Eduardo Porter is a journalist for the Economics column of the New York Times. He began his career twenty years ago as a financial reporter for Notimex, a Mexican news organization . He then moved to The Wall Street Journal in 2000, and then later moved again to The New York Times in 2004 (New York Times). In his article “Prisons Run by C.E.O.s? Privatization Under Trump Could Carry a Heavy Price,” Porter discusses President Trump’s belief in the privatization of many departments. These departments include prisons, health care services, and public infrastructure. Porter continues to explain how privatizing certain departments would not be beneficial to society. Porter’s focus in the beginning of the article is the cons of the privatization …show more content…
The author proceeds to insert a quote by Raymond Firman, a professor of economics at Boston University. Firman says, “There’s a magical thinking among business executives that something about the profit motive makes everything run better. What is government going to be like when it is run by billionaire CEOs that see the private sector as a solution to all the world’s problems?” This quote does nothing but hastily generalize all business executives. It does not provide any evidence help Porter’s …show more content…
He mentions a study in Sweden that found privatized nursing homes improved the mortality rates of the patients. Unlike the rest of the evidence in the article, this study is not cited. Instead of providing the source of the study for the reader to analyze, Porter expects the reader to trust what he writes. The lack of citation for this study delegitimizes his belief in privatization being useful in certain industries. He continues to explain that despite the benefits that could arise from privatizing, companies may cut corners to increase profits. Porter does not give any examples or statistics to support his claim. Porter concludes this article by presenting the thoughts of Professor Hart, a man who won the Nobel Prize in economic sciences. Hart is not completely against privatization, but he believes there are some industries that should be ran by the
Lance has been actively coordinating political action for prison reform since 2007. He is President of the AFSCME, a union for correctional employees throughout the state of Texas. The AFSCME has national representation with 1.6 million members; Lance represents about 5000 Texas correctional workers, about one-eighth of Texas’s total correctional staff, which includes non-correctional employees like parole, victim services, etc. There are roughly 26,000 Correctional Officers in Texas, but whether the state is staffed to that capacity is open to debate. There are typically officer shortages, give or take 3000 at any given time. Today, Texas faces the most severe shortages of correctional staff they have seen. I asked Lance why he thought the Texas Prisons were in such storage for Correctional ...
Rain can sometimes have a symbolic meaning. It can be shown as something pure or the washing away of someone's wrong doings. On the other hand snow can be seen as something different. Wether it's cold and inhuman and stark. However it can also be seen as pure.
Jacoby uses many claims about how crime in the United States has grown and the how faulty America’s justice system currently is. One claim said that citizens pay around “$30,000 per inmate each year” (Jacoby 197). This grasps the reader’s attention by connecting their life to the problem; it is their money, a lot of their money, being used to imprison these criminals. The rates have increased on inmates since the 1980s by over 250% (Jacoby 197). Jacoby declares that the prison system is terrible; he uses accurate and persuading evidence.
Private prisons are correctional institutions ran by for-profit corporations. They claim to cost less than prisons ran by the state, while offering the same level of service. In fact, the Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest for-profit prison corporations, states that their business strategy is to provide quality corrections service while offering a better value to their government partners at the same time making a profit (CCA 2010). However, opponents of private prisons say they do not save states money because of their hidden cost. At any rate, more than a few states have found private prisons to be advantageous. For one reason, many states are facing massive deficits and are l...
Brown, Robbie and Kim Severson. "Enlisting Prison Labor to Close Budget Gaps." The New York Times 24 February 2011.
