walker guy is something else. Despots unite!!!!
I wonder if the protesters know this little bit of information?
I do know we’ve been selling America piece by piece, both locally and abroad, since Bush overspent on his ill-conceived wars.
Same thing is happening in my state. Recall the “rolling blackouts” in TX a few weeks ago when a blue norther came thru? Well a lot of people in my state, the Indian pueblos first ( interesting) didn’t have heat!
PNM was involved in the Enron scam selling electricity back and forth to CA to artificially drive up prices in CA.
Maybe I’m wrong but the whole thing stank of Enron to me.
Why don’t you find your own link since you’re so interested? It’s out there: try Alternet
Agreed….it’s greed run wild
Because, Kassandra, “#9 If you are posting a quote or fact, provide a link if possible to an original source or to other supporting material.”
I’m sure you can understand why I’m a little curious about what budget (or what Governor?) dakine01 is referring to in saying “left office with a budget that was going to be showing a surplus” considering that former Governor Jim Doyle’s 2011 – 2013 budget projected a shortfall of between 1.5 and 2.2 billion:
http://media.journalinteractive.com/documents/DOA_requests.pdf
Never mind: I think I figured out what your “source” was.
Did you happen to watch Rachel Maddow on Feb. 17? “Despite what you may have heard about Wisconsin’s finances, the state is on track to have a budget surplus this year,” she said. “I am not kidding.”
Now, don’t take this personally, I’m laughing at her, not at you:
ROFLMAO!