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The thread reminds me of the Guardian's podcast "Sewage Sleuths" which uncovered catastrophic sewage being dumped into England and Wales's rivers and streams. V

The thread reminds me of the Guardian's podcast "Sewage Sleuths" which uncovered catastrophic sewage being dumped into England and Wales's rivers and streams. Very informative and enlightening how bad some government infrastructure can be (hint: in the podcast they also enlightened HOW the failure got bad). https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2022/aug/15/sewage-sleuths-slow-dirty-death-of-welsh-and-english-rivers-podcast https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2022/aug/15/sewage-sl...

WhyIsItGlowing 4y ago
It's worth clarifying that the issue with the government infrastructure is with the regulatory agencies, rather than the water infrastructure itself which is privatised. There's also a good text article version; https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/04/sewage-sleuths-river-pollution-slow-dirty-death-of-welsh-and-english-rivers https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/04/sewage-s...
jmfldn 4y ago
It's a failure of privitisation 30 years in the making since water and waste management was privatised in 1989 here in the UK. Of course you can lay some blame at the door of the regulator but let's not forget the tens of billions that have been siphoned off to shareholders and fatcat CEOs, some of whom are arguably criminally negligent and should be put on trial for the catastrophes that have become apparent in recent years.
- lambdadmitry 4y ago
  I really don't like this kind of knee-jerk "privatisation bad, fatcat CEOs bad" reaction sadly prevalent in the UK. Let's talk about the underlying argument, shall we? Firstly, you're talking about a failure of a regulator to regulate an industry and prosecute alleged perpetrators, and the implied solution is to… nationalise the industry, somehow assuming the nationalised entity will be managed better by the very same regulator? I don't think it's a good argument really Secondly, if we go even deeper, what pressures would such an entity have to provide good service and not be wasteful with their resources? Right now there's at least market pressure, the companies trying to outcompete their peers, cut costs, and ensure future profitability by investment. What pressures do you think exist for a nationalised entity that don't exist for a regulator? Thirdly, do you actually have any evidence to prove that those companies are uniquely profitable? Because unless they are, it's only fair that people investing their own money into infrastructure (remember, that was one of the goals of privatisation, tapping private budgets in addition to tax money) get some return on it, otherwise they'd just invest it elsewhere, e.g. into Apple stock, which would benefit British people much less. Privatisation per se is not the problem, political failures are.
  - amrocha 4y ago
    How can you look at horrible evil companies literally destroying the environment around us just because it makes them more money and say there's no alternative??? If you need a regulator to make sure companies don't literally dump sewage all over the country then it's pretty clear that this is a failed system with bad incentives. What pressures would a nationalized system have? How about the fact that normal people don't want to ruin the environment around them? You don't need additional pressure to make sure that doesn't happen. If you stop optimizing for short term money the problem goes away. And I don't give a shit about private budgets. The government doesn't need that shit, it can create money as it needs to allocate resources. And if it needs to reduce money supply that's what taxation is for.
    - gruez 4y ago
      >What pressures would a nationalized system have? How about the fact that normal people don't want to ruin the environment around them? You don't need additional pressure to make sure that doesn't happen. Elsewhere in this thread people are literally talking about nationalized healthcare systems where people are waiting hours for ambulances, or dying in hospital waiting rooms. I think the statement of "normal people don't want to ruin the environment around them" is applicable to the people working in those healthcare systems, yet it's still apparently happening.
      - amrocha 4y ago
        Entirely different situations. One is happening by design, the other is happening due to external circumstances. Private companies pollute because dealing with externalities costs money. It's not a problem they're trying to solve, it's a feature they implemented to increase margins. The NHS doesn't have appropriate funding. If you increase funding you fix the problem. From what I've seen, the NHS used to be great until the 90s when the cuts began.
      - jmfldn 4y ago
        The NHS is collapsing due to politicised defunding. The NHS is a sacred cow in the UK so the right can't overtly criticise it, instead it's death by a thousand cuts (pun intended). Remember Noam Chomsky's quote on this subject? "Privatisation technique: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital". The latter part is already happening.

WhyIsItGlowing 4y ago

It's worth clarifying that the issue with the government infrastructure is with the regulatory agencies, rather than the water infrastructure itself which is privatised. There's also a good text article version; https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/04/sewage-sleuths-river-pollution-slow-dirty-death-of-welsh-and-english-rivers https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/04/sewage-s...

jmfldn 4y ago

It's a failure of privitisation 30 years in the making since water and waste management was privatised in 1989 here in the UK. Of course you can lay some blame at the door of the regulator but let's not forget the tens of billions that have been siphoned off to shareholders and fatcat CEOs, some of whom are arguably criminally negligent and should be put on trial for the catastrophes that have become apparent in recent years.

lambdadmitry 4y ago
I really don't like this kind of knee-jerk "privatisation bad, fatcat CEOs bad" reaction sadly prevalent in the UK. Let's talk about the underlying argument, shall we? Firstly, you're talking about a failure of a regulator to regulate an industry and prosecute alleged perpetrators, and the implied solution is to… nationalise the industry, somehow assuming the nationalised entity will be managed better by the very same regulator? I don't think it's a good argument really Secondly, if we go even deeper, what pressures would such an entity have to provide good service and not be wasteful with their resources? Right now there's at least market pressure, the companies trying to outcompete their peers, cut costs, and ensure future profitability by investment. What pressures do you think exist for a nationalised entity that don't exist for a regulator? Thirdly, do you actually have any evidence to prove that those companies are uniquely profitable? Because unless they are, it's only fair that people investing their own money into infrastructure (remember, that was one of the goals of privatisation, tapping private budgets in addition to tax money) get some return on it, otherwise they'd just invest it elsewhere, e.g. into Apple stock, which would benefit British people much less. Privatisation per se is not the problem, political failures are.
- amrocha 4y ago
  How can you look at horrible evil companies literally destroying the environment around us just because it makes them more money and say there's no alternative??? If you need a regulator to make sure companies don't literally dump sewage all over the country then it's pretty clear that this is a failed system with bad incentives. What pressures would a nationalized system have? How about the fact that normal people don't want to ruin the environment around them? You don't need additional pressure to make sure that doesn't happen. If you stop optimizing for short term money the problem goes away. And I don't give a shit about private budgets. The government doesn't need that shit, it can create money as it needs to allocate resources. And if it needs to reduce money supply that's what taxation is for.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >What pressures would a nationalized system have? How about the fact that normal people don't want to ruin the environment around them? You don't need additional pressure to make sure that doesn't happen. Elsewhere in this thread people are literally talking about nationalized healthcare systems where people are waiting hours for ambulances, or dying in hospital waiting rooms. I think the statement of "normal people don't want to ruin the environment around them" is applicable to the people working in those healthcare systems, yet it's still apparently happening.
    - amrocha 4y ago
      Entirely different situations. One is happening by design, the other is happening due to external circumstances. Private companies pollute because dealing with externalities costs money. It's not a problem they're trying to solve, it's a feature they implemented to increase margins. The NHS doesn't have appropriate funding. If you increase funding you fix the problem. From what I've seen, the NHS used to be great until the 90s when the cuts began.
    - jmfldn 4y ago
      The NHS is collapsing due to politicised defunding. The NHS is a sacred cow in the UK so the right can't overtly criticise it, instead it's death by a thousand cuts (pun intended). Remember Noam Chomsky's quote on this subject? "Privatisation technique: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital". The latter part is already happening.