Northeast Blackout 2003 > Cost to taxpayer in billions. Bailout Nation
Several private energy companies were told that their grids were dated and needed to be updated immediately. They were told by federal regulators that their grids would fail, and the consequences would be disastrous.
These companies did want to assume greater debt because they worried this would hurt stock valuation; therefore, they decided not to re-invest.
Consequently, their grids failed and the taxpayer was on the hook for billions - Bush bailed the energy companies out with taxpayer dollars.
Reagan told us that these companies would invest in infrastructure on their own incentive - but these private companies do not need to invest because they have lobbied the federal government into a bailout nanny state. Capitalism has always depended on a dynamic interventionist state to make sure profit makers had the fruits of reliable transportation, police protection, laws, etc. (Does anyone know the legal infrastructure required by one futures market?) When it snows, government plows the streets so consumers can reach business - and the wheels of profit can keep spinning. Without government help, capital would not exist.
The market is not going to build the next Hoover Dam. It is not going to build the roads, bridges, energy grids, water plants, etc., that are necessary for commerce. It is not going to pay for the police forces which protect property or the great public universities which educate its workforce. It is not going to build sewers and ditches. The markets staggering profits are based on an immense public investment.
(Capital investment is safe in the USA because of an expensive network of police and laws. This is not the case in the 3rd world, where American capital requires immense Pentagon support to protect supply chains. Who pays for this Michele Bachman, you idiot?)
The market has long depended on the taxpayer to socialize its costs & risks of . . . . while it privatizes the profit. The Reagan Revolution lied to a generation of people by telling them that government did nothing. This is the greatest lie ever invented, and it was invented by capital to lower its tax obligation to the public, which is now withering away.
Then when the people try to come after their investment in the form of higher taxes - so there is money to fund programs that benefit the hard working middle class - these companies pay talk radio to scream socialism.
Commerce and high population centers in the Southwest was made possible by the Hoover Dam. The 80s consumer electronics boom came out of technology developed in the Cold War Pentagaon & Space Program. Government funded R&D - performed at publicly funded universities - has ungirded technological advances for over 1/2 a century. (Do Republicans know the amount of public aid that has gone into developing just the computer/internet, biotechnology, and agribusiness alone?). And what about commercial air travel which has benefited immensely from public investment in aerospace technology. (Does the GOP know the amount of the subsidies pumped into Boeing? The figures would melt their brains)
The public has subsidized and bailed out profit makers from the beginning. Profit makers have depended on public infrastructure from the beginning. Who do you think stabilizes dangerous regions of the world when a particular supply chain is threatened? Where do you think Walmart's products are made? Answer: dangerous places that require government military support. Does anyone know why America maintains a global network of bases? So that it can make the world safe for the flow of resources. (Does the GOP understand how much of the Pentagon budget goes into securing the global market system - which ensures the reliable flow of capital and profits? Attention Michele Bachman: it's not all your money; it was made possible by the poor hard working taxpayer who pays into a government system which subsidizes and protects your profit. You imbecile) The reason the country is failing is because profit-makes - through targeted investments in the GOP and rightwing media - have successfully convinced the country that it owes nothing in return.
The short term gains of not paying their fair share of taxes are as massive as the short term gains made by energy companies who decided not to update their grids. This country has been destroyed by short-term profit makers who have parachuted to safety after looting the taxpayer, present and future. The old model was this: if the country enables your profit, than you are taxed in order to make the country stronger; in order to build a world class public university system and an efficient transportation system. The new model is this: use your profits to cover-up how much help you have received from government.
Ever consider what James Madison considered General Welfare, or Hamilton up until the time he reversed Himself?
