The Corporatization of Public Higher Education by Shepherd Bliss

Image by Cold Cream Coffee via Flickr

by Shepherd Bliss
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
Jan. 24, 2013

The Case of Sonoma State University

The new Center for Ethics, Law, and Society at Sonoma State University in Northern California has caused quite a stir among our academic community during the first week of classes, as well as from those outside SSU. Its funding and the further corporatization of public higher education have been questioned.

The notorious insurance monolith AIG provided two-thirds of the Ethics Center’s $16,000 first year budget. What might AIG’s intentions have been for funding the Center?

The Delicious Irony of Morris Greenberg’s AIG Suit Against the US Treasury by Michael Hudson

by Michael Hudson
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
January 12, 2013

Image by codepinkhq via Flickr

When the financial bubble burst in September 2008, U.S. and European governments responded by shifting bank losses onto their own balance sheets. The pretense is that real growth cannot resume until the banks and speculators are “made whole.” To cover the cost of bailing out the banks, governments now are trying to run budget surpluses. This adds fiscal deflation to the debt deflation left in the bubble’s wake, shrinking the economy at large. Governments are to raise taxes (or simply print new debt to swap for the financial sector’s bad loans and gambles) to reimburse financial institutions whose lending and outright gambling (not to mention the excursion into financial fraud) caused the crisis.

AIG-Gate: The World’s Greatest Insurance Heist by Dr. Ellen Brown

by Dr. Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
Feb. 6, 2010

Rumor has it that Timothy Geithner is on his way out as Treasury Secretary, due to his involvement in the AIG scandal that is now unraveling in hearings before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Bob Chapman writes in The International Forecaster:

Each day brings more revelations of efforts of the NY Fed and Goldman Sachs to hide the details of the criminal conspiracy of the AIG bailout. … This is a real crisis on the scale of Watergate. Corruption at its finest.