361–370 of 609 posts
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Cut costs. And if youre in a monopoly position, you can in addition prices. I mean, do you really not understand how earnings are calculated, or are you trolling?
I don't understand. If it's a monopoly, it's not a free market, by definition. Seems like you are the one trolling here.
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Why should I pay to maintain a road I’m not using now, or a fire service I haven’t used yet?
Because ticket offices are a costly relic from the 20th century that simply are not needed, as evidenced by the collapsing usage of them.
When profit becomes the main motivator, quality of services always seem to drop. I get that the government can be annoying, but I feel like there are many services that we should aim to provide as a society where profit isn’t the goal. For example, you don’t need to price gouge people for electricity, but charging enough to cover expenses and future infrastructure upgrades is fine and to be expected. No costly CEO or…
I am a deep believer in free markets as the most efficient mechanism for distributing goods and services, creating better offerings and lower prices through competition and encapsulating risk in innovation. Unfortunately, none of these apply to the privatization of inherently public commodities that run on top of an underlying network infrastructure. This can be streets, railway tracks or water pipes - whenever there…
It makes sense that energy production should be competitive. But for energy supply I can choose from dozens of companies that all supply the same gas/electricty, using the same pipes. These energy supply companies are really just billing operations. The actual supply of electricity is done by National Grid, another private company, but with no competition. Same for gas, and Centrica.
I can't even discriminate between them based on whether they're likely to go bust; when an energy supplier goes bust, some other supplier is forced to take on all their customers. That is an incentive to not run the company finances responsibly (whther you're the one that goes bust, or the one that is forced to take over).
Regulators are consistently hopeless. Regulatory capture is part of it - half the executives in these companies used to work for the regulator. But part of it is that you simply can't make a competitive market just by having a regulator tell you how much profit you're allowed to make.
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odd to say problems of capitalism when none of those are peculiar to capitalism. and a regulated market in which lobbyists vie for preferential treatment is the antithesis of a free market
markets aren't features of the land that exist unspoiled until sullied by human hand -- what I see is that markets will always collapse into monopoly absent any countervailing force, for the simple fact that enterprise owners make more profit that way
The UK is increasingly resembling the rest of the world's rentpig. The UK government has made Britain into one massive investment vehicle for foreign capital -- our utilities, leading firms, football teams, landmarks and property all serve to enrich sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia. These foreign investors have all received lavish incentives and grants, and in return we have been allowed to live way…
* The volunteers being a limited group of decision makers.
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What about losses from federally funded corporations like USPS and Amtrak that are bailed out every year? Amtrak loses over $1 billion/yr and they are still "nationalized." USPS loses multi billions per year.
The USPS is "loosing" money because it was told to prefund it's Healthcare having to set aside $100 billion in 10 years (unlike any other company) . Moreover, it's much more a service than a business, e.g. it can not really set its own prices. https://www.barrons.com/articles/usps-louis-dejoy-post-offic...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cut costs. And if youre in a monopoly position, you can in addition prices. I mean, do you really not understand how earnings are calculated, or are you trolling?
I don't understand. If it's a monopoly, it's not a free market, by definition. Seems like you are the one trolling here.
It is a free market, you are free to open your own water company and build your own water pipes or deliver water in bottles. No one is stopping you
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Isn't that the whole point of privatisation? By introducing a profit maximisation goal you (supposedly) create a more efficient operation. I've worked in both the public and the private sector and can definitely understand the argument. In my government job it was way easier to slack off and no-one really cared about the results. There was no actual pressure from above to hit targets. You had your budget and it didn'…
> Isn't that the whole point of privatisation? By introducing a profit maximisation goal you (supposedly) create a more efficient operation. Right, but efficient at what? The answer is almost invariably 'efficient at making money' - that's the whole point; competition normally forces alignment of incentives, wherein 'better' service (for some value of 'better') results in higher income. Thus a business that provides…
They don't make any money unless they give the customers what they want, that's the whole point. It's so basic even animals have an instinct for it. That's why government and private business shouldn't be mixed.
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any government system is too likely to be corrupted by politicians in relatively short timeframe
As opposed to the unaccountable board of a non-profit raking in significant income? Where they can pay themselves a nice bonus if they make more money for the non-profit?