Earlier quoted context omitted.
> as measured by accidents Suspiciously specific denial. What about other metrics?
Like what? Accidents are the only source of danger in the system.
Accidents aren’t a cause of danger, they’re the result of it.
Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure
301–310 of 478 posts
Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a middle ground that is quite common across Europe: a private company that has the government as a shareholder. I think it is reasonable for subsidies to be structured just like private investments rather than a donation. The public should reap the rewards of the money they invest in their country through taxes, just like wealthy investors do. It's a question of perspective. I've spent my life in countries w…
That's interesting: it reminds me of the results we're seeing from workplace democracy in Germany. Companies with workers on their boards are significantly less likely to go bust than companies where only investors' opinions matter. But of course, whenever someone else's opinion matters, investors use their wealth to try to change that. Rich people seem to prefer worse outcomes as long as they get to be in charge.
Yes, the desire for power is as important as the desire for capital.
Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure
#303A lot of people in the UK seem to think the trains in Europe are so much better, but that's not the case, at least in my experience. We took an interrail trip a couple of years ago and spent half the time sat on the floor and waiting for delayed trains. If anything, the overall experience was much worse than trains in the UK, especially if you factored in the difficulty in procuring the correct tickets.
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Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure
#304Does Britain have any privatisation success stories? Or any public-private partnership (PPP) success stories? Does any country have any success stories? I can’t think of any.
Very fair question. Let's also consider the inverse. Are there any modern government run success stories in Britain?
Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure
#305Does Britain have any privatisation success stories? Or any public-private partnership (PPP) success stories? Does any country have any success stories? I can’t think of any.
All things where you can't have genuine competition are a disaster.
I'm not against taking these things away from government but it might be better to have a non-profit that isn't as directly controlled by the whims of politicians. Independent similarly like the Bank of England with very clear metrics/goals on how to run the company.
Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there's a couple of things about typical foreign experiences of UK public transport to note (some of this may not apply to you in particular, of course): (1) Most tourists visit largely London and its near surroundings. Public transport in (and to) London is generally much better than other parts of the country. (2) A lot of the downsides don't manifest if you're a relatively infrequent user and you're largel…
London is particularly notable because it escaped forced privatisation of e.g. bus services. In London all the buses are red and work the same. You do not care whether your bus is a "Big Corp" bus or a "Tiny New Outfit" bus, they're both red, they both take Oyster, or credit cards or whatever, they're the same, the bus service is controlled by Transpot for London which responds to an elected Mayor. In most UK cities…
> You do not care whether your bus is a "Big Corp" bus or a "Tiny New Outfit" bus, they're both red, they both take Oyster, or credit cards or whatever, they're the same, the bus service is controlled by Transpot for London
Irish urban buses are like this in principle; they're branded TFI and operated by either Bus Eireann (state-owned) for non-Dublin stuff or Dublin Bus (state-owned) or GoAhead (private) for Dublin stuff. Only way to tell these days is a small notice on the door. However, you do care whether your route is Dublin Bus or GoAhead; if it's Dublin Bus it will probably merely be late, whereas if it's GoAhead it will probably be _very_ late or just cancelled. Is this not the case in London; ie are the operators all about the same in terms of level of service?
Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure
#307It implies railways were les safe post privatisation. This is misleading. There were more accidents and deaths, but that was because of a huge increase in miles travelled. Deaths per billion kilometers fell consistently before and after privatisation. A lot of the problems lie in tracks and their maintenance, and the tracks were re-nationalised many years ago. It is not efficiently run (see HS2!). They are expensive,…
There is a middle ground that is quite common across Europe: a private company that has the government as a shareholder. I think it is reasonable for subsidies to be structured just like private investments rather than a donation. The public should reap the rewards of the money they invest in their country through taxes, just like wealthy investors do. It's a question of perspective. I've spent my life in countries w…
Where are these mythical countries you proclaim to have well managed public services and utilities?
Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They are expensive, but that is partly because rail workers are well paid This is in fact an interesting by-product of privatisation: train drivers became rarer due to shareholder reluctance to train and recruit them. They consequently became more expensive. A somewhat fun side effect of the free market, especially given the prevailing assumption that moving public sector employees into the private sector would dri…
Is that true? My understanding is they command very high wages because their unions are strong and they have a lot of leverage: by striking they can impose extremely high costs on the wider economy (not to mention bad press for politicians).
Unions that can shut down important parts of society can and do get paid about as much as they want.
This is much more like blackmail than doing right by the working man.
Did the train drivers somehow not have this power before privatization?
Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure
#309It implies railways were les safe post privatisation. This is misleading. There were more accidents and deaths, but that was because of a huge increase in miles travelled. Deaths per billion kilometers fell consistently before and after privatisation. A lot of the problems lie in tracks and their maintenance, and the tracks were re-nationalised many years ago. It is not efficiently run (see HS2!). They are expensive,…
> They are expensive, but that is partly because rail workers are well paid This is in fact an interesting by-product of privatisation: train drivers became rarer due to shareholder reluctance to train and recruit them. They consequently became more expensive. A somewhat fun side effect of the free market, especially given the prevailing assumption that moving public sector employees into the private sector would dri…
Definitely an interesting wrinkle. I wonder, though, if it's still cheaper to have extremely overworked but well paid staff, and few of them, versus adequate staff and normal pay.
Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure
#310> abject failure Other than a huge explosion in the number of people using trains? literally Chernobyl-on-wheels
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