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It's so wild to me that anyone thought this would be successful. Perhaps this shows my ignorance of business and the stock market works, but water utilities ar
by SCdF 2y ago
It's so wild to me that anyone thought this would be successful.
Perhaps this shows my ignorance of business and the stock market works, but water utilities are a service with a fixed set of customers, so there is neither a pressure to be good (because you can't gain customers from your competition so why bother) or a deterrent against being bad (because you have no competition so why bother).
So the only way to make line go up is to do your job worse (to save costs), overcharge customers (to bring more money in) and do random dodgy accounting (to bring even more money in). Was the argument that they would save costs by doing it more efficiently? Why, when they have a captive customer base with no ability to lose or gain customers, would they bother with that!?
Just mad.
- ssklash 2y agoI think you understand the situation perfectly. I'm similarly at a loss to explain why anyone thinks it was ever a good idea to privatise, unless you're one of the few directly profiting from the situation.
- euroderf 2y agoI remember reading about a UK water privatization. The first act of the new board of directors was to raise their compensation by 85,000 UKP each.
- tim333 2y agoThe problem isn't privatisation. You can fine companies that pollute: >When the UK joined the EU in the 70s, it was known for its dirty beaches. But by 2016, 96.5% of UK beaches met EU standards But then something glorious happened in 2016 and here we are. (quote from https://www.aquaread.com/blog/post-brexit-water-industry/#:~:text=When%20the%20UK%20joined%20the,here%20would%20reverse%20with%20Brexit https://www.aquaread.com/blog/post-brexit-water-industry/#:~....)
- nojvek 2y agoBrexit may have been most self own votes by British. They didn’t realize what they were exiting from. They went straight into corporate greed fuckery.
- ballenf 2y agoSeems strange in a country where the people have the ability and power to accomplish Brexit but not hold leaders accountable.
- tim333 2y agoWell, finally the Tories are getting voted out. It's all very delayed though. People knew what they were leaving as it was everyday life with its pluses and minuses. They didn't know what they were getting into instead though, and now we know it's hard to change.
- amandasystems 2y agoI guess this was the Trojan horse of brexit. Market it as “let’s get away from EU regulation so we can do good regulation (and racism)”, and actually mean “let get away from EU so we can do bad regulation (and racism)”. I’m often very critical of EU regulation so I sympathise with the first bit (less so the appalling “no refugees” racism shit). For example, Sweden used to have a public housing system where subsidised public housing wasn’t just for poor people. Then the private landlords took the state to EU court crying about unfair competition etc etc and won, and now public housing has to be run like a company which contributes to higher rents. The same process was repeated for most public services. Some of that was the trend at the time and would probably have happened anyway, but it sucks that it’s enforced from Brussels. EU does mandate a particular model of economy of its member states, one which relies heavily on market solutions to most problems. Using annoyance with the ongoing crumbles of every public service as an excuse to do more of the same is a stroke of evil genius.
- NikkiA 2y agoAnd actually, that's exactly what most of us remainers pointed out was going to happen, because tories can't resist reducing standards of living, working protections, or consumer rights.