Now is the winter of our discontent ....

[flatandy]

Yeah. There's also two different classes of business at work here. There's actual essential public services - like water and power - which genuinely can't be allowed to fail for public health reasons. And which therefore are in a ridiculous position in the private sector and should be nationalised for that reason. Then there are businesses that are inherently monopolistic - like railways and mail delivery and any telecoms stuff that uses landlines - but for which there are sort of alternatives and which we could live without even if it would make our lives a bit more annoying. I might be inclined to let those ones just fail and have the companies go out of business if they can't actually do it right.

I can see the logic of saying that there's a public benefit to having good value, affordable, reliable public transport, and to having good value universal access fast broadband, and so on. And a government can make that decision and choose to run the businesses that way. But they aren't essential like water and power (and healthcare and roads and policing) which can't fail and therefore don't have true market forces at work.

[perrykneeham]

The railways are an interesting one as they (in UK) at least, started out as a patchwork of private companies, before being nationalised.

The other distinction that could be made is between those industries which were set as monopolies with false or, as it turned out, unworkable funding models (the NHS is a case in point) and those whose models were probably okay but which failed to adequately account for ongoing costs and/or changes in legislation. Water companies would be a good example as, in fact, would be council housing.

[perrykneeham]

I accept that, in practice , the problem is the same: the model no longer works.

[flatandy]

Even if the funding models worked for water, it makes no sense in the private sector because the funding gets funneled to shareholders. You need such strong oversight on how the money is spent, that it's spent on the right things and the work is actually done well, that having a for-profit company doing that makes almost no sense.

[ootlg]

Dec 6, 2022 16:23:39 GMT flatandy said:

Yeah. There's also two different classes of business at work here. There's actual essential public services - like water and power - which genuinely can't be allowed to fail for public health reasons. And which therefore are in a ridiculous position in the private sector and should be nationalised for that reason. Then there are businesses that are inherently monopolistic - like railways and mail delivery and any telecoms stuff that uses landlines - but for which there are sort of alternatives and which we could live without even if it would make our lives a bit more annoying. I might be inclined to let those ones just fail and have the companies go out of business if they can't actually do it right.

I can see the logic of saying that there's a public benefit to having good value, affordable, reliable public transport, and to having good value universal access fast broadband, and so on. And a government can make that decision and choose to run the businesses that way. But they aren't essential like water and power (and healthcare and roads and policing) which can't fail and therefore don't have true market forces at work.

That's exactly what happens here - the essentials are priority. The drawback as you say, is that things like broadband tend to arrive later than the rest of the world, but the advantage to that is that when it comes it's been tried and tested elsewhere and it's good stuff. You see waterboard and electricity workers out all the time and people complain about it, but for some weird reason they hate admitting the infrastructure here's good. Same with the health service. They're spoiled.

[perrykneeham]

Dec 6, 2022 16:33:50 GMT flatandy said:

Even if the funding models worked for water, it makes no sense in the private sector because the funding gets funneled to shareholders. You need such strong oversight on how the money is spent, that it's spent on the right things and the work is actually done well, that having a for-profit company doing that makes almost no sense.

Well, what should happen (by law and contract) is that they are held to their undertaking. There seems to have been a tacit agreement of misunderstanding at play here: utility companies seem to think that they are tenants or franchisees, who are merely paying for them privilege of making profit using the infrastructure, and they have no ongoing liability to maintain that infrastructure. They should be obliged to get all remedial work and new infrastructure done and paid for before paying dividends.

[perrykneeham]

Dec 6, 2022 16:37:51 GMT ootlg said:

Dec 6, 2022 16:23:39 GMT flatandy said:

Yeah. There's also two different classes of business at work here. There's actual essential public services - like water and power - which genuinely can't be allowed to fail for public health reasons. And which therefore are in a ridiculous position in the private sector and should be nationalised for that reason. Then there are businesses that are inherently monopolistic - like railways and mail delivery and any telecoms stuff that uses landlines - but for which there are sort of alternatives and which we could live without even if it would make our lives a bit more annoying. I might be inclined to let those ones just fail and have the companies go out of business if they can't actually do it right.

I can see the logic of saying that there's a public benefit to having good value, affordable, reliable public transport, and to having good value universal access fast broadband, and so on. And a government can make that decision and choose to run the businesses that way. But they aren't essential like water and power (and healthcare and roads and policing) which can't fail and therefore don't have true market forces at work.

That's exactly what happens here - the essentials are priority. The drawback as you say, is that things like broadband tend to arrive later than the rest of the world, but the advantage to that is that when it comes it's been tried and tested elsewhere and it's good stuff. You see waterboard and electricity workers out all the time and people complain about it, but for some weird reason they hate admitting the infrastructure here's good. Same with the health service. They're spoiled.

