Have they got public sympathy?

finchy

Sounds a bit like Hungary. I spent 5 months living there and in the end just gave up and went back to Slovakia. First I went to the labour office to get a work permit, but they told me to go to the town hall to get a residence permit. At the town hall they told me that to get a residence permit, I needed to go to the immigration office to get an entry permit. At the immigration office they told me that they couldn't give me an entry permit unless I had a work permit.

verylonglegs

johnfinch wrote:

Sounds a bit like Hungary. I spent 5 months living there and in the end just gave up and went back to Slovakia. First I went to the labour office to get a work permit, but they told me to go to the town hall to get a residence permit. At the town hall they told me that to get a residence permit, I needed to go to the immigration office to get an entry permit. At the immigration office they told me that they couldn't give me an entry permit unless I had a work permit.

You probably just needed to bribe someone.

pblakeney

johnfinch wrote:

Venezuela is pretty much irrelevant when talking about the UK's economy because they started off far poorer than us.

You could say the same for Canada.
Their economy was a basket case in the 90s.

Stevo_666

johnfinch wrote:

I don't think that I've ever called UKIP voters idiots on here. And stop trying to sidestep the issue. You were trying to claim some sort of majority support for your position, but I have provided you with links showing that I actually share my support with the majority of supporters of all the major political parties.

Nice try finchy - no sidestepping here. No argument with the snapshot protest vote on railways (like UKIP) but again, it won't happen.

johnfinch wrote:

And yes, the subsidy for rail fares is paid for by tax, but guess what... the subsidies that we pay to private operators also comes out of our taxes!

And you want to subsidise them more. Not the answer as already explained it is just shifting the burden more onto those that don't use the service.

johnfinch wrote:

Of course the country was in a mess, the whole world was in a mess. The world had just gone through an oil crisis. The fact that many industries were nationalised (which didn't prevent strong economic growth in preceding years) had absolutely zero effect whatsoever on OPEC policies.

You're right it was in a mess - and part of that was down to inefficient nationalised industries, unions who thought they ran the country and sky high taxes.

johnfinch wrote:

The fact that countries are privatising doesn't actually mean that it's a sensible policy. It can just mean that companies who run public services have got a lot of influence in government.

Good one! So the significant Global trend here is for privatisation (if it hasn't already happened). If nationalisation was a good idea like you say, you would expect just a few countries to be going in the other direction. I asked you for evidence and you sidestepped it. Just saying it's a 'good idea' without offering any real life evidence is not going to cut any ice. So ATQ - give us some evidence that there is a trend to nationalisation apart from idealogically driven basket cases like Venzuela.

johnfinch wrote:

Governments do have an incentive to improve services - it's called elections. People don't want crap public services. Unfortunately the mentality in Britain is often "we want good public services but we don't want to pay taxes", but to say that government can't run a good service is to ignore the successes that governments do have. Probably the best example of a world-beating service that we have in the UK is the Royal Mail. When you go and live in a foreign country (or use one of our private delivery companies) you can really appreciate what a good service they offer.

You really need to read up on some economics about competition. Elections don't provide those incentives to imporcve services - competition does. Left wing parties' normal reaction is just to chuck more money at the problem (funded by higher taxes or borrowing), without resolving the underlying problems re: efficiency and performance - exactly as the last Labour Govt did and look at the mess they left.

johnfinch wrote:

In terms of infrastructure, though, I don't expect too much in Britain because our country is dominated by the type of short-termist bean counters who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. And that goes for public and private sectors.

Evidence please?

Stevo 666 wrote:

So, let's put some money down on the next UK industry to be nationalised

johnfinch wrote:

I don't expect any to be nationalised.

At least you're vaguely realistic. Give up now

finchy

Stevo 666 wrote:

Nice try finchy - no sidestepping here. No argument with the snapshot protest vote on railways (like UKIP) but again, it won't happen.

Oh, come off it, you go back and read your words, you said that nobody was being fooled by left-wing arguments. Just admit you're wrong on that one. Left or right, you're in the minority even amongst right-wingers.

Stevo 666 wrote:

And you want to subsidise them more.

Subsidies went up under privatisation.

Stevo 666 wrote:

You're right it was in a mess - and part of that was down to inefficient nationalised industries, unions who thought they ran the country and sky high taxes.

I agree that there should have been reforms, but not the reforms that we did have. Seeing as I'm not advocating a return to the 1970s, I'm not quite sure what you expect me to be saying here.

