mentioned in this article. Punitive taxes, that's the key, and why not make 'em retroactive? Robert, I'd love to hear from you on this.

OPIC gives government subsidized loans to multinational corporations, so while you may "turn a profit" the reality is you are giving subsidizes, which is taxpayer money.

You're running the classic "if we do not give away the US economy, oh, those other nations won't become Democracies or build up their own economies" line.

Hmmm, would you be interested in investing in Detroit? Oh, I guess not, there isn't any oil under it.

Ralph Nader on OPIC in 1996.

CBO on OPIC. Hmmmmm, when the Congressional Budget Office says this might not be of benefit to the United States, do you think there is any ring of truth to it?

Although you do say the obvious "promote the US biggest export, private enterprise". That's right, multinational corporations assuredly play the world and that is not in the US worker's interest or national interest.

One might obtain some facts by looking at a hearing Congressman Brad Sherman held in the Subcommittee on Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade (May, 2007). The transcript from the hearing, Reauthorization of OPIC:

Jeff Vogt, Global Economic Policy Specialist for the AFL-CIO raised a lot of questions on what OPIC says versus what OPIC does:

OPIC’s reauthorization request presents the committee with a
critical opportunity to review its effectiveness and to make necessary reforms to the laws that govern its operations. The AFL–CIO generally supports the mission of OPIC, which is to strengthen our trade balance and create jobs, and it contributes to sustainable developments and sustainable and equitable development abroad, based on full respect for workers’ rights, human rights, and the environment.

However, we remain concerned that OPIC is not fully compliant with its statutory mandate. We believe that OPIC continues to support corporations that have committed workers’ rights violations abroad. The positive effect on U.S. employment appears in some cases speculative, particularly given the size of the investments.

Moreover, there is little transparency and information available to assess whether these projections are based on realistic information.

As to the impact of job creation and development abroad, the information provided by OPIC is also equally vague, and the methods used to assess the impacts on development both before and after project approval we feel are insufficient to predict positive broadbased development.

And, fourth, the lack of transparency in general makes it difficult for civil society to participate meaningfully in raising relevant concerns prior to project approval and in monitoring projects once underway.

Ah, so why the charter idea sounds great, it seems the actions and results could be something else entirely and on top of it, accurate monitoring is near impossible.

I see.

The Heritage Foundation testified in this hearing also. I think they are the organization who wants OPIC plain dissolved.

Note OPIC was on Senator Bernie Sanders radar of corporate welfare recipients for a long time.

and another minor quote from the hearing:

The OPIC 2006 Development Report states that for its investment of $2.85 billion, roughly 2,767 jobs were created in the U.S.

$2.85B, 2767 jobs. Let's see, that's $1.03 million spent to create each job. Wow! That's cost effective!

Unfortunate that absolutely nothing in your post is accurate.

OPIC is an indepedent agency of the government, not a bureau of the Treasury Dept. It has a 15 member board made up of public and private sector members, nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

-- OPIC is required by statute to be self sustaining and turns a PROFIT of between $150 and 250 million each year. OPIC "spends" the money from its profits for its operations, meaning NO taxpayer money is appropriated.

-- OPIC has strong statutory prohibitions on "runaway plants" and strict policies regarding projects that may harm the US eoonomy. OPIC does not support projects that would result in job loss in the US.

-- For environmentally sensitive projects, OPIC follows World Bank standards, and in most cases improves environmental conditions and workers rights in the country where the project is operating.

-- OPIC's outstanding portfolio is $13 billion with reserves of $5.5 billion; one of the best reserved financial institutions on earth. Historically OPIC has recovered over 90% of the insurance claims that have been filed with it from host governments.

-- And by mobilizing private capital for investment in developing countries, OPIC helps promote our greatest export, private enterprise, so emerging economies can grow without perpetual grant assistance.

--OPIC projects have a significant "demonstration effect", helping developing nations to understand and adapt to greater transparency, rule of law and environmental protections.

--OPIC is a critical tool of US foreign policy where OPIC projects bring the hope of jobs and skills in countries of massive importance to the US including Afghanistan, Jordan, Lebanon and Liberia.

-- The current lack of authorization prevents the agency from making obligations on behalf of the US government, it does not shut down the agency. OPIC authority to do so expired on April 1st. Authority should be restored before October.

-- A government agency that promotes private sector led development in emerging markets, protects the US economy from harm associated with those projects, raises standards overseas for the environment, workers rights and transparency, serves important foreign policy objectives, and all for no cost to the taxpayer.

If there weren't an OPIC, we'd need to invent one.

it really looks like our entire higher education system doesn't even seem to recognize what they are supposed to be doing with US taxpayer money.

It's more than that though. With the exception of the military academies, there are no federally chartered universities. They all have state charters, and are state schools.

Yet, you have state schools where less than a third of the graduate population is from the actual state the schools located in. And when you talk about funding it's even worse. And when it comes to the real penetration of higher education by foreign nationals, it's graduate education that we're talking about.

