Labours pension threat - daily express

DragonQ

Triumph13 wrote: »

The most important thing is to ensure no-one in a monopoly position is able to abuse that. When companies are privatised it is essential that they are properly regulated to avoid market abuse. We can argue about how well various governments have managed that, but hopefully we can all agree that it is essential.

Indeed.

Triumph13 wrote: »

When a company is nationalised, the past experience in the UK has usually been that we end up handing over monopolistic powers to the trade unions. If there is no external threat to their employment because competition has been banned and the government has to keep subsidising them, then they have no vested interest in quality of service or efficiency. Their only interest is to have more employees being paid higher wages to do less work. Basic economics says you end up paying more for worse services - which anyone who can remember the 1970s will confirm.

You can't ban competition when there can be none to begin with.

If all the workers at all the water companies decided to unionise and strike, what can the companies do that a government-run organisation could not? People complain about rail workers striking and that's privatised already. Privatisation doesn't solve the problem of underpaid or overworked employees, it just tries to hide it.

I really do wonder what the people who champion privatisation feel about the NHS.

Deleted_User wrote: »

I really doubt that but the real question is “so?” You seem to be happy to punish millions of retirees as long as the “billionaires” are punished more. The ideology of envy in all its beauty.

That’s not a “fact”. That’s your ideologically driven uninformed opinion.

The common men in N Korea and. Venezuela are practically rolling in it, aren’t they?

Thanks for the insult. It's interesting that you say I'm uninformed when your reply begins with "I really doubt that", showing you didn't read the data I linked to. There are plenty of pensions on there, and plenty of other interests too.

I didn't use the word "billionaires" or suggest we should live in a socialist or communist system. Do you have any more strawman arguments to throw my way?

We have a mixed market economy and too many things have been pushed onto the private sector in my opinion. You can tell a system is broken when people who work full-time are still in poverty, yet people can make a lot of money off of investing in industries that should be run for the benefit of everyone, not just investors. There are plenty of countries that haven't privatised these industries and that have far better public services than we do, and we can learn from them. We don't live in a "either we do it the current way or the 1970s Britain way" bubble.

LHW99

We don't live in a "either we do it the current way or the 1970s Britain way" bubble.

We don't but that's certainly what is being offered IMO

[Deleted User]

I'm uninformed when your reply begins with "I really doubt that", showing you didn't read the data I linked to

You mean your CorpWatch link? “Data”? You are funny. Might as well link directly to Pravda.

DragonQ

Deleted_User wrote: »

You mean your CorpWatch link? “Data”? You are funny. Might as well link directly to Pravda.

Again, no actual argument.

nigelbb

Triumph13 wrote: »

You seem to have stuck in your head that these industries are owned by greedy rich people who deserve to be punished for making profits. In reality most things are owned by institutional investors and make up the funds which everyone's pensions are invested in. In essence they are already owned by the public.

They are indeed already owned by the public but not the British public. Much of the UK former state owned industries are still state owned it's just the state is not the UK. The trains for example are mostly owned by EU nationalised railway companies. Here is a list of the train operators:-

Abellio Dutch state (Nederlandse Spoorwegen)
c2c: Italian state (Trenitalia)
Chiltern: German state (Deutsche Bahn)
Caledonian sleeper: PRIVATE
CrossCountry: German state (Deutsche Bahn)
East Midlands: Dutch state (Nederlandse Spoorwegen)
Eurostar: French state (SNCF)
Gatwick Express: French state (SNCF)
Grand Central: German state (Deutsche Bahn)
Great Northern: French state (SNCF)
GWR: PRIVATE
Greater Anglia: Dutch state (Nederlandse Spoorwegen)
Heathrow Express: PRIVATE
Hull Trains: PRIVATE
LNER: British state
London Northwestern Railway: Dutch state (Nederlandse Spoorwegen)
London Overground: German state (Deutsche Bahn)
London Underground: British state (TfL)
Merseyrail: Dutch state (Nederlandse Spoorwegen)
Northern: German state (Deutsche Bahn)
Northern Ireland Railways: British state
Scotrail: Dutch state (Nederlandse Spoorwegen)
South Western Railway: Hong Kong state
Southeastern: French state (SNCF)
Southern: French state (SNCF)
Stansted Express: Dutch state (Nederlandse Spoorwegen)
TfL rail: Hong Kong state
Thameslink: French state (SNCF)
TransPennine Express: PRIVATE
Transport for Wales: French state (SNCF)
West Coast: Italian state (Trenitalia)
West Midlands Railway: Dutch state (Nederlandse Spoorwegen)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/trains-uk-railways-renationalise-countries-operators-companies-a9058961.html

Apodemus

Interesting list and thanks for posting this.

But does this not also show that it may not be the ownership model itself that is either good or bad about the British Railway sector? Simply nationalising or privatising makes little difference if one simply changes the ownership and not the management/operation/infrastructure.

Personally, I think our railways do pretty well in the face of huge demand and a highly constrained network.

Triumph13

And British Rail didn't exactly have an enviable reputation...

Ultimately whilst I think the current nationalisation proposals are a serious mistake, they don't worry me anywhere near as much as the proposal to confiscate 10% of all private companies. That's the one which would lead to massive capital flight the instant that polls showed labour had any significant chance of winning a majority and bankrupt us pretty well overnight.

badmemory

Does anyone remember why the railways were nationalised in the first place? It will probably turn out to be the same reason that they will land up having to be nationalised again. Too much taking profit out & not enough investment.

Andy_L

badmemory wrote: »

Does anyone remember why the railways were nationalised in the first place?

because they were shagged out from supporting the war effort and the owners couldn't /wouldn't afford to revitalise them?

badmemory

And then came Dr Beeching. Closed the local line, couldn't find anywhere to park near local station, started driving in to work as waiting 20 mins or more on a cold dark night on my own for a bus to show up. I had some very interesting conversations with some prostitutes & once one of their pimps stopped me from being hurt. A couple of years later one of those pimps also changed my flat tyre for me. This was a very long time ago.


It would be interesting to know if those railway owners got the sort of profit out of those railways that the arms dealers did.