| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? 11:44 - Aug 15 with 3347 views | Ryorry |
Apart from lining their execs' & shareholders' profits, obvs.
Can't find the specific link from about 2 days ago highlighting that dozens of disabled and chronically ill 80-90 year old residents of blocks of flats in E. London have been left without running water for 5+ days, with Thames Water's response being to dump 6l of bottles per person per day in the groundfloor entrances, but these give some general background as to problems in the area -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/art
https://www.theguardian.com/uk
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 18:30 - Aug 15 with 798 views | Churchman |
Over 35 reservoirs have been flogged off for £millions in profit since 2017. Not one new reservoir has been commissioned since privatisation in 1992. At the same time, population has increased from 57.5m to about 70m.
So there is clearly no water shortage. Or is it that profit comes first? |  | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 19:20 - Aug 15 with 745 views | J2BLUE |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 18:30 - Aug 15 by Churchman |
Over 35 reservoirs have been flogged off for £millions in profit since 2017. Not one new reservoir has been commissioned since privatisation in 1992. At the same time, population has increased from 57.5m to about 70m.
So there is clearly no water shortage. Or is it that profit comes first? |
Since 2017?!?!
Incredible. A failure of the water companies and government for not stopping it. It's crystal clear we need more water collection and storage. It's crystal clear the planet is heating up so more water will be used for growing food, drinking, washing, fighting wildfires. The government really need to start acting now rather than thinking about starting to maybe, sort of, kinda think about it in 10-20 years when it's critical. |  | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 19:40 - Aug 15 with 727 views | BloomBlue |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 18:30 - Aug 15 by Churchman |
Over 35 reservoirs have been flogged off for £millions in profit since 2017. Not one new reservoir has been commissioned since privatisation in 1992. At the same time, population has increased from 57.5m to about 70m.
So there is clearly no water shortage. Or is it that profit comes first? |
Thames Water wanted to build a reservoir in Abington at cost of £1b, in 2011 it was rejected by planning and nimbys. Now those same groups are demanding it. But already other local groups are against and they estimated planning could push out completion to 2035
If they had approved it in 2011, it would be in operation now.
Reservoir building isnt a failure of the private water companies, every time something is submitted its objected by local council planning and Nimbys. That won't change if water is nationalised. The failure is the planning and opposition. Everyone demands new reservoirs, but not in my back yard
Gov need to introduce a law that completely overrides local planning for Reservoir . If we need to flood a valley with houses in it, move out the residents and flood it. If we need to flood an ancient woodland, do it. |  | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 20:33 - Aug 15 with 685 views | rgp1 |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 16:12 - Aug 15 by ITFC_Forever |
Rich get richer and the plebs stay in their place.
Exactly how they want it. |
Well said sir. Unfortunately governments are forced to comply with the likes of Blackrock and as you say keep the plebs in their place. I was really hoping that Burnham would raise the Tax threshold as that put money directly in pockets but fat chance of that! |  | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 00:10 - Aug 16 with 584 views | Churchman |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 19:40 - Aug 15 by BloomBlue |
Thames Water wanted to build a reservoir in Abington at cost of £1b, in 2011 it was rejected by planning and nimbys. Now those same groups are demanding it. But already other local groups are against and they estimated planning could push out completion to 2035
If they had approved it in 2011, it would be in operation now.
Reservoir building isnt a failure of the private water companies, every time something is submitted its objected by local council planning and Nimbys. That won't change if water is nationalised. The failure is the planning and opposition. Everyone demands new reservoirs, but not in my back yard
Gov need to introduce a law that completely overrides local planning for Reservoir . If we need to flood a valley with houses in it, move out the residents and flood it. If we need to flood an ancient woodland, do it. |
So why were 35 flogged off in the last nine years? You may be right re building the odd new one, nimbys etc but that’s all the more reason to retain the ones they had until they had the approval and reasoning to replace them.
But we all know the reason why. Developers, nod and a wink, little envelopes to smooth the approvals, everyone on earners including politicians.
It’s no different to the Martlesham Heath/BT 4000 cheapo shtbox development. Rejected for years. One visit from captain oily Cameron for lunch along with his cabinet mates and hey presto! Approved and up the rubbish goes! Everyone’s a winner. | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 07:18 - Aug 16 with 516 views | balcombeblue |
There are clear and obvious issues with water, but most other privatisations could be argued either way.
On water, one thing to consider is whether the government would have produced a better result over the past 30 years. There’s no reason to believe infrastructure spending would be higher or that prices would be lower. That would come down to individual governments making choices which is no guarantee. The shareholder/owner profit incentive doesn’t necessarily mean companies not doing the right thing. There have been plenty of government scandals in nationalised industries to show that.
