| Water Companies UK 06:59 - Oct 25 with 829 views | Churchman |
There is an interesting article on BBC about water companies and privatisation.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0qdev4vyl5o
The stuff falls for free in this country in abundance compared to many countries around the world. The country is surrounded by it. Given it is the most basic necessity of life, we are lucky. Or at least we should be. Yet rivers and coasts are being turned into sewers and the article suggests a looming water shortage
The key sentence for me is ‘When her (odious hag Thatcher) government privatised the water companies in the late 1980s, they were debt free. Today they have a combined £60bn in debt.’
The other thing that struck me was that the regulator was little more than a token effort. My guess is that as long as everyone got their ‘little envelope’, all was well.
I think it’s pretty easy to see what has happened since 1989 despite mealy mouthed words from water companies, or more correctly dividend leeches, it was obvious at the time what’d happen too.
The Government are looking at what to do now and rightly so. But the long term plan surely has to be to get critical infrastructure back under control for the benefit of the people,
Edit: The solution may lie here
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/22/new-commission-may-ban-engla
[Post edited 25 Oct 2024 7:32]
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| Water Companies UK on 08:38 - Oct 25 with 701 views | NthQldITFC |
Ramped up, aggressive, voracious capitalism is still accelerating in its destruction of society and environment, in a world finite in both its resources and its ability to absorb waste products.
We're all part of it when we don't consider selflessly limiting our own impact and exercising our democratic power for a massive change of direction. The greed and the pressure of advertising are powerful destructive forces, but we all know what we're a part of even if we choose to try to ignore it and carry on as usual while our society and our environment die around us.
We think it will make us happy chasing the next new possession and throwing away last year's gizmo, or having a third foreign holiday this summer, but real happiness would come from knowing we're actually doing something constructive to pass on a more viable planet to our children.
Hyperbole? Not really, in my opinion. |  |
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| Water Companies UK on 08:41 - Oct 25 with 692 views | ElephantintheRoom |
To be fair, as one of the few forum posters out of pre-school I can remember why the water companies were privatised. It’s because the government couldn’t afford to do the necessary changes in infrastructure.
That kind of begs the question, now the problem has been kicked down the road a few decades and the country is much poorer - how could they possibly even begin to address the problem now it is so much worse?
And whilst it’s nice to jump on bandwagons and feel righteous indignation - you have to consider who’s benefitted financially from the privatisation of water companies. Not just the water company bosses, and the people who grabbed the free money on offer at the time - but any and every person in the country who is a pensioner or is paying into a pension scheme. As high dividend paying water companies have been a staple of pension funds. |  |
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| Water Companies UK on 08:54 - Oct 25 with 666 views | Churchman |
| Water Companies UK on 08:41 - Oct 25 by ElephantintheRoom |
To be fair, as one of the few forum posters out of pre-school I can remember why the water companies were privatised. It’s because the government couldn’t afford to do the necessary changes in infrastructure.
That kind of begs the question, now the problem has been kicked down the road a few decades and the country is much poorer - how could they possibly even begin to address the problem now it is so much worse?
And whilst it’s nice to jump on bandwagons and feel righteous indignation - you have to consider who’s benefitted financially from the privatisation of water companies. Not just the water company bosses, and the people who grabbed the free money on offer at the time - but any and every person in the country who is a pensioner or is paying into a pension scheme. As high dividend paying water companies have been a staple of pension funds. |
I think that the writer of this article might beg to differ
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/16/i-worked-on-privatisation-
I was working at the time and had done so for a while so your somewhat dismissive first line isn’t relevant to me.
The government (you and me) could have afforded to invest. It chose not to and flogged off something that was completely debt free. Selling off what the people already owned was all the rage. Fashionable. Houses, gas, leccy, water, the air, you name it. All to go.
All to go with little regulation and benefits down the line for the perpetrators. A scam basically and a very good one. We are now paying for it. | | | |
| Water Companies UK on 09:11 - Oct 25 with 646 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
| Water Companies UK on 08:41 - Oct 25 by ElephantintheRoom |
To be fair, as one of the few forum posters out of pre-school I can remember why the water companies were privatised. It’s because the government couldn’t afford to do the necessary changes in infrastructure.
That kind of begs the question, now the problem has been kicked down the road a few decades and the country is much poorer - how could they possibly even begin to address the problem now it is so much worse?
And whilst it’s nice to jump on bandwagons and feel righteous indignation - you have to consider who’s benefitted financially from the privatisation of water companies. Not just the water company bosses, and the people who grabbed the free money on offer at the time - but any and every person in the country who is a pensioner or is paying into a pension scheme. As high dividend paying water companies have been a staple of pension funds. |
That’s not true anyway - there’s very little capital from UK pension funds in UK listed stocks these days (around 4pc). The rest is held by institutions or foreign investors. So essentially UK pensioners will see little benefit from the returns of water and other utilities. Although typically the yields are fairly decent, (UK) index growth has been poor compared to our peers. | | | |
| Water Companies UK on 09:20 - Oct 25 with 619 views | Pinewoodblue |
The increases are higher than those provisionally agreed in the summer.
Probably because it will allow Reeves to boast, next week, about all the private investments Labour are attracting into UK. |  |
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| Water Companies UK on 13:37 - Oct 25 with 519 views | 66notout |
| Water Companies UK on 08:38 - Oct 25 by NthQldITFC |
Ramped up, aggressive, voracious capitalism is still accelerating in its destruction of society and environment, in a world finite in both its resources and its ability to absorb waste products.
We're all part of it when we don't consider selflessly limiting our own impact and exercising our democratic power for a massive change of direction. The greed and the pressure of advertising are powerful destructive forces, but we all know what we're a part of even if we choose to try to ignore it and carry on as usual while our society and our environment die around us.
We think it will make us happy chasing the next new possession and throwing away last year's gizmo, or having a third foreign holiday this summer, but real happiness would come from knowing we're actually doing something constructive to pass on a more viable planet to our children.
Hyperbole? Not really, in my opinion. |
Well said, sir. | | | |
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