It's just as much of a problem when it's publicly funded, worse in fact. Private companies can blank unions that have ridiculous demands - governments not so much. Especially so when much of their funding comes from them.
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Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)
- Thread starter SpurMeUp
- Start date
Writes book about the failure to properly recognise women in economics, fails to recognise female economic writers she has stolen from.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
It depends what you mean by modernisation. Is that maximising profit, or maximising service?
Modernisation could mean progressive things like flat fares and night trains, that the private sector would never go near.
If such things cost the taxpayer more, then neither should any public service.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
It's a shift from indirect taxes to direct taxes, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a net cost. It's much more holistic than balance sheet decision-making, but abolishing dynamic pricing and letting people travel intercity after 10pm could have some fairly significant benefits for society.
It will be a net cost for those of us who don't use trains.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
Your driving times could be cut though if more plebs can be incentivised off the roads
Gilzeantoscore
Justin Edinburgh
flimflam! if there was a profit to be made, companies would queue up to invest. All they do is chase the money
Gilzeantoscore
Justin Edinburgh
Another reason to nationalize assets is that there is more to managing them than just making money. Does anybody seriously believe that the will exists in private water companies to fix the pollution of our waterways? Private capital has ONE motive only, to maximize profit and it does not care about the damage it causes in that pursuit. I would nationalize energy, transport and water
Tell me you don't understand how a business works without saying you don't understand how a business works.
Rorschach
Ricky Villa
Of just maintaining the roads maybe, potholes etc, but not the actual cost which would factor in many more externalities.
More than double every year adds up quickly. Then there's the VAT on fuel, car tax, VAT on car sales, punitive BiK rates, etc. There's plenty in the pot from drivers.
Rorschach
Ricky Villa
Way way less than the externalities.
Best I can find is an announcement from 2020 that the govt were going to launch a big new £27B project to upgrade/repair/build UK roadways over a few years. That ended up being scaled back, but had it gone ahead that's just over one year of fuel duty - not to mention the overlap with ongoing repairs mentioned above.
Motorists are a cash cow for the govt and way outspend their costs.
glasgowspur
Andy Thompson
When you think of the extra tax they've raked in from the "energy crisis" from fuel you wonder what they've done with it.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
Bled out to the shareholders of Amey and all the other corporations that are owned by pals of ministers, who charge high and build cheap crap.
glasgowspur
Andy Thompson
Rhetorical question really, but are we so economically illiterate that now nobody can stand up ask them.
Home fuel bills more than double, double the tax, petrol and diesel up 50% means 50% more tax.
Nobody even appears to want to point that out to them to at least keep them on their toes.