Rail is often mentioned as being ripe for nationalisation, but I’m never sure why. British Rail had issues with innovation, punctuality and prices.
Conplex, multi variant and difficult to analyse as always! |  | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 10:30 - Aug 16 with 448 views | redrickstuhaart |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 07:18 - Aug 16 by balcombeblue |
There are clear and obvious issues with water, but most other privatisations could be argued either way.
On water, one thing to consider is whether the government would have produced a better result over the past 30 years. There’s no reason to believe infrastructure spending would be higher or that prices would be lower. That would come down to individual governments making choices which is no guarantee. The shareholder/owner profit incentive doesn’t necessarily mean companies not doing the right thing. There have been plenty of government scandals in nationalised industries to show that.
Rail is often mentioned as being ripe for nationalisation, but I’m never sure why. British Rail had issues with innovation, punctuality and prices.
Conplex, multi variant and difficult to analyse as always! |
The only one, frankly, is electricity / gas- where there is a degree of competition. Though many issues with that still
Rail? No competition at all. Utterly obscene prices pushing people onto planes and into cars. BR was poor, but we do not have anything better now. We just have more catering at eye watering prices. | |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 10:42 - Aug 16 with 435 views | Swansea_Blue |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 00:10 - Aug 16 by Churchman |
So why were 35 flogged off in the last nine years? You may be right re building the odd new one, nimbys etc but that’s all the more reason to retain the ones they had until they had the approval and reasoning to replace them.
But we all know the reason why. Developers, nod and a wink, little envelopes to smooth the approvals, everyone on earners including politicians.
It’s no different to the Martlesham Heath/BT 4000 cheapo shtbox development. Rejected for years. One visit from captain oily Cameron for lunch along with his cabinet mates and hey presto! Approved and up the rubbish goes! Everyone’s a winner. |
Sold off as in sold and decommissioned or sold to other private organisations to run for their own profits? At least the latter would maintain the status quo in capacity. If we’re reducing capacity that crackers.
Planning will be an issue. NIMBYs will be an issue to the bigger picture. Although everyone thinks NIMBYs are a pain in the butt until they become one themselves. |  |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 10:50 - Aug 16 with 425 views | balcombeblue |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 10:30 - Aug 16 by redrickstuhaart |
The only one, frankly, is electricity / gas- where there is a degree of competition. Though many issues with that still
Rail? No competition at all. Utterly obscene prices pushing people onto planes and into cars. BR was poor, but we do not have anything better now. We just have more catering at eye watering prices. |
British Airways?
British Leyland?
Royal Mail? | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 11:07 - Aug 16 with 405 views | redrickstuhaart |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 10:50 - Aug 16 by balcombeblue |
British Airways?
British Leyland?
Royal Mail? |
Ahh royal mail. That was a terrible one too wasnt it?
No proper competition, prices now off the chart and all manner of significant problems in recent times. What was the benefit to the consumer? None. It is a public service which is now poor and expensive due to the profit incentive and no competition.
Airlines and car manufacturers are not utilities. | |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 11:13 - Aug 16 with 393 views | balcombeblue |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 11:07 - Aug 16 by redrickstuhaart |
Ahh royal mail. That was a terrible one too wasnt it?
No proper competition, prices now off the chart and all manner of significant problems in recent times. What was the benefit to the consumer? None. It is a public service which is now poor and expensive due to the profit incentive and no competition.
Airlines and car manufacturers are not utilities. |
Fair enough on the utilities.
Royal Mail has been pushed out by private companies who are frankly better and technological change. | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 11:20 - Aug 16 with 382 views | redrickstuhaart |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 11:13 - Aug 16 by balcombeblue |
Fair enough on the utilities.
Royal Mail has been pushed out by private companies who are frankly better and technological change. |
Not really. Their core business of delivering letters and providing post offices (separate company now of course- unecessarily so) has no real competition. But they do need to satisfy shareholders. So whilst hte volume of letters decreases making it more difficult, the prices have to go up and up by more than the actual cost to make it viable and provide profit. In the 70s you could buy 300000 first class stamps for an average yearly salary. Now it is less than a tenth of that.
Even if the impact was neutral, the water issue would outweigh any minor benefits of the rest because it is so bad and so fundamental. Water companies are getting permission to increase prices significantly to fund infrastructure.
Thames water alone has paid out over £10b in dividends whilst failing to deal with the infrastructure work necessary. If that profit was spent on infrastructure, how would prices be holding up? And how much less sh it would be in our rivers and on our beaches? [Post edited 16 Aug 11:24]
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 11:23 - Aug 16 with 376 views | mutters |
Telecommunication is the only one that I believe privatisation has had a big positive impact.
