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Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

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Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#471

Post by pipes »

cassepipe wrote: post #415
pipes wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point I'm trying (and obviously failing) to make is that "rich people" is a very broad definition to the point of being completely meaningless. About 7 to 8 percent of my Americans have a net worth greater than 1 million dollars. Is that rich? By some standards, yes. You mention constructs to check power? What do you mean?

1 million means you can stop working for 20 years and get around 4000 dollars per month which should be well enough to feed yourself, go out and get a roof on your head. Of course that's not even counting the revenue you can have this money generate for you while you are sitting on your ass. So yes, I'd consider them rich. If you can totally stop working for more than 5 years I'd say you are rich.

I agree. And that's what I'm getting at, making statements like the parent post about rich people is a bit ridiculous.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#472

Post by p_l »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #155
wood_spirit wrote: post #2

Does 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.

Hong Kong is considered to have the best subway system in the world and it is private and for-profit. Though the largest shareholder of its stock is the Hong Kong government.

In many countries that is considered a state-owned business

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#473

Post by p_l »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #138
simgt wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does any country have any success stories? Apparently South Korea is doing pretty well with its healthcare: financing is public, service delivery is private (but heavily regulated).

That's the same model we have in Canada here mainly. Provinces pay for the service, but family doctors and most other practitioners are private businesses that then bill the government based on a set fee schedule. The exception I guess is hospitals which are kind of a mixed structure of some kind and doctors in them are salaried employees not businesses of their own. The problem with this approach is it intrinsically…

NHS services originally (tories have been chipping at it a lot) had all NHS services delivered by NHS staff and infrastructure, with I think one major exception being dentistry.

In Poland we have public insurance system (also slowly killed by government) but in reality nearly all providers are private or, at most, owned by local government (city etc.)

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#474

Post by cycomanic »

nandomrumber wrote: post #420
cycomanic wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, not a real scotsman

Haha, yeah true. I did have a self critical thought along those lines. Maybe there’s an argument to be made that large countries should be broken up in to smaller, more manageable geographic / population sizes. Trust busting style.

Just seeing your reply now and wanted to say that I really appreciate your humorous self-reflection. Too often we just argue aggressively against the others standpoint without any self-reflection of our own (I've certainly been guilty of it).

Also the idea of smaller units for creating a closer feeling of belonging is something I've been thinking about quite a few times. I think countries/nations etc. try to use patriotism and a us vs them (because there is often not enough real connection otherwise) mentality to artificially create this.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#475

Post by razakel »

dijit wrote: post #469
Aloisius wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK invented tilting train technology, and it was given away to foreign corporations instead of being licensed and exploited in the UK. It wasn't given away. Fiat Ferroviaria purchased the patents for it. Mind, the UK wasn't the first tilted train (that would probably be PERC in the US) or even the first actively tilted train (either SNCF in France or Deutsche Bahn in Germany).

> It wasn't given away. Fiat Ferroviaria purchased the patents for it. Those patents were sold in 1982 for the princely sum of £1. This was the pattern that Thatcher presided over, selling national systems for a nominal £1 fee. I think that is essentially giving it away.

She also stole a bank.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#476

Post by buellerbueller »

dash2 wrote: post #470
buellerbueller wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trend is not a "wiggle." It is the slope of a local region, around which the "wiggles" bounce. Sure, I agree: privatization continued the trend that nationalization established. My point is simply this: the graph on its own doesn't indicate anything causal, but your original comment implied that the graph is enough to prove that privatization caused the growth.

Sure. The graph on its own doesn't prove causality. The graph, plus a little basic common sense, does give strong evidence of causality. Specifically, there's no other plausible alternative for the sudden dramatic turnaround in the mid-80s and sustained growth thereafter.

The turnaround in the mid 1980s predates privatization, so unless everyone had time machines back then, this is evidence against causality.

Also: common sense is not evidence. It never has been, nor will it ever be. Justification? Sure. Could even be that common sense is correct. But, evidence? No.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#477

Post by nandomrumber »

cycomanic wrote: post #474
nandomrumber wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, yeah true. I did have a self critical thought along those lines. Maybe there’s an argument to be made that large countries should be broken up in to smaller, more manageable geographic / population sizes. Trust busting style.

Just seeing your reply now and wanted to say that I really appreciate your humorous self-reflection. Too often we just argue aggressively against the others standpoint without any self-reflection of our own (I've certainly been guilty of it). Also the idea of smaller units for creating a closer feeling of belonging is something I've been thinking about quite a few times. I think countries/nations etc. try to use patr…

Your reply did not go unnoticed, thank you.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#478

Post by julik »

iggldiggl wrote: post #457
julik wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most European railways require a driver to have done some route familiarization for most routes, which tends to work fairly well. What does not work very well is that the UK has very patchy and antiquated train safety systems (AWS / TPWS are somewhat rudimentary and deployed - by far - not everywhere) and signaling. Even speed restrictions in the UK are placed very, very tightly and you better know them by heart beca…

> AWS / TPWS are somewhat rudimentary and deployed - by far - not everywhere I don't think that's quite true. AWS is rudimentary, true (only forces acknowledgement of warning signals, but otherwise no speed supervision, braking curves or trainstop functionality), but AFAIK deployed almost everywhere, the only major exception I'm aware of being some complex but slow-speed station layouts. And TPWS… while it doesn't do…

That is an interesting difference. Also, from what I know, the German signaling is configured in such a way that there always be sufficient braking distance between signals - including speed reductions, whereas if you look at how tightly the UK speed signs are placed it seems that they do not give any "warning", they state the fact - and you better be prepared.
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