Stevo 666 wrote:

Good one! So the significant Global trend here is for privatisation (if it hasn't already happened). If nationalisation was a good idea like you say, you would expect just a few countries to be going in the other direction. I asked you for evidence and you sidestepped it. Just saying it's a 'good idea' without offering any real life evidence is not going to cut any ice. So ATQ - give us some evidence that there is a trend to nationalisation apart from idealogically driven basket cases like Venzuela.

I haven't sidestepped it, I've given the example of the Royal Mail as being a decent public service. I might add the SNCF and DB on the continent, and let's not forget that many of our privatised services are actually state-run companies, except they are owned/run by foreign governments not our own! E.g. EDF or Arriva. So effectively, when you and I go to pay our taxes, subsidies from said taxes go to other pay for services in other countries! Are you happy with that state of affairs?

And seeing as I never actually said there is a trend towards nationalisation, I don't see why you are asking me to provide evidence for some words that you have put in my mouth.

Stevo 666 wrote:

You really need to read up on some economics about competition. Elections don't provide those incentives to imporcve services - competition does. Left wing parties' normal reaction is just to chuck more money at the problem (funded by higher taxes or borrowing), without resolving the underlying problems re: efficiency and performance - exactly as the last Labour Govt did and look at the mess they left.

Sorry, but I really don't give a f**k what economic theorists have to say about anything. The fact is that we have had all of these privatised services for decades now in this country, and we are STILL chucking money at our problems. When, according to your economic theory, is the taxpayer going to stop heavily subsidising these "efficient" services?

Stevo 666 wrote:

Evidence please?

Here you go. It's a list of countries by % of GDP invested in research and development. Look at the UK compared to other leading industrial nations. If you don't give the science and engineering lads and lasses the resources, we are going to really struggle in the future.

Despite the fact that we've got a world-leading university system, check out where we are in terms of high-technology exports: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TX. ... &sort=desc We should be up there with the very best, not lagging behind countries like France and having far smaller countries such as Netherlands and Switzerland breathing down our necks.

tangled_metal

Interesting point about the royal mail privatisation or part privatisation is something to do with access to investment. IIRC fully nationalised it was restricted in how it could get money for investment. Once privatised it was in a more flexible position to go to the markets for investment monies that were much needed for modernisation. Another aspect is it's unionised. I know from postie friends that there's still a closed shop going on informally at some depots. By that I mean some time ago these depots voted for the workers, not management, to join the union. Now they pretty much make it clear to work there you join the union. It's not official and would be illegal but it's happening. Not everywhere I admit but I know two people who work in such a depot.
A third interesting point relates to working practises at the royal mail. A few years back there were strikes. They were over changes to the working patterns or working practises. One such practise was the informal system where you could go home when your round is finished. Certain rounds could often be finished hours earlier than the allotted time but the postie still got paid the full hours. My friends used to officially finish at 4pm but often had finished and got home over 2 hours before. They didn't like it when that was stopped.
Also parcel force is linked but separate, I can't remember the relationship now, but the story about them i got told was that if the royal mail sacked you, parelforce would take you on. They also had the bad habit at busy times of leaving parcels for royal mail to deliver, just slip it back in the tubs for sorting with the normal mail.

All off topic with no relation to whether we have sympathy for the firemen. Personally I have only a slight sympathy for them. None for their pay and other benefits but a lot for the often difficult work they do. If they were other public sector workers say bin men or office admin at the council I'd not have any sympathy. However that's just my distrust of unions and unionised workforces.

Stevo_666

johnfinch wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Nice try finchy - no sidestepping here. No argument with the snapshot protest vote on railways (like UKIP) but again, it won't happen.

Oh, come off it, you go back and read your words, you said that nobody was being fooled by left-wing arguments. Just admit you're wrong on that one. Left or right, you're in the minority even amongst right-wingers.

I am right - it won't happen. I didn't dispute the results of an opinon poll but am not bothered about a snapshot opinion poll if it will have no real impact.

johnfinch wrote:

Subsidies went up under privatisation.

Not true if you look at all privatised industries - do we sub BP, BT, etc? Even the rail numbers (which is presumably what you are conveniently referring to rather than all privatised industries) are subject to major debate, especially as part of it is still state owned if you hadn't noticed.

johnfinch wrote:

I haven't sidestepped it, I've given the example of the Royal Mail as being a decent public service. I might add the SNCF and DB on the continent, and let's not forget that many of our privatised services are actually state-run companies, except they are owned/run by foreign governments not our own! E.g. EDF or Arriva. So effectively, when you and I go to pay our taxes, subsidies from said taxes go to other pay for services in other countries! Are you happy with that state of affairs?