Some benefits -
- Falling Prices
- Massive Investment into Tech
- Mobile/Broadband revolution
- Wide range of choice of providers |  |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 11:25 - Aug 16 with 371 views | redrickstuhaart |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 11:23 - Aug 16 by mutters |
Telecommunication is the only one that I believe privatisation has had a big positive impact.
Some benefits -
- Falling Prices
- Massive Investment into Tech
- Mobile/Broadband revolution
- Wide range of choice of providers |
There is at least some competition there.
However, with the bulk of broadband services still hooked into the supposedly separate "Openreach" there remains an effective monopoly. | |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 11:58 - Aug 16 with 341 views | SouthBucksBlue |
Utilities should never have been privatised in the first place but I have now come to believe that the concept of self regulating free market capitalism in general is now fundamentally flawed by collaboration and the ineffectiveness of the industry specific regulatory bodies.
Two good examples of this are:
Banking, where a few years ago when the base rate was 0.5%, the relevant regulatory body investigated up front overdraft arrangement fees and decided to outlaw them so the banks all decided to massively increase overdraft rates to around 40%.
Telecoms, where the regulator body looked at the practice of automatically raising contract prices yearly by a significant amount above the RPI. The decision was that the problem wasn’t the raising as such but that the plebs couldn’t understand percentages. | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:03 - Aug 16 with 334 views | Churchman |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 10:42 - Aug 16 by Swansea_Blue |
Sold off as in sold and decommissioned or sold to other private organisations to run for their own profits? At least the latter would maintain the status quo in capacity. If we’re reducing capacity that crackers.
Planning will be an issue. NIMBYs will be an issue to the bigger picture. Although everyone thinks NIMBYs are a pain in the butt until they become one themselves. |
Sold and built on. Made the shareholders a ton of money.
Planning has always been an issue since long before the Industrial Revolution. One of the reasons the Central Line is slow and rattles is because it’s routed to avoid passing under rich peoples’ houses. | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:04 - Aug 16 with 334 views | Ryorry |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 11:13 - Aug 16 by balcombeblue |
Fair enough on the utilities.
Royal Mail has been pushed out by private companies who are frankly better and technological change. |
There is zero way private companies were/are better if you live in a rural area.
Until now, RM have been the ONLY reliable couriers here.
Unknown to me, local hospital sent me a test result letter marked ‘Private and Confidential’ + follow-up sample pot in mid-March, via courier company. Found 3 months later by my neighbour searching for her missing Evri parcel, in a disused salt bin on the public road 200m from my house. | |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:15 - Aug 16 with 315 views | Churchman |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:04 - Aug 16 by Ryorry |
There is zero way private companies were/are better if you live in a rural area.
Until now, RM have been the ONLY reliable couriers here.
Unknown to me, local hospital sent me a test result letter marked ‘Private and Confidential’ + follow-up sample pot in mid-March, via courier company. Found 3 months later by my neighbour searching for her missing Evri parcel, in a disused salt bin on the public road 200m from my house. |
Evri are totally useless. Mrs C was expecting a case to be delivered by them last week. It wasn’t because ‘it was too big’. It was a freaking suitcase, not a wardrobe! | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 12:16 - Aug 16 with 315 views | Ryorry |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 10:42 - Aug 16 by Swansea_Blue |
Sold off as in sold and decommissioned or sold to other private organisations to run for their own profits? At least the latter would maintain the status quo in capacity. If we’re reducing capacity that crackers.
Planning will be an issue. NIMBYs will be an issue to the bigger picture. Although everyone thinks NIMBYs are a pain in the butt until they become one themselves. |
Nimbys were a problem in the 1960s too, but the construction of several reservoirs in North Yorkshire went ahead in the 1960s anyway, requiring whole small villages to be flooded. Now everyone is grateful it happened.
Even if pp is difficult to get for large public reservoirs, it could very easily be granted to individual farmers to create on their own land - something they’ve been begging for for years - would help with both containing flooding in winter and irrigation of crops in spring/summer. Burnham could and should legislate for this immediately. | |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:19 - Aug 16 with 247 views | NthQldITFC |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 11:20 - Aug 16 by redrickstuhaart |
Not really. Their core business of delivering letters and providing post offices (separate company now of course- unecessarily so) has no real competition. But they do need to satisfy shareholders. So whilst hte volume of letters decreases making it more difficult, the prices have to go up and up by more than the actual cost to make it viable and provide profit. In the 70s you could buy 300000 first class stamps for an average yearly salary. Now it is less than a tenth of that.
