Bubbles and Obama

Several weeks ago, I read "The Next Bubble" by Eric Janszen in the February, 2008 issue of Harper's Magazine.

The next bubble got most of my attention. Janszen predicts that “There is one industry that fits the bill: alternative energy, the development of more energy-efficient products, along with viable alternatives to oil, including wind, solar, and geothermal power, along with the use of nuclear energy to produce sustainable oil substitutes, such as liquefied hydrogen from water.”

I didn’t pay much attention to this statement: “Supporting this alternative-energy bubble will be a boom in infrastructure—transportation and communications systems, water, and power…. After last August’s bridge collapse in Minnesota, it took only a week for libertarian Robert Poole, director of transportation studies for the Reason Foundation to renew the call for “highway public-private partnerships funded by tolls….” [emphasis mine]

Toll roads? Privatized highways only for those who can afford them? I’ve saved several articles about toll roads, including The New York Times January 19th article, "Work is Afoot to Take the Free Out of Freeway." And I joined forces with others here in California to fight the successful battle to stop a six lane toll road through San Onofre State Beach.

Now I’m learning that there’s more than public highways, open to everyone, at stake. It appears that presidential candidate Barack Obama is calling for a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank. The weekend edition of Information Clearinghouse posted "Barack Obama Fronts Wall Street's Infrastructure" by Bruce Marshall. I don’t know enough about the author to simply swallow everything in the article, but I’m now paying attention to public-private partnerships, “PPPs.”

I found another online article, "Barack Obama and the Gentrification of America - The Manchurian Messiah?" by Xenophon. Excerpt: “Soon, when the Messiah Obama is president, the NIC [National Investment Corporation], under the guise of the National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank (NIRB), will begin the process of national gentrification by collateralizing our roads, schools, public utilities and housing turning America into a feudal zone of private toll roads, school buildings, water and gas lines. We will have to pay tolls and taxes on everything. Welcome to gentrified America.”

Marshall and Xenophon are searingly critical of privatizing our infrastructure and Obama for supporting it. Will a NIRB create yet another bubble that will inevitably burst? I don’t know. I’m opposed to privatizing infrastructure but support Obama. However, I know that it’s important to be open to new information.

(caracature of Obama : Publius Pundit)

ClintObama Inc.

February 5th is "Super Tuesday." Twenty-two states, including California and New York, will be holding their primaries at which 50.9% of the Democratic delegates will be selected.

So what’s the big deal? According to Jon Spitz,* it’s no big deal whether Senator Hillary Clinton or Senator Barack Obama win. Hey dude! We have a woman and an African-American running for office. Isn’t this a big deal? According to Spitz, yes and no.

The physical differences between them are obvious, and as Jon states in his article, ClintObama Inc., “This [neither contender is a white man] is indeed an unprecedented situation in US presidential politics and I think generally deserving of the attention it gets.”

But Spitz thinks it “…[W]ould be a big mistake to believe that either of these two candidates, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York or Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, really represent any great change from the corporate controlled government we have long suffered.”

Read the whole article here.

*I’ve posted links to Jon’s previous articles here, here, here, here, and here)

(photo of Jon Spitz provided by him)