At the last Ramsey HRA meeting, Colin McGlone argued that he saw subsidizing Flaherty-&-Collins as "a public private partnership" as if that is something good, or desirable; (perhaps in his thinking inherently so, beyond its sounding like a catchy but empty advertising slogan - a P3).
The term "public private partnership" might seem to some to be a term coined by Landform and locals, e.g. here, the Landform prepared slide and pony presentation part at p.9 et seq., these images (click a thumbnail to enlarge and read about P3):
P3's have their own Wikipedia page even, here, with variant growth existing from a mature concept, see, Wikipedia pages here and here. Look at those last two, and remember, Colin McGlone likes P3. Want more? Here, an exposition with "criticism" even. Make sense of that last one if you can. Across the Atlantic, P3 thrives. A Euro-zone buzzword. There even is a slide-show online item that Lazan may have cribbed from or learning of it, may crib from it in the future; e.g., these:
Have a look, here. Lazan's stuff and this stuff looks as if dropped out of the same bull. And there's more - is this Lazan-ish, or what:
Can't you imagine, change the tan tone, stick a big COR across the top, and everywhere it says "Council" put in COR, diddle the font, attribute the quote to Heidi Nelson COR-wise, and stick it somewhere here.
Wrap-up time: History has a say also, on public-private interplay; and while readers should read Lew Rockwell post content skeptically as politically-biased (but interesting in small doses), this Lew Rockwell post is one I could not resist quoting [go to original for footnote links]:
So-called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a “model” by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe. A version of economic fascism was in fact adopted in the United States in the 1930s and survives to this day. In the United States these policies were not called “fascism” but “planned capitalism.” The word fascism may no longer be politically acceptable, but its synonym “industrial policy” is as popular as ever.
Few Americans are aware of or can recall how so many Americans and Europeans viewed economic fascism as the wave of the future during the 1930s. The American Ambassador to Italy, Richard Washburn Child, was so impressed with “corporatism” that he wrote in the preface to Mussolini's 1928 autobiography that “it may be shrewdly forecast that no man will exhibit dimensions of permanent greatness equal to Mussolini. . . . The Duce is now the greatest figure of this sphere and time.”[1] Winston Churchill wrote in 1927 that “If I had been an Italian I am sure I would have been entirely with you” and “don the Fascist black shirt.”[2] As late as 1940, Churchill was still describing Mussolini as “a great man.”
[...] Certain British intellectuals were perhaps the most smitten of anyone by fascism. George Bernard Shaw announced in 1927 that his fellow “socialists should be delighted to find at last a socialist [Mussolini] who speaks and thinks as responsible rulers do.”[4] He helped form the British Union of Fascists whose “Outline of the Corporate State,” according to the organization's founder, Sir Oswald Mosley, was “on the Italian Model.” While visiting England, the American author Ezra Pound declared that Mussolini was “continuing the task of Thomas Jefferson.”[5]
[...] The Washington, D.C.—based Center for National Policy has also published a report authored by businessmen from Lazard Freres, du Pont, Burroughs, Chrysler, Electronic Data Systems, and other corporations promoting an allegedly “new” policy based on “cooperation of government with business and labor.”[23] Another report, by the organization “Rebuild America,” co-authored in 1986 by Robert Reich and economists Robert Solow, Lester Thurow, Laura Tyson, Paul Krugman, Pat Choate, and Lawrence Chimerine urges “more teamwork” through “public-private partnerships among government, business and academia.”[24] This report calls for “national goals and targets” set by government planners who will devise a “comprehensive investment strategy” that will only permit “productive” investment, as defined by government, to take place.