Even if the impact was neutral, the water issue would outweigh any minor benefits of the rest because it is so bad and so fundamental. Water companies are getting permission to increase prices significantly to fund infrastructure.
Thames water alone has paid out over £10b in dividends whilst failing to deal with the infrastructure work necessary. If that profit was spent on infrastructure, how would prices be holding up? And how much less sh it would be in our rivers and on our beaches? [Post edited 16 Aug 11:24]
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'Thames water alone has paid out over £10b in dividends whilst failing to deal with the infrastructure work necessary. If that profit was spent on infrastructure, how would prices be holding up? And how much less sh it would be in our rivers and on our beaches?'
It's a very simple and undeniable truth, but the apologists for the cancer of predatory, unchecked capitalism refuse to take their fingers out of their ears, even now. |  |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:31 - Aug 16 with 235 views | redrickstuhaart |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:19 - Aug 16 by NthQldITFC |
'Thames water alone has paid out over £10b in dividends whilst failing to deal with the infrastructure work necessary. If that profit was spent on infrastructure, how would prices be holding up? And how much less sh it would be in our rivers and on our beaches?'
It's a very simple and undeniable truth, but the apologists for the cancer of predatory, unchecked capitalism refuse to take their fingers out of their ears, even now. |
What we should be saying is that shareholders get nothing until the work is done- not that customers have to pay extra.
Problem now is, that means the whole thing collapses due to lack of investment.
Steps need to be taken.... | |
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| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 15:18 - Aug 16 with 189 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:19 - Aug 16 by NthQldITFC |
'Thames water alone has paid out over £10b in dividends whilst failing to deal with the infrastructure work necessary. If that profit was spent on infrastructure, how would prices be holding up? And how much less sh it would be in our rivers and on our beaches?'
It's a very simple and undeniable truth, but the apologists for the cancer of predatory, unchecked capitalism refuse to take their fingers out of their ears, even now. |
Well worryingly, it hasn’t made £10bn of profit, Thames Water is barely liquid (No pun intended). They are riddled in a net debt of around £20bn. In effect they have raised debt to fund dividends, I certainly wouldn’t touch them as investment, it’s all going to end in tears. If it was run by the state, we’d likely not have seen more investment since that ‘profit’ is actually just debt (see how nationalisation hasn’t magically reduced train fares).
Not that I agree with the privatisation of a monopoly, I just think people have unrealistic expectations around nationalisation, given the national debt and fiscal gap, they’d almost certainly be underfunded. | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 15:44 - Aug 16 with 177 views | HairBearBunch |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 13:11 - Aug 15 by J2BLUE |
Nationalise water.
Set up a state energy company.
Set up a state supermarket. Not for profit. Living wage paid. Prices set to get the highest quality healthy food to the population. Fruits, veg, dried legumes to be pennies. Meats, eggs, milk all organic free range. Junk food limited to one aisle. 10% tax on those products to subsidise discounts on the healthiest foods and self care products. 5% discount to over 65s who shop Mon-Fri 9am-5pm. Other supermarkets available. No one forced to shop at Britmart. |
The increase in costs in providing 'all organic free-range' meat etc. would double, so not a good starting point.
At the moment, if you want organic, go ahead and buy it and pay the premium.
Why should shoppers have the choice removed and be forced to pay more ? |  | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 16:36 - Aug 16 with 141 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 15:44 - Aug 16 by HairBearBunch |
The increase in costs in providing 'all organic free-range' meat etc. would double, so not a good starting point.
At the moment, if you want organic, go ahead and buy it and pay the premium.
Why should shoppers have the choice removed and be forced to pay more ? |
There’s a reason it hasn’t been done in even the mixed market economies of Europe. It would cost 10’s billions for the infrastructure, land, supply chains etc to even get it up and running. It would cost the state more to procure the items than a multinational supermarket chain due to scale.
Therefore if you are subsidising it through tax it’s actually costing you more for the produce than it would from Tesco etc. The average profit to Tesco’s from one visit is 50p - that’s how thin the margins are… | | | |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 17:11 - Aug 16 with 103 views | Ryorry |
| The 'benefits' of utilities' privatisation - can anyone think of any? on 15:44 - Aug 16 by HairBearBunch |
The increase in costs in providing 'all organic free-range' meat etc. would double, so not a good starting point.
At the moment, if you want organic, go ahead and buy it and pay the premium.
Why should shoppers have the choice removed and be forced to pay more ? |
He literally said “Other supermarkets available. No one forced to shop at Britmart.”!
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