France has about the same population as UK but almost twice the land mass. That means that it's a bit more expensive to roll out any infrastructure provision, and probably slower.

[perrykneeham]

It may well be that explains why rural buses are largely absent in France and also why they have so many more doctors per head of population.

[ootlg]

And the country's run better. By men who are accountable. Bureaucracy-mad some may think it is, but it works. And rural buses are being reintroduced. And old train lines being repaired and re-used. I know you're a heavy-duty patriot, but the UK's being left behind because of the Tory party.

[moggyonspeed]

Dec 6, 2022 16:42:36 GMT perrykneeham said:

It may well be that explains why rural buses are largely absent in France and also why they have so many more doctors per head of population.

They have more doctors per capita because they pay more in tax and then use that tax relatively wisely. On the whole, they believe that society succeeds if as many as possible in that society succeed and, very importantly, where that success is not predicated on someone else's failure.

To be hoodwinked into believing that it is more important for Joe Public to pay less tax so that she/he can more easily buy a newer TV with 2-inches more on the diagonal, is to wilfully miss the point of organised society and our respective places in it.

[perrykneeham]

Dec 6, 2022 16:59:27 GMT moggyonspeed said:

Dec 6, 2022 16:42:36 GMT perrykneeham said:

It may well be that explains why rural buses are largely absent in France and also why they have so many more doctors per head of population.

They have more doctors per capita because they pay more in tax and then use that tax relatively wisely. On the whole, they believe that society succeeds if as many as possible in that society succeed and, very importantly, where that success is not predicated on someone else's failure.

To be hoodwinked into believing that it is more important for Joe Public to pay less tax so that she/he can more easily buy a newer TV with 2-inches more on the diagonal, is to wilfully miss the point of organised society and our respective places in it.

I don't for one moment subscribe to low-tax horseshit. I thought I had made that very clear over the years. Moreover, people should be paying what they should, especially those that can most afford it. None of is enjoy it and I expect we've all cut the odd corner, but we need to get rid of cosy arrangements and special considerations.

In respect of French doctors, there is another factor: they are paid less than those in UK.

[voice]

The problem is one of ideology at its root cause, public services were privatized because of a flawed ideology that said the market is better at running stuff (clearly untrue), but the reality was those in power and those backing them simply saw them as cash cows for the milking. The fact they were run down on purpose to make them look like they were in shambles is often overlooked. So you went from a situation where those services that generated a profit and put that profit back into maintaining or replacing infrastructure no longer had that incentive cos the profits were syphoned off as dividends, and where they didn't make profits the dividends have been effectively paid by tax payers who give massive subsidies/bail outs to the privatized utilities/services by governments who sold the idea they couldn't be allowed to fail as private companies and in nationalizing them again would give the lie to the idea nationalized bad, market good.

And that same ideology is still at play, the same greedy eyes who saw cash cows needing milking in the 80s and 90s are looking at the NHS, we've seen that run down by successive govs over the last 12 years and the same bS about its funding model being unsustainable (despite lasting nearly 80 years so far) and how the market will run it so much better, despite the market failing utterly every other time it was given a public service to milk.

The other side is we've been sold the lie that low tax and minimal regulation is the way to create prosperity, the old lie of trickle down, if you make the rich richer all of us benefit, while the gap only grew wider and inequality threatens our very stability. So you have the absurd situation where the richest pay less tax than the poorest, it was never trickle down, but trickle up, the last 40 years has seen the biggest redistribution of wealth in modern times, and the it was an upward spigot.

[perrykneeham]

Dec 6, 2022 18:18:57 GMT voice said:

The problem is one of ideology at its root cause, public services were privatized because of a flawed ideology that said the market is better at running stuff (clearly untrue), but the reality was those in power and those backing them simply saw them as cash cows for the milking. The fact they were run down on purpose to make them look like they were in shambles is often overlooked. So you went from a situation where those services that generated a profit and put that profit back into maintaining or replacing infrastructure no longer had that incentive cos the profits were syphoned off as dividends, and where they didn't make profits the dividends have been effectively paid by tax payers who give massive subsidies/bail outs to the privatized utilities/services by governments who sold the idea they couldn't be allowed to fail as private companies and in nationalizing them again would give the lie to the idea nationalized bad, market good.

And that same ideology is still at play, the same greedy eyes who saw cash cows needing milking in the 80s and 90s are looking at the NHS, we've seen that run down by successive govs over the last 12 years and the same bS about its funding model being unsustainable (despite lasting nearly 80 years so far) and how the market will run it so much better, despite the market failing utterly every other time it was given a public service to milk.