I've been reading The Rise of the Creative Class which seems a lot like a apologia for the destruction of the American working class, and the concentration of income and wealth in the hands of an economic elite.

And I'm realizing that a lot of what we talk about as "culture war" has the subtext of class warfare to it. The "creative class" is socially liberal and economically neoliberal, while the working class has turned to social consevatism because there is no party for economic populism. And the creative class folks self select, and set themselves up as doorkeepers in academia and the new economy. And lock the gates.

And is it any wonder then when working class folks rebel against this?

These "creative class" folks seriously believe that the future lies in an economy where they provide the designs and administration, and all actual process of construction has been deskilled and outsourced to China. Up until the internet boom, you had IT folks who seriously believed that the reason that factory jobs went overseas and their's did not was because factory jobs required no intelligence or skill. So that those who held them were to be looked down upon as idiots, and shouted down when they complained about jobs being outsourced. They thought they were immune, and you have the same thing in academia today. They think that they can't be outsourced, or pushed out by foreign nationals brought into the country.

is that higher education tends to be a positional good in that the way that its usefulness is measured is not the absolute quantity that one has, but the relative surplus one has as compared to others.

Thus, if education allows the person who has it to hold a leadership job, what matters is not the amount they have, but instead the amount they have as compared to others. So while a high school degree may have been sufficient to ensure one a leadership position at the turn of the previous century because it represented an increment of education above that in the general workforce that provides one credentials. This in time initiates a positional treadmill, where the general increase in education means that requires an increase in the credentials needed to get a leadership job.

So the position that used to take a high school degree now requires a master's.

And this all seriously undermines the idea of higher education as a "market." In neo-classical economics, the presumption is that price increases limit demand, because individuals will presumably have better ends to which to dedicate the money they might spend on education. But it doesn't. Instead it actually increases demand because it creates the impression that the school is more exclusive and therefore providing better credentials.

And so rather than recognizing what's at work, the thought is that simply raising tuition will best determine how to allocate scarce enrollment slots by encouraging those who "value" education the least to pursue other paths.

But that isn't the way that it works. Raising tuition increases demand, and by effectively prohibiting lower and middle income families from sending their children to these, it ensures that enrollment as "prestige" schools is allocated to the offspring of the well off. And in doing so inhibits social mobility, and locks people into the social class into which they were born. So the idiot children of the economic elite are provided leadership positions while individuals who come from the lower classes are locked out.

And it creates a social loss, because the idiot children of the elite are far less qualified to be leaders, but as a result of having been credentialed are put into positions of power. And the whole time, they believe that they hold the position of power because of their power, not because they were born into it.

Now if a mechanism other than price were used to allocate university enrollment, you'd likely see university populations more reflective of the general population. And you'd provide the opportunity to educate those who can benefit society the most from receiving it. But even testing regimes to determine merit degenerate as parents buy SAT tutoring for their kids, to help them "beat the test."

And much of what passes for higher education has no use as skills training for the modern workplace. There needs to be a greater emphasis on skills training in both high schools and universities in order to provide trained workers for the marketplace. And the stigma attached to skills training that occurs outside of the university needs to be combated. Detaching the social stigma that comes these days with skilled manual labor like plumbers, electricians, and the the like would go a great distance towards getting high school graduates to undertake the training for these positions.

This is one place where I don't think much spot light has been put upon, although some have tried. That's a great idea and along the lines of "Americans 1st" in terms of our taxpayer funded institutions doing their charter (educating Americans) first and foremost.

I read that higher education is an emerging for profit market that rivals the financial sector in terms of profits. So, it seems to be also more of a political tool in some respects to advance globalization these days.

Note, I just made an opinion that is not quantified! But nice if we could get to the bottom of this more.

I just gave you a gift (hey everybody don't expect this!) and edited your post to make the table.

Tables are a real bitch frankly, whether you know the tags or not.

For now when you to go create content, in the body, right below, turn on the rich text editor, (toggle that by clicking on it). Then, on the buttons, you will see one that looks like a spreadsheet icon. That's tables. You can have it make the table for you and then you fill in the data.

I'll have to add a "how to" in the user guide but regardless, tables are tough and one dropped tag can mess up all of your alignment.

I think that's what you wanted.

Simply brilliant. We are in for a period of pain, I'm afraid. The question is, can we push forth the reforms needed fast enough to get through our upcoming troubling times to that phase of investment that marked the end of this piece?

Shame it didn't hit Recommended status over at Big Orange.

The "total debt private+public" is an interesting chart, but I'm not sure about its operative implications. It's a little like putting together GM + Ford. One might go out of business, but the effect on the other might be neutral or even contrary.

The most interest thing is, this is the first time in history that every single major currency is backed solely by "good faith." The resulting "competitive currency devaluations" have been a major feature of the global economy for the last 30+ years.