I'm well aware of foreign investment including the likes of EDF - it is part of an open global economy. if you look at our outward investments you'll see that we do the same as a country - even more so. you can't expect to invest freely outbound and block inbound - that's protectionism and in the end harmful. Recent example:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/fdi/foreign-direct-investment/2011-sb/stb-fdi-2011.html
Having worked for a long time in multinationals that have made substantial outbound investments I see this sort of thing as a part of my job.

johnfinch wrote:

And seeing as I never actually said there is a trend towards nationalisation, I don't see why you are asking me to provide evidence for some words that you have put in my mouth.

Oh dear you either don't understand the point or you're deliberately choosing to misunderstand it. I never put words into your mouth. I simply made the point that if nationalisation was a good idea then there would be a trend towards it and asked if you could show some evidence for that. You couldn't.

johnfinch wrote:

Sorry, but I really don't give a f**k what economic theorists have to say about anything. The fact is that we have had all of these privatised services for decades now in this country, and we are STILL chucking money at our problems. When, according to your economic theory, is the taxpayer going to stop heavily subsidising these "efficient" services?

You should give one. Part of the problem is the continuing state portion and also the state intervention in those sectors:
http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/why-privatisation-always-trumps-nationalisation

Stevo 666 wrote:

Evidence please?

johnfinch wrote:

Here you go. It's a list of countries by % of GDP invested in research and development. Look at the UK compared to other leading industrial nations. If you don't give the science and engineering lads and lasses the resources, we are going to really struggle in the future.

Despite the fact that we've got a world-leading university system, check out where we are in terms of high-technology exports: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TX. ... &sort=desc We should be up there with the very best, not lagging behind countries like France and having far smaller countries such as Netherlands and Switzerland breathing down our necks.

You are trying to claim that this is evidence for the UK not having enough infrastructure? This is R&D and high tech exports, something completely different??


Like I said above - the proof of the pudding is in the eating re: nationalisation vs privatisation. You can argue till you're blue in the face about how great state ownership would be, but the overwhelming evidence is a move away from nationalisation globally and has been for some time. Unless you know something that the majority of governments round the world don't?

rick_chasey

Private companies running natural monopolies is always unlikely to work.

Rail is a case in point - which other rail firms or rail services does an operator compete with on any one particular line?

I'll save you thinking - they don't. Which begs the question - why would they be run more efficiently as a private company?

At least the state in these instances is interested in providing a service that suits the public.

The incentives for private companies running natural monopolies are all wrong.

Privatisation works when there is competition. Post actually nowadays is competitive so privatisation is more likely to work.

bompington

Rick Chasey wrote:

At least the state in these instances is interested in providing a service that suits the public.

Sadly there isn't a lot of empirical evidence for that.

Pross

Rick Chasey wrote:

Private companies running natural monopolies is always unlikely to work.

Rail is a case in point - which other rail firms or rail services does an operator compete with on any one particular line?

I'll save you thinking - they don't. Which begs the question - why would they be run more efficiently as a private company?

At least the state in these instances is interested in providing a service that suits the public.

The incentives for private companies running natural monopolies are all wrong.

Privatisation works when there is competition. Post actually nowadays is competitive so privatisation is more likely to work.

Agreed although with the rail companies no doubt the argument will be that the competition is at the stage when the companies bid for their franchises. In reality they just seem to carve the country up amongst themselves in a kind of cartel.

Anonymous

There was the Virgin/East Coast thing with the Gov't messed up.

rick_chasey

bompington wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

At least the state in these instances is interested in providing a service that suits the public.

Sadly there isn't a lot of empirical evidence for that.

In the UK there's not a lot of empirical evidence either way.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... urope.html

But can someone explain how the incentives for a privately run natural monopoly are better aligned with public interest state run?

Similarly, do you want your fire cover to be handled by private companies? So the company you pay insurance to has their own private fire brigade who will come out and put your house out?

bianchimoon

Rick Chasey wrote:

bompington wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

At least the state in these instances is interested in providing a service that suits the public.

Sadly there isn't a lot of empirical evidence for that.

In the UK there's not a lot of empirical evidence either way.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... urope.html

But can someone explain how the incentives for a privately run natural monopoly are better aligned with public interest state run?

Similarly, do you want your fire cover to be handled by private companies? So the company you pay insurance to has their own private fire brigade who will come out and put your house out?

That's nonsense, in the extremely unlikely event if it where ever to go down that road, a private fire brigade closest to you would put out the fire and bill your insurance company.