plan for collapse of Thames Water
- Thread starter Mrwong
- Start date
That's all fanciful to be honest, it and all publicly critical operations should be publicly owned, just run as proper businesses with the aim to at least break even. run them brilliantly in good times and the profit returns to the public purse and in bad times the taxpayer might have to kick in but overall the services would be at worse fine.
The thing is, there's absolute nothing in that that's unconservative. The reality is we've had 40 years of little lord crackheaad selling off the family silver for his next quick fix and the party of conservatism and so-called best and brightest in business cheering them on.
The thing is, there's absolute nothing in that that's unconservative. The reality is we've had 40 years of little lord crackheaad selling off the family silver for his next quick fix and the party of conservatism and so-called best and brightest in business cheering them on.
Soldato
All in the name of 'growth'.
Pension funds (globally) depend on these kind of structures.
To reset this means a reset of our stockmarket/pension system too.
Hold on....I see what is coming next. It is not only enough to screw people over on savings rates for 15 years whilst house prices have risen massively off the back of cheap debt, and then to screw those same people over on the price of the house itself after saving for many years for the deposit, and then to screw those same people over by lifting rates massively just after they have bought at the top of the market putting them into extensive budgetary pain...no, we're also then going to screw over those same people's pensions, just in time for them to retire so they have barely anything left.
For one particular cohort, it looks to me like every bit of bad timing is going to follow them through their whole life.
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What?
Soldato
What? Is it not clear?
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What have pension funds and mortgages got to do with Thames Water and the privatisation of public infrastructure.
Soldato
Utilities like Thames Water form the base portfolio of worldwide pension funds, as they are considered low risk steady returns. If they were nationalised (depending on the compensation to those funds) it would take those investments out of those funds, potentially materially effecting their value.
One company might not matter, but if it starts a trend of nationalisation of several industries over time, then it could materially effect the value of pension funds and growth expectations.
My point was that it would be sods law for that cycle to start now, now that it has been milked for all its worth, leaving those retiring in say the next 20 years to pick up the tab for it, after all that wealth has already been stripped out to fuel growth for those already retired.
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Soldato
What did the Romans ever do for us!?
What Have The Romans... - Monty Python's Life of Brian
Subscribe to the Official Monty Python Channel here - http://smarturl.it/SubscribeToPythonWhat Have The Romans, taken from Life of Brian.Visit the official M...
youtu.be
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Soldato
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That's a very polite way of putting it....
How so?
Actually yes, the Tories did do nothing - absolutely ******* nothing. Just stood back and let it all get sold away from us... and that is their biggest contribution to the problem.
The time to step in was around 1998 when it started to slip, and before it was all sold to RWE.
I'm sorry if you got the impression I was a True Blue Tory-lover, here... I'm really not. I do think Thatcher got handed a pinless grenade by Callaghan, and that she made a decision based on what privatisation was *supposed* to be... but in the end rich people were allowed to twist it to their own gains and it killed off any further success.
Come up with something new? Like what? Invest in the infrastucture? Tried that, regulator says "Nooooo".
Do works to fix stuff? Get your local council to let us in, then.
If you think you can do a better job of running these companies and this industry, by all means come and ******* do it then - You'd be welcomed with open arms and a bit fat salary.
Community Health Partnerships, and Partnerships for Schools (now ESFA, I think).
From my understanding and reading of its advocacy in some economic treatises and articles - The public service (formerly the water company) and its assets are publicly owned, with the service acting as Intelligent Client. Private companies invest just like they currently do with an expected return on that investment, as well as undertaking the works just like contractors currently do, with the bill-payments and other subsequent revenues funding the profit that is then split between public and private purses.
There's a lot more to it than that and a lot depends on how it's implemented - There are maaaaaany different ways.
Public–private partnership - Wikipedia
If done properly, it's the best of both worlds... but that's a very big 'IF', and the current selection of possible governments makes me think that we'd just end up straight back 60-odd years ago with corrupt goverment doing what today's private owners are, the same lack of investment and mismanagement just by different people, the same failures of service, the same complaints, the same lack of accountability, the same monopoly, the same taxpayers getting shafted....
It's not a question of how to fix this, but by whom you want to be bent over the barrel.
No, they didn't, not do anything, it was the Tories active and idealogical policy. this isn't Just about water, it's housing, the trains, power, telecommunications, anything of any value that could be sold off cheap and turn a quick buck for the favoured few and to buy a few votes and damn the consequences, and it wasn't just the 80s the minute they got back in power they looked around to something to sell off, shame all that was left was the post office.
but yes, the real problem was the policies and performance of a government 60 odd years ago.
Soldato
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Well, if you say so...
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There is no investment though they are heavily in debt. If the private sector cannot be trusted to run operations such as critical infrastructure, which it clearly can’t then what outcome is left? We pay for it one way or another, every single time.
Until these are people are held personally accountable then this is what will continually get, wealth incessantly sucked up by parasitic capitalistic scum.
Petition: Nationalise the water industry in England and Wales without delay
Given the appalling state of rivers and beaches as a result of unlimited raw sewage discharges while the water industry has paid out £72 billion in shareholder dividends since its privatisation.
petition.parliament.uk
Associate
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Water bosses pay themselves £13m: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...xcessive-13M-pay-packages-past-12-months.html
But then this guy defends the water companies:
But then this guy defends the water companies:
obviously been mismanaged, too much taken out and little investment, i remember state ownership, not a great idea,bills were high, private is way to go, but with restrictions in place on how much should be invested and paid out, , welsh water seems a decent way to go about it
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The issue here - if you get passed the leftie pearl clutching hysteria - is that the regulator has failed to regulate, thats what needs addressing.
oh the regulatory body has a lot to answer for sure.
im welsh water, and only pay £15 a month.
We haven't had state ownership for decades. On the other hands, we've had decades of failure from the private sector, right up to the present day. Not from one company, but from all of them. One company is closer to going bust than the others, but none have been a success story.
I'm not sure how anyone can be so confident that taking core infrastructure into public ownership must be worse than what we've had.
agreed has been a while, though state run enterprises are generally swimming in bureaucracy and too fat.
but i dont care which way it goes as long as bills kept low
Lol it was privatised then nationalised then privatised possibly nationalise 2023.
I really hope they do
Tax payers are funding foreign pensions.
Stateownership can work, it is not state-owned that is the problem. The problem is the people civil service and their own expectations.
State-owned can be run pretty efficiently if given the chance.
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