Therefore, they argued that the drive to fill new prisons with people were driven by the ideologies of racism and the pursuit of profit and money (Davis). Also, the prison industrial complex states that punishment is the result of economic and political structures as well as ideologies instead of trying to deter crime (Davis). It was stated that many corporations with global markets actually rely on prisons as a source of profit, not only in the United States but also in Europe, South America and Australia. The prison industrial complex is fueled by privatization because of how much privatization has changed areas such as healthcare and education which in turn has increased the presence of private corporations in the prison economy which has lead to the existence of private prisons.The private prison trends are “reminiscent of the historical efforts to create a profitable punishment industry based on the new supply of “free” black laborers in the aftermath of the Civil War” (Davis,
David A. Wells wrote a piece in which it talked about the workers in factories. When the workers are not taught any skills and are directed to do one job, they are essentially disposable. This make it very unstable for the workers and their families. This method is based off Frederick Winslow Taylor’s idea of Taylorism. It is a way to organize factory work so that unskilled workers can do the easy jobs and be paid the minimum amount. This method creates a huge amount of money for owners and trusts. On the other hand, the workers are facing constant fear of losing their jobs. Because Wells believes in the well being of society, he does not agree with this method of Taylorism. It takes away the pride and purpose in even having a job. While this may help the general economy, it hurts the American working people. While some believe that the entrepreneurs and trusts are over powerful, unfail, and ruthless, there are other who feel they have an opportunity to help the workers. Andrew Carnegie’s book Wealth talks about setting an example my living a modest life. When one has a surplus of revenues, his duty is to help his fellow Americans that are poor. Carnegie, being a wealthy entrepreneurs has enough experience to understand and tell others like him that they must help the poorer communities. Andrew Carnegie led by example by helping build more than 2,800 libraries as well as building and opening a university. George Rice an oil producer and businessman talks about Rockefeller and his Standard Oil ruined him. Rice’s Ohio Oil company was taken down by Standard Oil. By offering cheaper oil, RIce’s company was simply run out of business. Rice, however, was not the only victim. Many other companies had been destroyed by Rockefeller just like this. By doing this the economy’s diversity was torn to shreds. This makes it harder to find oil at competitive prices, hurting the economy. With the
When the topic of American economics arises, the infamous Robber Barons of the 19th Century often springs to mind. They are often glorified as "Captains of Industry" for their money making strategies and enterprising methods. Those who hold this view probably do not know the evils of the laissez-faire capitalism in which the Robber Barons believed and participated. They wanted an unrestricted system of economics so that they could amass as much money as they could to out do each other and control the power in society. They were not as glorious and generous as some people make them out to have been.
Shockingly, there seem to be a few people who actually profits from keeping people in jails. The practice of mass incarceration who most see as a major problem in the United States of America is actually beneficial to some. The prison system in the United States who was create to keep dangerous criminals at bay is now a major source of profit for some private corporations. John W. Whitehead, attorney and president of the Rutherford Institute writes that, “ the flawed yet retributive American “system of justice” is being replaced by an even more flawed and insidious form of mass punishment based upon profit and expediency.” Some blame the war on drugs as the main reason for the mass incarceration; others blame racism. Although those components do play a major role in the affair, a closer look at at the mastermind behind the prison industrial complex suggest that the privatization of the prison system has become the main reason why mass incarceration exist so forcefully in the United States and is a crime against the people of the people of
According with the textbook and other internet sources, Milton Friedman described in his thesis that the main goal of a business is to generate gains or profits. As a result, several business have been using such thesis as a justification for some of the decisions they made. In the case of “A Civil Action” we had the two companies contaminating the little town water with chemicals used during the elaboration of their products. The use of trichloroethylene was apparently causing some of the children of the place to developed respiratory and other cancerous diseases such as leukemia. After the death of several children, people on town began to worry about the situation and everything pointed out ...
25 September 1998 Smith, Phil, "Private Prisons Benefit" The Berne Collection. 1 December 1998 *Shakur, Assata, "Letter from Assata Shakur on the prison industrial complex" 25 October 1999. Schlosser, Eric, "The Prison Industrial Complex" The Atlantic Monthly. December 1998 Vol.
"Social Security Should Be Run by the Government" by Institute for America's Future.Capitalism. Noël Merino, Ed. Current Controversies Series. Greenhaven Press, 2010. Institute for America's Future, The Perils of Privatization: Social Security Privatization Cuts Lifetime Benefits; Makes Senior Citizens Vulnerable to Poverty: The Impact in the United States. Washington, D.C.: Institute for America's Future, 2008. Reproduced by permission. .
Lappin, H. G., & Greene, J. (2006). Are prisons just? In C. Hanrahan (Ed.), Opposing Viewpoints: America’s prisons (pp. 51-98). Detroit: Bonnie Szumski.
Shelden, R. G. (1999). The Prison Industrial Complex. Retrieved November 16, 2013, from www.populist.com: http://www.populist.com/99.11.prison.html
It seems obvious that large corporations have a tendency to ignore the negative effects of their actions in favor of profit. This example, although sensationalized, still says to me that with power comes responsibility. It affirmed my belief that a corporation’s goal cannot be just to provide profit to shareholders, but there must also be an element of social responsibility.