Okay, so here's the idea...! We the people (via the government) buy back the utilities from those who bought them and return the services we used to have that gave everyone the basic necessities of life such as water, public hospitals, public transport & of course the electricity. We go back to the days when government controlled these assets and profit wasn't the primary motive, on those things alone. The rest we leave to capitalism to do what it does best.. Will that help or will it make things worse? Has corporatism gone too far to go back?
And have incompetent idiots run them ? The goverments can't get their shitty parties to pass some proper laws let alone manage utilities .
Yeah, cause we all want to go back to paying 5 cents per minute to call the neighbor across the street from our olive green bakelite phones. Oh and we'd all just love to see the look on the tree hugers faces when the 30 page phone bill arrives.
Changing managers (from private to government) won't solve any problems because the underlying problems will still exist. Furthermore, government fingers in the pie usually make things worse.
"Go back to the days..." (?) Can't speak for where everyone else lives, but in the US, aside from water & sewer typically being handled by a municipality once population is too packed for individual wells and septic systems to be feasible... it has never been typical for government to own the utilities mentioned (now or in the past). Adding government ownership would be a new thing, not a return to some golden yesteryear. Can't be nostalgic about something that never was (and logic says isn't likely). Given the waste/ fraud/ ineptitude in what government DOES control, I doubt their stewardship would improve utility bills or service. Maybe someone could provide an example of a government administered program that is efficient and effective to help me see the error in that thought. The DMV? No. The mail? Definitely not. Mortgage insurance? Government involvement led to the current financial crisis. Example please?
Well, deregulation was supposed to fix these industries and sectors but all it has accomplished is higher rates and prices. They deregulated the utilities and now the rates have increased. Even more, they deregulated college tuition and it went up three fold almost over night. I went from paying $100 an hour in the late 90's to early 2000's and when I came back after a couple years off, it had skyrocketed to over $300 per college credit hour. That means that a semester went from around $1200 a semester for 12 hours to almost $4000 per semester for the same hours and classes. That increase far outpaces standard inflationary rates. When you let people and corporations charge whatever they want, it doesn't always fix itself through healthy competition as it's posed to do. Sometimes, everyone involved charging the rates and prices actually jack them up to make as much as they possibly can. Greed once again is making the world go around.
News flash. Utilities weren't something sitting there waiting to be bought. People created power companies, water companies, communications companies, etc. You're talking about nationalizing private property. There's a little problem with that - the government has to pay for them (confiscatory laws are unconstitutional) - and it doesn't have enough money to run itself now. Which was when? Public hospitals and public transportation are still government-run - no one's bought them. The government never owned the power, water or communications companies. Not since about 300 AD. You want to go back to conquering Europe on horseback with swords?
In Australia, government owned and ran those utilities up until around 30 years ago. Having watched a Hartmann docco about 6 months ago declaring private firms have taken over everything in the USA I wrongly (according to you) assumed the same thing happened there. When government sold they put off price increases for 5 years but once that lapsed prices quadrupled in some things and doubled in others. Our water was paid within council rates but water boards were sold/created and that was an entirely new concept that gave us a whole new bill whilst council land rates were never reduced. Now the water bills themselves are often much higher than the rates. When government ran things price rises were dictated by CPI. Now they seem to be dictated by the huge amount they pay their CEOs.
Too late for that post BR... now the thread's about conquering Europe on horseback. Are you in or out?
BR: I'm seasoned (old like RJones ) I don't remember the US govt owing most of those things. In other countries they do. There are pros and cons in many of these things. Local govts basically control a lot of municipal transit systems. I used to know a guy who OWNED the DC transit system before it went to the public domain. Sort of a crazy guy...and rich. When he sold it he was losing money on it. Local transit virtually always loses money, btw. It is subsidized. OTOH its a great way to accommodate getting people to jobs....which is its highest value use. There are no hard numbers on it...but it enables businesses to bring in lower paid workers to get to jobs. That has a real value to the businesses. I also remember directly how the US opened up the monopoly that AT&T had on all phone service. That turned into a huge success; starting during the 1970's growing in the 1980's and exploding in the 1990's spurring huge improvements in new products and services and ultimately lower costs through a lot of competition. By the end of the 1990's though major companies engaged in huge fraud, screwing millions on stock fraud and probably combining with the investment world to create a telecom bubble around 2000 that was a big cause of the recession at the start of the 2000's. Ups and downs. Competition theoretically is great for driving down costs and in reality also...but it also has no concern for the "public good".......but I'll tell you one industry you referenced that seems to have no competition on a price basis....hospitals. how many people shop hospitals out there? Its a minority. Health costs go through the roof. Another industry you didn't reference, but has no price competition is college education. Its one reason advanced education costs have skyrocketed. I have no idea if this would work or not, but Mark Cuban, the guy that owns the Dallas Basketball team, and before that became a billionaire through technology proposed a dramatic radical idea for advanced education: Limit all student loans to a low amount every year. He suggests that would drive the hell out of rising education costs forcing colleges to come up with new ways to provide education at lower costs. Who knows? Interesting idea though. Of note, this year supposedly total US student debt will pass $1 trillion and has passed total credit card debt. That is flipping astonishing and can't be good for the economy long term as young people enter their work lives burdened by incredible debt load levels they never carried in the past. Not all companies are great at controlling costs, regardless of what the politicians of the right like to scream as a carved out of stone god given absolute truth. Frankly some governments are also good at keeping costs low....look at how China has sucked low quality manufacturing out of the entire rest of the world...by keeping labor costs low. Gotta give one to Rob Jones....the mail. That US system does seem to suck and its losing money up the kazoo.
Cmon David, Yes or know to taking out those nasty Europeans with a sword from a saddle? We can go after the French first... you know they deserve it.
Hey Rob: I'm an Easterner and from Jersey near where they filmed the Sopranos...not a horse riding westerner....I like the ideas about swords though. can I join the troops on a mortorcycle while wearing a leather jacket? I'd slash those suckers left right and upside down..then stop off for a jersey pie pizza.
Too late to suck up now, already reported you for highjacking the deep discussion about slaying Europeans with swords.