Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
Sadly, I an see that you won't except it when I tell you what I actually thought and *why* I made the comments. They were to ensure people were informed about a serious problem many face. Not to bicker with you.
Gas and Electricity Prices
- Thread starter gordonscobie
- Start date
Sadly, I an see that you won't except it when I tell you what I actually thought and *why* I made the comments. They were to ensure people were informed about a serious problem many face. Not to bicker with you.
Ponty
pfm Member
I’d agree there are certain cases for nationalisation. Welsh Water isn’t a bad ‘not for profit’ model and provided a pretty good service in my experience. Although they are one of the few with a hosepipe ban despite being a very wet place generally…
Gingerbeard
Ayup Me Duck
He's already had his chance and didn't he sell off half of the UK golds reserves...
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I’m all for nationalising our utilities. The only shareholders should be us, the general public who are paying the bills. Any money made should go on investing in our infrastructure and keeping bills realistic.
We’ve had a long spell of dry and hot weather this summer and there’s hosepipe bans in various parts of the country. Only when this happens do they start talking about the impact of water shortages and how they should invest in the infrastructure. Down here in Devon I see thousands of houses being built everywhere but no extra sources of water being provided and sewerage being dumped in the rivers and sea because they can’t cope with all the extra people having a dump after breakfast. I’ve been saying for years we’re going to be in trouble sooner or later. Do they not think of this or are they just happy taking their huge pay packets? The government should do something but they’re out of their depth along with all the previous governments in recent times.
We’ve had a long spell of dry and hot weather this summer and there’s hosepipe bans in various parts of the country. Only when this happens do they start talking about the impact of water shortages and how they should invest in the infrastructure. Down here in Devon I see thousands of houses being built everywhere but no extra sources of water being provided and sewerage being dumped in the rivers and sea because they can’t cope with all the extra people having a dump after breakfast. I’ve been saying for years we’re going to be in trouble sooner or later. Do they not think of this or are they just happy taking their huge pay packets? The government should do something but they’re out of their depth along with all the previous governments in recent times.
wulbert
pfm Member
Jeez! Are you normally this stubborn? The bakery analogy was just that. It was you who introduced all the extraneous guff about not exploiting people.
You don't have to believe me. Have a look at Statoil, now Equinor, the Norweigian state owned oil company. They seem to turn a nice profit for their fellow countrymen. The resulting Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is an embarrassment of riches. Go figure. They also manage to return around eighty times the public benefit than we do from our UK oil.
TDLR:
Did Thatcher make this worse?
So by all accounts, the Norwegians handled their oil boom perfectly, but the same cannot be said for the British. The surge of oil profits for Britain coincided with the rise of Margaret Thatcher. She came into power in 1979, and instead of setting up a fund to invest these new profits, she used the extra money to make radical reforms to the British economy.
She started a wave of mass privatization of companies that were otherwise profitable and made large cuts to income taxes in order to revitalize an otherwise stagnating economy. Her policies were successful in that regard and resulted in large economic growth.
In essence, the UK and Norway took opposite approaches to their oil money. The British blew it on tax cuts while the Norwegians invested it and grew it to the point where this tiny nation of 5 million people is the largest shareholder in Europe. Norway is a perfect example of why investing is smart, and that’s a lesson we can all use.
wulbert
pfm Member
The essential problem is that there is a direct conflict of interest when you privatise a crucial public utility. A company's first duty is to make a profit. Fair enough.
That means that a private company or plc is not the proper structure to deliver an essential public health service. They are directly incentivised to reduce their service to the public and increase their own wealth. It's baked in to the structure.
This seems so obvious as to hardly need stating...but here we are...hosepipe bans and shit flowing down our rivers.
wulbert
pfm Member
A more recent article about how our "World-Beating" approach to oil and gas compares with our neighbour.
Engineering & technology January 2021
What the two countries did with their surplus revenue has effectively mapped their economic futures for half a century. As the UK’s former Secretary of State for the Environment (and later Defence) Michael Heseltine said recently, Britain under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher “squandered the windfall” on short-term consumerist policies such as subsidised housing and mortgage tax relief policies. Heseltine says he would have preferred to see the money invested in a ‘sovereign wealth fund’, a state-owned financial instrument for securing long-term benefits for the nation’s citizenry.
