The Chutzpah of Peter Orszag

If chutzpah is killing your parents then throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you’re an orphan then Peter Orszag is the poster child for chutzpah.  In his recent article in Bloomberg News he insists the best fix for the post office is to take it private.  Where does the chutzpah come from?  Orszag … Read More

Texas Judge Rules The Sky Belongs To Us All

Date: 25 Jul 2012 | posted in: From the Desk of David Morris, The Public Good | 2 Facebooktwitterredditmail

“Texas judge rules atmosphere, air is a public trust”, reads the headline in the Boston Globe.  A tiny breakthrough but with big potential consequences.  And as we continue to suffer from one of the most extended heat waves in US history, as major crops wither and fires rage in a dozen states, we need all the … Read More

Noam Chomsky, the Magna Carta and the Commons

Date: 23 Jul 2012 | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

When Noam Chomsky speaks, we should all listen.  In a recent speech at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland he examines the history of that hallowed document, the Magna Carta in a way your history classes probably did not.  Chomsky begins by noting there were two Charters.  One dealt with defending the people from a … Read More

Et tu Europe?

Date: 12 Jul 2012 | posted in: Public Good News | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Europe is taking a page from the U.S. playbook. “Local governments, desperate to find a way to preserve… (historic) sites before it is too late,” the Washington Post reports, “are making up for budget shortfalls by hanging ads, selling usage rights and, in some cases, putting the structures themselves on the market.” In France, the caretakers of Versailles … Read More

A Wal Mart Becomes a Public Library

Date: 9 Jul 2012 | posted in: agriculture | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

What’s the opposite of privatization? Publicization? In McAllen, Texas, an abandoned Wal Mart the size of more than two football fields has been converted into the country’s largest single story public library. The project won the 2012 Library Interior Design Awards. Unlike Wal Mart the library is a public institution. It won’t move or close without … Read More

“We’re not going to attack the people who have been there for us.”

Every June the Campaign for America’s Future hosts the well-attended and content-rich Take Back America Conference in Washington, D.C. This year Van Jones, one of the most dynamic speakers in America, with a list of accomplishments long enough that I’ll simply refer you to Wikipedia, delivered an inspiring Keynote Address in which he offered his perspective … Read More

Our Winnipeg or Theirs?

A new video, released on June 15th by the Canadian Union for Public Employees proves you can communicate a big idea–the privatization of municipal services–by looking at the issue through the eyes of school children. The 5 minute video, made by Winnipeg artists Sean and Christian Procter, uses a light touch and animated figures to convey … Read More

Business Can’t Win the Privatization Game Without a Handicap

Date: 4 Jun 2012 | posted in: From the Desk of David Morris, The Public Good | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Handicapping occurs in sports to equalize the winning chances of contestants of varying abilities. Sometimes, as in horse racing, superior horses, based on past performance, are required to carry more weight.  Sometimes, as in golf, poorer players are allowed more strokes. Unbeknownst to most of us, the competition between the public and private sectors is also … Read More

A City is Not a Private Corporation Austin Reminds Us

A private corporation has one legal obligation:  to maximize the return to its shareholders.  As Milton Friedman famously remarked, “There is one and only one social responsibility of business-to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profit….” A city is also legally structured as a corporation, but a municipal corporation has a … Read More

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