Trains, Banks and Public/Private Ownership - Prev.Predict UK Gen.Election Result

[Tamas]

Not that there's any point in trying to convince you, but what you forget is that a publicly owned service is also run by the same human beings as private ones, with the same motivations. Except, the concentration on short term personal benefits instead of concerns for long term suitability are far more prominent. Why? Because a publicly owned service have no upper limit to the costs it is able to bear, and it faces no possible competition to be worried about efficiency, or level of service.

I'm tempted to let my mother who works in a school answer this one....
State owned bodies have budgets to deal with too. There's not somehow an unlimited pot of money just because they're working directly for the government rather than having to deal with a middle man trying to skim off as much as he can.

The competition argument is utter bullshit.
I need to take a train from Newcastle to Carlisle; there's only one sensible line to go on, where the trains are operated by a single franchise. Where's the competition? There's only a few rail routes in the world these days where you have real competition.
When dealing with core infrastructure like this privatisation is just ideologically driven idiocy.

I am tempted to let my half a lifetime personal experience using state-owned services answer this one, but it would be just dismissed as inefficiency of untermensch so I won't

[The Larch]

Caught up with a Northern Irish friend today.
Interesting point re the ConDups ; this could be a breach of the Good Friday Agreement where the UK government guaranties neutrality.

Shame there's no Northern Irish opposition to raise this.
Bloody Sinn Fein.

Sinn Fein did raise it just after it was announced.

[Iormlund]

I am tempted to let my half a lifetime personal experience using state-owned services answer this one, but it would be just dismissed as inefficiency of untermensch so I won't

If we end up meeting some time, remind me to tell you a few first-hand stories about how publicly traded multinationals actually work.

[mongers]

OK can we stop voting now, I note 26 have proffered an opinion and  someone else has posted in the 80-100, but no one over 100+.
So safe to say I'm the extreme outlier having gone for a 98 seat Tory majority.   

I think part of my 'reasoning' is I'm a pessimist and a May landslide would be the worse outcome for the country.

But I also think the campaign on the ground has been limited and lacklustre, much of the cut and thrust, especially among the young has moved on line. Where I think the Tory e-campaign will far overshadow the efforts of Labour and Lib Dems. 

I suspect a lot of experience will have been drawn from Trump's tightly focused campaign and there'll have been a fair bit of flow across the Atlantic, both in terms of methodologies, intelligence and grey money to push the Tories on-line.

Plus the pensioners and 50+ groups will turn out in droves for May, of whom the 'Strong and Stable' bullshit will have registered despite the naysayers.

No idea of the electoral map or particular numbers, but my wild guesses are as follows:

Tories gain 6-12 seats in Scotland.

Labour won't do so well as Tories, gaining maybe up to 10 seats.

SNP tacking during the election will ensure they'll loose 20 at most.

Labour are bound to loose plenty of seats in the Midlands and North as the Tories mop up UKIP voters.

Lib Dems gain no more than a dozen seats.


So overall:

Labour just below 200 seats say 198, worse than Michael Foot's 83 result.
SNP - 40 seats
Lib-Dems - 18 seats
Greens - 2 seats
Others - 22 seats

Thus the Tories get 378 seats. 

What a prat.   

[Tamas]

I am tempted to let my half a lifetime personal experience using state-owned services answer this one, but it would be just dismissed as inefficiency of untermensch so I won't

If we end up meeting some time, remind me to tell you a few first-hand stories about how publicly traded multinationals actually work.

Surely my opposition to state owned enterprise can be argued against on better grounds than pretending it's an uncritical endorsement of the perfection that is corporate culture and behaviour. Arguing that one solution is clearly preferable, does not mean the uncritical praise of the other one.

[Admiral Yi]

It's pretty simple logic.
Invest money into improving services in the long term vs. making a quick short term profit off them and putting them in the hands of a body whose primary motivation is profit not service.

A few things I'm still not clear on.

Do you mean that once nationalized, the public authority will naturally invest in improving service, so that it is not the nationalization per se that is investment, but that investment will inevitably follow?

