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They should be publicly owned but the money ring fensed and the prices rise depending on works needed. For example I think it would cost something like £100bn t

They should be publicly owned but the money ring fensed and the prices rise depending on works needed. For example I think it would cost something like £100bn to sort out the sewerage system in the UK - we should just ask people what they want (continue as is or have higher bills) and charge people based on their assets an amount over say 5-10 years that covers it. So for rich people it might be several thousand £ per year and for poorer people a lot less. These sort of taxes that are needed can never be done currently so we continue pumping sewage into our waterways and seasides.

pbhjpbhj 3y ago
The water companies could afford to address the problem, they just chose to afford dividends instead. Absolutely, privatise and then increase taxation if needed to provide the service. But why do you need to, just give a water allowance per person and then adjust prices above the allowance to cover the cost of the service?
makomk 3y ago
We know what people want, though: they want the sewage system fixed and to continue paying the same amount for water and sewage as before, and they've been convinced they can have it by cynical populist campaigners and politicians telling them that they were already paying for this and the evil, greedy privatised water companies just stole the money and used it for shareholder profits. (They were not. The amounts the regulators allowed the water companies to charge were way too low to cover it, basically by design since people weren't willing to pay that much and didn't consider it worth fixing until a year or so ago. All of the shareholder dividends post-privatisation were not enough to pay for it, and of course without those dividends no-one would invest anyway.) Oh, and they don't want the inconvenience of having their streets dug up to install the new infrastructure either.

pbhjpbhj 3y ago

The water companies could afford to address the problem, they just chose to afford dividends instead. Absolutely, privatise and then increase taxation if needed to provide the service. But why do you need to, just give a water allowance per person and then adjust prices above the allowance to cover the cost of the service?

makomk 3y ago

We know what people want, though: they want the sewage system fixed and to continue paying the same amount for water and sewage as before, and they've been convinced they can have it by cynical populist campaigners and politicians telling them that they were already paying for this and the evil, greedy privatised water companies just stole the money and used it for shareholder profits. (They were not. The amounts the regulators allowed the water companies to charge were way too low to cover it, basically by design since people weren't willing to pay that much and didn't consider it worth fixing until a year or so ago. All of the shareholder dividends post-privatisation were not enough to pay for it, and of course without those dividends no-one would invest anyway.) Oh, and they don't want the inconvenience of having their streets dug up to install the new infrastructure either.