And here is what resonates in that post, with Flaherty-&-Collins, the gang-of-four, and Landform's P3 in mind:
Whenever politicians start talking about “collaboration” with business, it is time to hold on to your wallet. Despite the fascist rhetoric about “national collaboration” and working for the national, rather than private, interests, the truth is that mercantilist and Protectionist practices riddled the system. Italian social critic Gaetano Salvemini wrote in 1936 that under corporatism, “it is the state, i.e., the taxpayer, who has become responsible to private enterprise. In Fascist Italy the state pays for the blunders of private enterprise.”[25] As long as business was good, Salvemini wrote, “profit remained to private initiative.”[26] But when the depression came, “the government added the loss to the taxpayer's burden. Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social.”[27]
[...] “Three-quarters of the Italian economic system,” Mussolini boasted in 1934, “had been subsidized by government.”[28]
And with gang-of-four eagerness toward parallel massive "corporatist" ramp-wrap-rental subsidy, per giveaway parking and provision of multi-million dollar banking services by City of Ramsey to Mr. Flaherty's LLC, another modest suggestion is that perhaps Landform with majority approval by the Ramsey HRA, might change the Town Center P3 rebranding symbol-&-color scheme:
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| Photo source, Wikipedia, here. |
I hope the gang-of-four is happier I am not referring to their efforts as "socialism" in this post.
______________UPDATE_____________
This link, for a related concept, privatize profits socialize losses; where gang-of-four Flaretyization is a precursor, privatize potential for profits, socialize risk of loss.
Details vary, but this is the same mentality underlying Bush-Bernanke-Bailout activity, and the Savings-and-Loan bailout of Bush Sr.
The Second Bush bailout was with Bernanke given an atta-boy retention by the man of promised change, B. H. Obama.
Some want reform to start from the local level, up, thinking it is never going to happen top-down. I believe the Tossey vote against the ramp expansion falls into that category.
Presently a reason why banks are not lending to a lot to folks like David Flaherty might be due to Mr. Bernanke's instituting the Fed paying interest to banks to maintain excess reserves so that instead of lending at any risk they can park money with Bernanke's henchmen and get risk-free returns to where regular business people like Flaherty are scratching their heads and wondering where the credit has gone and small community banks are unable to deal normally with correspondent banks because of the big directly connected banks parking money with the Fed instead of putting it in the economy as in the normal course of banking. People wonder why the depression continues unabated, with a partial answer being banks are doing just fine NOT lending money. It stinks. But that does not mean City of Ramsey should become Mr. Flaherty's bank. It means there's perhaps a lamp-post with Bernanke's name on it to some more bloodthirsty than I am, but that should not be cause for city officials to put Ramsey behind the eight ball.
Readers, the links on the effect of banks parking excess reserves at the Fed for risk-free earnings were found on a hasty search. I have seen better analysis online but could not quickly relocate it. If readers have a better or more clear link about why lending and credit have dried up, including the interest payment on reserves by the Fed, please add a comment. There is this, with links here (an internal Fed study), and here. (Forbes, earlier, here). I have not read that Fed study, and expect it would not be overtly critical of its own senior-set policy and practices, but the chart on this page is astounding.
________________FURTHER UPDATE_______________
Is this credible to you? Bernanke gives a speech. A Jacksons Hole speech. Transcript online, here. A bankers' banker, talking to big-time bankers. He obliquely blames everybody else. A word search "reserves" has no hits. He declines mentioning excess reserves parked by big banks with the Fed, earning risk-free interest. Is he disingenuous? Should he be fired?
Next, is union short-term myopia shooting themselves in the foot, this link? It seems to be syndicalism to me. Do you remember the miserably awful gas-guzzling cars of the 1970's where if you got 100,000 miles from one you were special? That was when Detroit had an oligopoly, GM, Ford, Chrysler and the UAW all on the same page with only the public, consumers, made to suffer. The airlines had cozy market carving per government regulation and pilots were making out-of-line salaries, but the flying public had few options but to go along? The role of government is no more to promote syndicalism than to bankroll an out-of-town landlord's adventures, on the local level. If the government errs, who suffers? Taxpayers and consumers? Anyone else? Not bankers. Not large multinationals expanding every day in India and China. Not politicians using the into-lobbying revolving door as soon as out of office by their choice or choice of an electorate. I think taxpayers and consumers is it. Franken seems correct if this reported situation is correctly reported, and he is opposing further concentration in information handling services in the nation.