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> ROSCOs exist because trains are so expensive that neither government nor TOCs can afford them. Is this sarcasm that I am missing? There is absolutely no reas

• amiga386 2y ago
  There are loads of reasons governments can't afford up-front capital expenditure! They have an income stream (taxes) but that all goes out the door on existing liabilities, including financing existing debts. They can only get money by raising taxes or cutting existing services. The third way is to try and attract external capital, e.g. "attracting inward investment" or "public-private partnerships", where someone else puts the money down, the trains/hospitals/schools/etc. get built, but the investors who paid for the things own the things and the government pays to use them for decades to come. This annoys the hell out of future governments, because it's effectively tying their hands, but it also lets the current government look like it's doing a lot more in its short term without raising taxes.
  • stephen_g 2y ago
    Not so! What you say is true for a country that has not achieved monetary sovereignty, or for a country who has given it up (like the Eurozone countries), but the UK, like the US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, etc. originate their own currency (only issuing bonds in their own currency, which their own central bank issues, and not having any pegs to other currencies). There is nothing that the private sector can afford in the UK that the UK Government can not afford!