Selling Out the Public Domain

At Credit Writedowns (via nc links):

MICHAEL HUDSON, RESEARCH PROF., UMKC: Thanks for having me, Paul.
JAY: So why should ordinary Americans or ordinary North Americans care about what’s going on in Greece?
HUDSON: Because what’s happening in Greece is a dress rehearsal for what’s going on in the United States. Already, a few weeks ago in Athens, the protestors had signs up referring to Wisconsin and the problems here. What’s happening in Greece in the last week is exactly what’s happened in Minnesota with the close-down of government. And the demands of privatization–Greece sell off its roads, its land, its port authority, its water and sewer–is just what Illinois’s been doing, what Chicago’s been doing, what Minnesota’s been told to do, and what American cities are trying to do. So you have an identical strategy being used between Greece and the United States. Greece is the first domino since Iceland. And the financial interests that are looking at this post-2008 debt crisis as a grab bag think now is the chance for us to make our move. Now we can take all this debt that we’ve built up and we can get out of the financial system, we can turn it into direct ownership of property. We can own the Greek islands, we can own the Greek public domain, just like we can own what Minnesota, Chicago, Wisconsin, and California own. And all of a sudden you have a huge virtual foreclosure process.
JAY: Right, because, I mean, the alternative, obviously, would be to do something on the tax side, which is to tax, especially in Greece, where the wealthy practically pay no tax at all. Of course, the American scenario, they pay some tax, but not nearly historic tax rates. But this seems to be one of the prime objectives in the Greek situation is stripping the state of its assets and getting rid of what public ownership there is.
HUDSON: Well, this is what they tried to do in Iceland after trying to make the Icelandic government, meaning the taxpayers, liable for the bank losses that were basically a result of fraud. And that was stopped in Iceland by the president saying, wait a minute, if we’re going to push an economy into a generation of economic depression, there’d better be a vote on it; otherwise, it’s not legal. Underlying international law today is the idea that if a debt is taken on by a country, it has to be taken on democratically. Although the Icelandic Parliament went along with the debt, the Social Democratic Party, the people had voted against it, first of all, by over 90 percent, and then later they voted, a few months ago, against being liable for debts that legally they don’t owe by three to two.

Selling infrastructure is the worst ripoff for taxpayers.  These deals will never save taxpayers money.  They'll get a little money up front, andpay it back in spades over the long term.  Prior to the rise of conservative hatred of government, it was the government (taxpayers) which put up the money upfront, and the long-term savings were realized by taxpayers.  Now the conservatives have managed to privatize those long-term returns.  It is a crying shame.