AIG's private firefighters help out the rich

There's an excellent piece in the October Harper's by Naomi Klein that illustrates the trend toward civic privatization that F_B and I are worried about. It's called "Disaster Capitalism." It's very much worth reading.

 

That's hilarious. Can you imagine deciding to purchase that coverage?

"Brand new yacht? Of course. Art collection? Might be worth it. Ransom demands? Well, little Suzie is 17 years old now, and given my new job, it might not be a bad idea..."

 

It costs $16.97 to subscribe online. Why don't you summarize for us?

 

Happily. But I'll need a minute.

 

I'm a subscriber, so I took a second to see what, if any, of the piece was available online to clip or download. The answer is none - although with enough time and software savvy, I'm sure you could cut and paste something.

I did so because it's a very long piece, and I don't want to shortchange it with a rotten synopsis.

The gist is this: There is a trend gathering momentum in this country toward privatizing services traditionally thought of as being part of government. The most notable example being the contractors we now hire to go to war. But in the wake of Katrina, and events like the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, other areas of public safety are now being suggested as opportunities for private business. There's a lot of money to be made in disaster. And the money set aside by government for infrastructure seems to shrink every year. So why not a privately-funded, for-profit bridge? Why not bring in a Halliburton to house and feed hurricane survivors? Why struggle with a citywide fare hike, when you can simply privatize the subway system? Projects formerly undertaken by the commonwealth in service of all its citizens are now up for bid as private, for-profit projects.

The ultimate consequence to which is a rich America that can afford those services; and a poor America, which cannot.

I'm not doing it justice, but find a copy somewhere. It's chilling.

 

And I'm sure this privatization would be followed by a massive tax cut since our government won't have to pay for it anymore. I won't hold my breath.

With that said I don't see the problem with what AIG is doing. I can see there being demand for this in an area like SoCal.

 

To me it's something that as a supplement is good. The more people/entities pitching in, the better. The concept of out-and-out privatization of something like firefighters is a frightening one, though.

 

This sounds like a supplement rather than any outsourcing or privitization. You can question whether the government provides enough support and resources for fighting fires, but what AIG is doing is looking to protect, pardon the pun, its' assets. So long as they don't violate any laws or get in the way of the regular fire departments, I don't see a problem.

There is some precedent. In the early part of the 20th century, insurance companies paid for people to try to salvage property. When my father joined his fire department in the 1950s, he was assigned to the salvage department. It was hard work because they had to go on a lot of fires. What they did was try to cover property and preserve property as best they could.

When this job was originally started, the salvage men, as they were called, had their own jobs. Eventually, some of these people became part of the fire department. The municipal government probably decided that this was something the fire department should do. But when my father, who was a regular fireman, came on the job there were still a couple of people whose title was strictly salvage.

 

In rural parts of the country, private fire companies have been around for years. If you don't pay your membership dues, the local fire association won't send a truck to your house.

Most of the time, they are a volunteer organization and set up as a non-profit so you can deduct your contribution from your taxes.

 

Isn't privatization of current governmental functions merely the closing of a circle?

BTW, our local fire department is comprised mainly of volunteer firemen, with contributions to buy equipment. While local government does contribute and pay for some regular firefighters, the evenings and weekends are staffed by volunteers. Meanwhile, the State government subsidizes the big city fire department, with no volunteers.
To recap, we pay for our local fire department, local citizens volunteer to serve and local residents contribute voluntarily to said fire department. Meanwhile, out paychecks get deducted for a state income tax which redistributes our income to out lying communities to pay for their services because they do not volunteer nor pay for their own services and they in turn provide no benefit to us.

 

A private sector business works to keep its costs down, and succeeds. And that pisses off Fenian.

Why am I not surprised?

 

The rich has had its own private police force in Brentwood, Malibu, Beverly Hills and Bel Air for years and now AIG has its own fire department when forest fires go crazy...Private police does not respond to burglary at a house next to its client so why should this forest fire department be any different??? I believe AIG also runs one of the security/police units in the above area.