This is exactly what Norway did, investing its surplus revenues in the so-called ‘Oil Fund’ which owns 1 per cent of the world’s stocks, is valued at more than US$1tn and, according to The Economist, is the largest fund of its type in existence.
Today, the economic fortunes of the two countries differ vastly: in terms of GDP per capita Norway is currently the second wealthiest country on Earth (after Luxembourg), while the UK comes in 20th, with a GDP per capita of almost exactly half of Norway’s - US$52,291 (£38,961) compared with $102,907 (£76,686) (projected figures for 2022).
Engineering & technology January 2021
What the two countries did with their surplus revenue has effectively mapped their economic futures for half a century. As the UK’s former Secretary of State for the Environment (and later Defence) Michael Heseltine said recently, Britain under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher “squandered the windfall” on short-term consumerist policies such as subsidised housing and mortgage tax relief policies. Heseltine says he would have preferred to see the money invested in a ‘sovereign wealth fund’, a state-owned financial instrument for securing long-term benefits for the nation’s citizenry.
This is exactly what Norway did, investing its surplus revenues in the so-called ‘Oil Fund’ which owns 1 per cent of the world’s stocks, is valued at more than US$1tn and, according to The Economist, is the largest fund of its type in existence.
Today, the economic fortunes of the two countries differ vastly: in terms of GDP per capita Norway is currently the second wealthiest country on Earth (after Luxembourg), while the UK comes in 20th, with a GDP per capita of almost exactly half of Norway’s - US$52,291 (£38,961) compared with $102,907 (£76,686) (projected figures for 2022).
Seanm
pfm Member
I have to admire the constancy: 40 years into the Thatcher experiment, rivers full of shit, social care in a terminal state, energy costs quadrupling, outsourcing failures like Carillion regularly blowing up whole economic sectors, and you’re sticking steadfastly to the myths of the 1970s as if none of this had ever happened.
There are no logical or historical grounds for thinking that state owned enterprises are fated to become complacent and inefficient. There are any number of different ways of nationalising industry and some quite spectacular success stories internationally (Taiwan, Korea, Singapore). Even in Britain, where nationalisation was bungled, the public sector still outperformed the private on the available evidence.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/op...-bashers-economic-case-against-public-owners/
Ponty
pfm Member
Why am I watching newsnight which is saying France is looking to the UK to provide electricity this winter to keep their lights on? Nationalised and subsidised industries are clearly doing a cracking job. France are also paying more per mega watt hour than the UK, apparently. French taxpayers getting mugged by the sound of it.
Seanm
pfm Member
LOL let’s see who’s in a better position come winter, France or U.K.
Hook
Blackbeard's former bo'sun.
Without the GOE, there’d be no breatharians.
Seanm
pfm Member
Britain is going to have to do *something* like this:
https://twitter.com/peddersophie/status/1557665566520999936?s=21&t=-hBC0nWks_cPbsknCa10UQ
Macron isn’t doing this because he loves public ownership.
https://twitter.com/peddersophie/status/1557665566520999936?s=21&t=-hBC0nWks_cPbsknCa10UQ
Macron isn’t doing this because he loves public ownership.
paulfromcamden
Baffled
Can we have a 'banging head against wall' emoji please Tony?
Please, let's not 'bash business'.
Please, let's not 'bash business'.
Ponty
pfm Member
That will largely depend on the individual in either country rather than the state. Sounds like France are almost begging for energy supplies from the UK.
Cav
pfm Member
Most UK utilities are owned by foreign countries - and France is a big player.
How are we going to supply energy to France? What form of energy are you talking about? Are there big cables under the English Channel?
Indeed - there are eight cables that can work either way between the uk and Europe, Ireland and Norway. The nature of demand is that it is not unusual for the uk to send power to France at one price and then to buy the same amount back at a higher price at a different time. The same can happen in reverse of course, and I suspect some Googling will find real data.
Nero
Re: Tired
Ummm, yes.