Do you mean that service will inevitably improve once the profit motive is removed, so that our quality of life would be better all around if everything were nationalized, or is that only true in certain cases?

[Crazy_Ivan80]

A decent chunk of what we pay for we don't get however, it is instead siphoned off to private companies profit reports and foreign governments.

wut?

As opposed to selling off government property to private companies for some quick cash?
Yes.

Your argument for why nationalization be described as an "investment" is that when they were privatized, the government made some money?  I don't follow your logic.

It's pretty simple logic.
Invest money into improving services in the long term vs. making a quick short term profit off them and putting them in the hands of a body whose primary motivation is profit not service.

I'm thinking you don't have much experience with belgian state-owned railwaycompany... :p

[Jacob]

I am tempted to let my half a lifetime personal experience using state-owned services answer this one, but it would be just dismissed as inefficiency of untermensch so I won't

Good idea, since state owned companies can and do perform quite well.

DSB - the Danish national railways - have been providing excellent rail service in Denmark for quite a long time. Statoil, the Norwegian oil company owned 67% by the Norwegian state is one of the major reasons Norway as a country is so strong economically (with real benefits to the the Norwegian population) rather than creating a few more oil billionaires.

[Admiral Yi]

Statoil, the Norwegian oil company owned 67% by the Norwegian state is one of the major reasons Norway as a country is so strong economically (with real benefits to the the Norwegian population) rather than creating a few more oil billionaires.

This whole time I figured it might have something to do with finding oil in Norway.

[AnchorClanker]

Statoil, the Norwegian oil company owned 67% by the Norwegian state is one of the major reasons Norway as a country is so strong economically (with real benefits to the the Norwegian population) rather than creating a few more oil billionaires.

This whole time I figured it might have something to do with finding oil in Norway.

It does.  You are ignoring the rest of the story - unlike the UK, Romania, et al - when the oil runs out, Norway has a sovereign wealth fund that will continue to provide benefits to the nation - instead of pissing it all away and having nothing much to show for it.

[Admiral Yi]

Statoil, the Norwegian oil company owned 67% by the Norwegian state is one of the major reasons Norway as a country is so strong economically (with real benefits to the the Norwegian population) rather than creating a few more oil billionaires.

This whole time I figured it might have something to do with finding oil in Norway.

It does.  You are ignoring the rest of the story - unlike the UK, Romania, et al - when the oil runs out, Norway has a sovereign wealth fund that will continue to provide benefits to the nation - instead of pissing it all away and having nothing much to show for it.

On what basis did you deduce based on my response to Jacob's comment that "the Norwegian oil company owned 67% by the Norwegian state is one of the major reasons Norway as a country is so strong economically" that I was ignoring the existence of Norway's sovereign wealth fund?

[mongers]

According to George Osborne she's a "dead woman walking" not long now on death row. 

[sbr]

Ian Pithers‏
@Ipeetea

Replying to @RobDotHutton
Looks like we'll be sending Brussels the Conservative and Unionist Negotiating Team. I hope they can come up with a handy acronym.

[Jacob]

Statoil, the Norwegian oil company owned 67% by the Norwegian state is one of the major reasons Norway as a country is so strong economically (with real benefits to the the Norwegian population) rather than creating a few more oil billionaires.

This whole time I figured it might have something to do with finding oil in Norway.

The point is that the oil wealth is competently administered for the benefit of the nation by a state owned company, counter to Tamas' assertion that state owned = kleptocratic and inefficient.

And Norway as a state - and thus Norwegian citizens - have benefitted significantly more than citizens of many other oil producing countries (where the beneficiaries are mostly private interests).

[Admiral Yi]

The point is that the oil wealth is competently administered for the benefit of the nation by a state owned company, counter to Tamas' assertion that state owned = kleptocratic and inefficient.

And Norway as a state - and thus Norwegian citizens - have benefitted significantly more than citizens of many other oil producing countries (where the beneficiaries are mostly private interests).

All states charge royalties for resource extraction.  Norway is no different in that regard.  The fact that the extraction is performed in Norway by a state-owned company has nothing to do with the royalties charged or with the use to which those royalties are put.