SpaceGazelle wrote:Privatising the rail and energy companies worked out fine though eh?
Diluted Dante wrote:The rail network is utterly shit. I'd say it's not worked out fine.
Diluted Dante wrote:The rail network is utterly shit. I'd say it's not worked out fine.
AJ_ wrote:Debatable, only at rush hour, no.
It depends entirely on the context.Diluted Dante wrote:Half an hour is a fucking age.
Diluted Dante wrote:Half an hour is a fucking age.
Carbon_Altered wrote:It sort of did though. And it didn't. The problem is we don't have a counter-factual. In some other dimension a publicly owned British Rail could have gone to pot quite easily (it was heading that way before privatisation). Likewise with energy - we haven't had any serious blackouts for a generation now, would that have been the case under a public owned / union dominated counter-factual?SpaceGazelle wrote:Privatising the rail and energy companies worked out fine though eh?
M0stly harm13ss wrote:I'm not debating the point that the underlying infrastructure is creaky and requires serious investment (remember most of Europe's required serious rebuilding not so long ago due to our quite effective bombing campaign) I'm just saying the service by and large is not shit. It's actually pretty good, in a good few years of commuting I've only been delayed more than half an hour more than once.
Yossarian wrote:We don't know. What we do know is that 'Direct public expenditure on rail has more than doubled since privatisation and is currently running at £4 billion a year...despite fares which are higher than in other major European countries.' Source. Doesn't seem like a great deal to me.Carbon_Altered wrote:It sort of did though. And it didn't. The problem is we don't have a counter-factual. In some other dimension a publicly owned British Rail could have gone to pot quite easily (it was heading that way before privatisation). Likewise with energy - we haven't had any serious blackouts for a generation now, would that have been the case under a public owned / union dominated counter-factual?SpaceGazelle wrote:Privatising the rail and energy companies worked out fine though eh?
Yossarian wrote:It's not the total cost, it's the increase, which has doubled in less than 20 years. Are you claiming that it would be costing the same amount or more if it wasn't privatised? If so, why?
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