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Originally Posted by roachboy
.......of course those who benefit SHOULD contribute more to the maintenance of the system that enables them to benefit BECAUSE they benefit from it. wealth is a SOCIAL fact, it presupposes the existence of a SOCIAL ORDER--it does not follow from abstract individual gumption, it is not a question of moral superiority--it is a function of particular distributions of SOCIAL ADVANTAGES and CONDITIONS.
3. the main issue then that conservative ideology as a whole eliminates from coherent discussion is the central fact of capitalism or any other socio-economic order: that it is a social system.....
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rb....they "get it"....but their solution is to move all of their production investments, first to Mexico and Malaysia, and now....to China. "They" wouldn't live in those places themselves, their interest there is the same as it has evolved to, everywhere....exploit the opportunities....mine the labor, the natural resources....utilities roads and infrastructure paid for by others to "lure them" there.....pollute the water, soil, and air....and then move the fuck on......now....from coastal China to inland....where costs are even lower.
But, they themselves, have to live somewhere, and Mr. Prince creates Blackwater....to secure the "perimeter" for him and his friends in the CNP....so
they live in a global "Green Zone", where they're imprisoned in the world that they've made, and the rest of us can step over the bodies of the sick and starved, "have nots", until a few of us "move up", and the rest of us fall in the heap on the hospital steps.....
They refuse to come to grips, from where we are at Gini .44, that this is what Gini .50 can bring:
They won't give an inch, until they create the conditions that result in the
emergence of a Hugo Chavez or...... <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luiz_In%C3%A1cio_Lula_da_Silva">Lula di Silva</a> .....under the best of circumstances......
...and they'll keep doing it, until they can't, until the backlash stops their arrogance....
Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/bu...rtner=homepage
Megadeal: Inside a New York Real Estate Coup
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: December 31, 2006
........Some longtime residents of Stuyvesant Town say they got their first hint that changes were afoot in their complex four years ago, when a plaque disappeared from the development. The plaque had sat for decades on the lushly landscaped oval that forms the center of Stuyvesant Town and commemorated the vision of the development’s founder, Frederick H. Ecker, a former MetLife chairman who led the effort 60 years ago to build thousands of apartments for middle-class New Yorkers.
The plaque’s inscription was a relic of a bygone urban era when Mr. Ecker and MetLife conceived of a project where “families of moderate means might live in health, comfort and dignity in park-like communities and that a pattern might be set of private enterprise productively devoted to public service.” When the complex underwent renovations in 2002, the plaque was consigned to the MetLife archives.........
.............MetLife ultimately built more than 24,000 apartments in New York City and an additional 9,420 units in Alexandria, Va. (Parkfairfax), San Francisco (Parkmerced) and Los Angeles (Parklabrea).
None were bigger than Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, between 14th and 23rd Streets, overlooking the East River. To make way for the development, the city and MetLife leveled the gas tanks, industrial buildings and tenements on 18 blocks that had made up the Gas House District, at one time the roughest neighborhood in New York.
Under its deal with the city, MetLife got lucrative tax breaks and help in acquiring the land in return for limiting its profit to 6 percent for 25 years and maintaining below-market rents for Stuyvesant Town’s 8,749 apartments. The lobbies were nicer and the apartments larger at the slightly more upscale Peter Cooper Village. When the complexes opened in 1947, MetLife was flooded with more than 100,000 applications.
“It’s like a small town,” said Soni Fink, who has lived in Peter Cooper Village for 45 years. “People take care of each other. You don’t get that in any old apartment building in New York.”........
..........In 2000, MetLife transformed itself from a mutual company owned by its policyholders into one owned by shareholders, with a greater emphasis on cost-cutting and enhanced profitability. With a shrunken payroll in New York, it moved most of its operations and top executives from Manhattan to less expensive quarters in Queens. MetLife also began shedding some of its prized assets in favor of a more diversified portfolio........
.........MetLife went about its business very quietly. Last July, it said it was planning to sell the two complexes, offering few details beyond a terse announcement. The company said it was declining interviews because of potential tenant lawsuits and because of concerns that the New York City comptroller raised about whether the company had complied with state housing laws.
Critics and some local officials viewed MetLife’s silence as calculated stonewalling that amounted to a rejection of the company’s legacy. “At one time, <h3>they were the model of a New York corporate citizen,” said Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker whose request to meet with MetLife to discuss the sale was rejected. “The commitment they once had to New York City is gone.”</h3>..........
........ It was also clear that bidding would go well over $4 billion and that no single buyer had deep-enough pockets to handle the deal on its own.
<b>“There’s nothing like the 11,200 units sitting over there,</b>” said William P. Dickey, president of the Dermot Company, which had teamed up with Apollo Real Estate to bid for the property. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out: that’s the plum; go after it.”.........
............The pending sale created a panic among many tenants of the two complexes, where nearly three-quarters of the apartments have regulated rents at a third to half of market rates. An apartment can be decontrolled after it becomes vacant, or the rent reaches $2,000 a month and the existing tenants’ income rises above $175,000 over two years. As a result, MetLife had brought about 27 percent of the units in the two complexes to market rates. Tenant activists feared that a new buyer paying nearly $500,000 per apartment would be financially pressed to accelerate the process and transform the complexes by jacking up rents.
A political uproar surrounding the sale worried many bidders, with some, like the Dursts, dropping out. Other bidders met with tenants in an attempt to quell the hostility or to consider a possible alliance. <b>The only leading bidder that did not meet with tenants was Tishman Speyer. “We kept focused on the real estate and let the situation evolve,” Rob Speyer said.</b>
MetLife was also unfazed. Executives told reporters that the company had kept its promise to the city for more than 25 years and had no continuing obligation to keep rents low, or to meet with local officials. Privately they told reporters that many tenants were wealthy people, not the struggling petit bourgeois. <b>Mayor Bloomberg opted to stay out of the dispute.</b>............
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The preceding article says so much about the direction that the US is heading in. One of the largest insurance companies has abandoned it's commitments to the community that it originated and is headquartered in. The winning bidder of an 11,200 unit, plain vanilla, 60 year old apartment complex, built cooperatively with public and private financing, and the former corporate benefactor, both opted out of even discussing the deal with NY city officials or with the long time tenants of the residential complex.
The mayor, a multi-billionaire who lives in an upper east side penthouse, but who rides the subway to appear to have something in common, with the common man.....decides "not to get involved".
The winning bidder pays $500,000 average per apartment for 11,200 60 year old units that will need major rehab and upgrades, and currently collects less than an average $30,000 per year rent per unit.
That is the America we live in, a land where wealthy conservatives make a smaller world for themselves, at the expense of the rest of us. It's none of our business.....it's their money. The folks in Brazil and in Venezuela woke up recently to realize that they were rich in one way....they had the votes, if they voted in unison, in their own best interests......