Agent Orange Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Originally posted by kookie yes but privatisation gives you choice. Look at the phone companies. Ok the railways need sorting out. What about the utilities. And it helps get rid of the unions, which although I am not an expert, I think they contributed a major part in screwing up our country. Choice gives the consumer more power. Things just need to be improved, the foundations are in place. I think:( Privatisation = big profits for fat cat tory loving executives with nil or little regard to provide a decent service to their customer as their only concern is increasing their profit margin!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Yea, yea, heard it all before. That tired old line about 'fat cats' What you fail to mention is that these 'fat cats' support the economy and your way of life. They are paid good salaries, most of which are performance related, because of that. Without them you simply would not have what you have today. Nationalisation doesn't work to any great degree. Talented people need big wages or they simply won't do the job here. Whether you like it or not you need those talented people. Here's a nice example of the old fashioned nationalised, Labour controlled, union led way of doing things. AMICUS Union Leader Derek Simpson goes to Glastonbury Festival in a helicopter. Apparently he also lives in a three quarters of a million pound house that he rents from the Union @ £1 per week . All that pretence about members interests, pah! He and his like are no different, except they are dishonest about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abdul Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Originally posted by Tony Yea, yea, heard it all before. That tired old line about 'fat cats' What you fail to mention is that these 'fat cats' support the economy and your way of life. They are paid good salaries, most of which are performance related, because of that. Without them you simply would not have what you have today. Nationalisation doesn't work to any great degree. Talented people need big wages or they simply won't do the job here. Whether you like it or not you need those talented people. Pffft! 'World class salaries for world class businessmen' - what a load of tripe. If I may just remind you... ENRON Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 So what? I could equally say Peter Mandelson or Osama Bin Laden. One bad apple doesn't represent the whole barrel. And Abdul, please don't invent quotes that I didn't say. It's not the best debating tactic... More like a Labour tactic. Hmmm... the politics of envy - a nasty thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oxbeast Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Some privatisations seemed to have worked, like BA, and BT. These are in markets where there are effectively few barriers to entry. Anyone wanting to run a rival phone serive could use BT's infrastructure. In the railways, however, there was a complex systems of regional monopolies. This gives as little choice as the old BR days. They also had to generate income to renew their rolling stock, and pay Railtrack. The old TOC licences only ran for seven years, which is one of the main reasons why there has been so little investment since privatisation. Why invest in new trains if you might lose your franchise before you've even paid for them. The railways are in a worse state than they ever were, because the structure of the privatisation was bound to fail, but generate a quick cash injection to the economy. This has probably been paid many times over by bailouts. As for privatising hospitals, this is the silliest thing I've heard. If you're in the back of an ambulance, you're not going to be leafing throgh the latest edition of the league tables, saying 'take me to that one, they have better marks for cleanliness'. Everyone should have a decent hospital near them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abdul Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Originally posted by Tony And Abdul, please don't invent quotes that I didn't say. It's not the best debating tactic... More like a Labour tactic. 'World class salaries for world class businessmen' - I wouldn't associate a gem of a quote like that to you. You may find it was Michael Heseltine justifying the fantastic salary of former British Gas chief Cedric Brown And Tony, please don't patronise me in future, you left wing Tory you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Originally posted by Abdul 'World class salaries for world class businessmen' - I wouldn't associate a gem of a quote like that to you. You may find it was Michael Heseltine justifying the fantastic salary of former British Gas chief Cedric Brown And Tony, please don't patronise me in future, you left wing Tory you. Hehe... patronise? Moi?!? The way you quoted me and then foplowed on with another quote looked exactly like it had come from me - which it didn't. You may not have intended it, but that's how it looked. Anyway, I still stand by what I DID say. High salaries/incomes are justified for talented people who make big contributions to the economy. There simply is no choice or debate on the matter unless you are using the politics of envy - as I suggested previously. 'Talented people' in this context does not apply to nurses, doctors, etc, etc before it's mentioned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abdul Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Originally posted by Tony 'Talented people' in this context does not apply to nurses, doctors, etc, etc before it's mentioned. Why not? Do you judge a person solely on their ability to increase the value of share prices rather than a more selfless motive? Politics of Greed, hmm? Originally posted by Tony High salaries/incomes are justified for talented people who make big contributions to the economy. There simply is no choice or debate on the matter unless you are using the politics of envy -as I suggested previously. And if I may mention Enron again...they may have contributed to the US economy - but they almost ruined it too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Originally posted by Abdul Why not? Do you judge a person solely on their ability to increase the value of share prices rather than a more selfless motive? Politics of Greed, hmm? In this context they have no additional value, or rather they have the same value as all the other 'worker bees' who perform equally important, but less politically sensitive jobs. I am not belittling them for a second, in the same way that I would not belittle a refuse collector or an incinerator operator. However, they are still 'worker bees, and there needs to be a 'queen bee' in all hives. That's just how it is I'm afraid. There's no point you bigging them up, because it's irrelevant in this context. You cannot replace the board of your pension fund managers with a bunch of nurses. They both do important jobs. Just like you don’t replace insurance clerks with brain surgeons. Like it or not, you need those well paid senior people in the myriad of organisations that they serve. Originally posted by Abdul And if I may mention Enron again...they may have contributed to the US economy - but they almost ruined it too Quote them all you like. There were a small handful of people in a single company. That does nothing whatsoever to undermine the capitalist economic model of the rest of the world. To say anything else is rather disingenuous and serves only to make political capital. Please can we start another thread Abdul? This has nothing to do with voting Labour. You start the thread, and I will transfer all these posts into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
commie pig Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Network Rail last year lost £758million. They missed all there targets. So obviously the poor directors got punished by receiving a mere £436 in bonuses. Thats capitalism for ya, great innit? And the same story has been repeated over and over in any major business - esp those that have been privatised. 'top' salaries are shooting up in britain at the mo - have any of those people really added significant value, even in their own terms? most of the time they just copy what every other bos is doing (hmmm, howw shall we save some money? i know! lets cut some jobs!) As for the fallacy of the marvellous success of the BT sale. For starters in many ways it still occupies an utterly dominating position in the market - as noted below companies that want to compete have to use their infrastructure! It was also sold off at an absurdly low price (stealing billions of the taxpayer) which put it in a better position to raise further money for investment. but the main thing that benefitted BT was nothing to do with the market at all, it was changes in technology that made it so much easier to upgrade the entire system. oh, and the manager of my pension fund doesnt do an importan job - nothing like as important as a nurse, the fact that you think otherwise (Tony) simply indicates a depressed and depressing view of the world, imo. the capitalist economic model has been shown up as a disaster in he majority of the world, its just done a few people very nicely, is all. (oops! just spotted your last line there - soz about that) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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