The other side is we've been sold the lie that low tax and minimal regulation is the way to create prosperity, the old lie of trickle down, if you make the rich richer all of us benefit, while the gap only grew wider and inequality threatens our very stability. So you have the absurd situation where the richest pay less tax than the poorest, it was never trickle down, but trickle up, the last 40 years has seen the biggest redistribution of wealth in modern times, and the it was an upward spigot.

The market is generally better at running things, which is why so few things are run by the state.

[perrykneeham]

The ambulancers are out on strike on the 21st. It's an interesting bit of stage management this: it's basically the whole NHS that's after more money (presumably because their living costs are higher than private sector employees) but the unions need this to be about sacred frontline combat martyr Angels rather than surly mop-dogers and piss-taking part-timers.

[flatandy]

The market is generally better at running certain things, provided that it's a real market where consumers can make real, informed choices. That's the problem. The nationalisation enthusiasts seem oblivious to that and want the public sector making cars and butter and so on. The privatisation enthusiasts also seem oblivious to that and therefore think it's reasonable to have the private sector running schools, the army and the water supply.

[voice]

Dec 6, 2022 18:30:34 GMT perrykneeham said:

Dec 6, 2022 18:18:57 GMT voice said:

The problem is one of ideology at its root cause, public services were privatized because of a flawed ideology that said the market is better at running stuff (clearly untrue), but the reality was those in power and those backing them simply saw them as cash cows for the milking. The fact they were run down on purpose to make them look like they were in shambles is often overlooked. So you went from a situation where those services that generated a profit and put that profit back into maintaining or replacing infrastructure no longer had that incentive cos the profits were syphoned off as dividends, and where they didn't make profits the dividends have been effectively paid by tax payers who give massive subsidies/bail outs to the privatized utilities/services by governments who sold the idea they couldn't be allowed to fail as private companies and in nationalizing them again would give the lie to the idea nationalized bad, market good.

And that same ideology is still at play, the same greedy eyes who saw cash cows needing milking in the 80s and 90s are looking at the NHS, we've seen that run down by successive govs over the last 12 years and the same bS about its funding model being unsustainable (despite lasting nearly 80 years so far) and how the market will run it so much better, despite the market failing utterly every other time it was given a public service to milk.

The other side is we've been sold the lie that low tax and minimal regulation is the way to create prosperity, the old lie of trickle down, if you make the rich richer all of us benefit, while the gap only grew wider and inequality threatens our very stability. So you have the absurd situation where the richest pay less tax than the poorest, it was never trickle down, but trickle up, the last 40 years has seen the biggest redistribution of wealth in modern times, and the it was an upward spigot.

The market is generally better at running things, which is why so few things are run by the state.

clearly untrue, as you as said last page, no investment in infrastructure, rampant short termism, dividends instead of investment, knowing the gov will bail them out at the least sign of trouble so no incentive to get their house in order.

[perrykneeham]

Well, there is a case for all of those things if the public sector is making a pig's ear of it, but I take your point.

Almost all of UK's schools belong to MATs now. Even Russia has found a privatelised army is more effective.

[voice]

Dec 6, 2022 18:36:17 GMT flatandy said:

The market is generally better at running certain things, provided that it's a real market where consumers can make real, informed choices. That's the problem. The nationalisation enthusiasts seem oblivious to that and want the public sector making cars and butter and so on. The privatisation enthusiasts also seem oblivious to that and therefore think it's reasonable to have the private sector running schools, the army and the water supply.

well yes, if its a grommet factory then yeah the market will be better at that, if its public services, then, as we've seen over the last 40 years, its not.

[voice]

Dec 6, 2022 18:39:07 GMT perrykneeham said:

Well, there is a case for all of those things if the public sector is making a pig's ear of it, but I take your point.

again though, they were deliberately run down and mismanaged so the gov of the day could say 'look how badly run they are (by us) best we sell them to (our mates in the city)'. The same lot are still doing the same thing.

[perrykneeham]

Dec 6, 2022 18:37:58 GMT voice said:

Dec 6, 2022 18:30:34 GMT perrykneeham said:

The market is generally better at running things, which is why so few things are run by the state.

clearly untrue, as you as said last page, no investment in infrastructure, rampant short termism, dividends instead of investment, knowing the gov will bail them out at the least sign of trouble so no incentive to get their house in order.

So, not clearly untrue at all. The observable facts support my position. There are some badly run privatised organisations but that is because they are not properly supervised or held to account - a point that I was also at pains to make.