The future of libraries?

[New to Jersey]

Originally Posted by CaptainNJ

i dont think its right when the taxpayer service could so easily be separated from a user based fee system. the library is so easy, and offers little to no benefit to non-users (in my opinion).

police are totally different in various ways and isnt a good example to use to compare the services. there is a justification for making their service something that taxpayers share the expense of, your justification of "well, other taxpayer funded services do it also" isnt satisfactory.

Just like the fire department, eh? One time I listened to a young guy who works on Wall Street wax on about "lazy firefighters" and how he liked that they were closing some of the NYC fire departments. I asked him if he thought they were "lazy" when they were rushing into the WTC on 9/11? Dead silence. JP Morgan gave $4 million to a police foundation. So there is some PRIVATIZATION by a VIP constituency.

http://www.jpmorganchase.com/corpora...icle/ny-13.htm

[New to Jersey]

Originally Posted by CaptainNJ

what do you think you would notice more, a town without a library or a town without police? even if you dont call police to your home, they are removing criminals from the streets, enforcing laws that would impact you if they werent enforced, harrassing old ladies and other regular folk, etc.

im not sure how one could suggest that a town becomes more educated because of its library without laughing.

What will happen in the USA is that if the income distribution (and wealth distribution) become increasingly more UNEQUAL and the privatization of policing continues, then only wealthy communities will have police to keep "the rabble" out. Only those who can afford police will benefit because they will pay for their services. This might happen with the fire services of many communities too.

NCLB, e.g., is not about kids or even about improving test scores. It is a trojan horse for privatizing schools and extracting money. They will be festering with corruption and sacrificing everything for profit extraction.

A slew of "good" private schools will remain in the USA to educate the next generation of plutocrats. The USA is under the weight of an oligarchy just as the Soviet Union was where wealthy plutocrats took all the good stuff and privileges for themselves under the pseudo-heading of "Communism." In the the US they say it is "capitalism" or "free market system."

The USA has two important power brokers: Finance/Insurance/Real Estate and the Military Industrial Complex. With the "real economy" of manufacturing and production ever-increasingly being liquidated, they must now liquidate the public sector (privatize fire depts, police depts, libraries, universities, water supplies, trash collection, parks, etc.). This is the future asset bubble (but one that has a finite life). The next Wall Street bubble will involve mass liquidation of the public sector, bought at "fire sale" prices and then they will start selling, say, "library bonds" to "help fund your local library." Mostly they will be bought by pension funds. The Military Industrial Complex will keep trying to raid the Pentagon budget to sell more ****ty fighter and bomber jets riddled with "cost overruns" and barely able to fly. Since they are real worried about the S&P downgrade and its threat to the Pentagon budget, they are (although they have been since W. Bush) pushing for a confrontation with Iran. As the US Empire fades it roars more arrogantly and threatens more lives. A war with Iran (probably jointly or clandestinely planned with Israel) will be a major boon to the Military Industrial Complex.

Gated communities, unemployed formerly middle class and downwardly mobile Banana Republic here we come!

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by CaptainNJ

what do you think you would notice more, a town without a library or a town without police? even if you dont call police to your home, they are removing criminals from the streets, enforcing laws that would impact you if they werent enforced, harrassing old ladies and other regular folk, etc.

im not sure how one could suggest that a town becomes more educated because of its library without laughing.

and with some of the towns i've been in, i'm not sure how one could suggest criminals are being removed from the streets by the police without laughing.

and i've lived in towns with 0 local police. i never missed them. we only had the state police to call if there was an issue.

[CaptainNJ]

Originally Posted by bradykp

and with some of the towns i've been in, i'm not sure how one could suggest criminals are being removed from the streets by the police without laughing.

and i've lived in towns with 0 local police. i never missed them. we only had the state police to call if there was an issue.

im not one to defend police. their importance is overstated. but not as much as libraries. i do not buy the notion that they improve the education of the town's population. so they are just a form of welfare and should be classified as such.