Don, privatising to solve inefficiency is throwing the baby out with the bathwater imo. Given a bit of thought public sector could easily be made more efficient. Theoretically much more efficient than the private I reckon, due to the fact that profits do not need to be creamed off by shareholders.

inefficiency isn’t the real issue, raising the capital to invest in aging infrastructure is, financing is a mix of debt and equity for most companies

Don, privatising to solve inefficiency is throwing the baby out with the bathwater imo. Given a bit of thought public sector could easily be made more efficient. Theoretically much more efficient than the private I reckon, due to the fact that profits do not need to be creamed off by shareholders.

I completely agree with this possibility which is somewhere in the middle ground I talked about, by adding a modal we could say that the selfish short sighted share owners could be less selfish and less short sighted when participàting in the long term future of the company they have bought shares in.
Capitalism and the idea of competition, per se, aren’t the problems conflicts in objectives between stakeholders are.

almost certainly low-grade crap that’ll need loads of expensive processing.

Possible. But it’s still lower than in 2008, yet the prices are higher here.

WTI is still below 100$ a barrel.

There are a myriad of regulators who impact the water industry, the model isn’t perfect but it’s better than what was there before

Look at what happened to a non privatised water company in NI in the big freeze to see that publicly owned companies are often worse for under investment

I moved on to a fixed price electricity contract last night. It is fixed until April 2014 at similar to what I am currently paying. I’m guessing current prices will go up by at least 10% by October for all suppliers.

Look at what happened to a non privatised water company in NI in the big freeze to see that publicly owned companies are often worse for under investment

Most of the utilities/rail had massive underinvestment under state control, but to think that simply privatising it would solve those problems without creating others is silly.

Brent crude is, but plenty of other crudes are not!

Brent crude is the default value used in the UK for oil prices so to keep things consistant, and to allow a proper comparison, it would be better if you either kept that convention or stated which crude you were talking about.

Comparing oil prices from 2008 is fairly meaning less anyway as there was so much variation in the price that year that whatever anyone says will be true provided you cherry pick the appropriate dates.

Brent crude is the default value used in the UK for oil prices so to keep things consistant, and to allow a proper comparison, it would be better if you either kept that convention or stated which crude you were talking about.

My discussion comes with a “buyer beware” notice – your choice to do research! However one point to note is that if it’s a damn sight cheaper elsewhere, it’s a bit daft to consider only a local standard, as that’s bound to produce erroneous results. If it’s the only source we can use then fine, but since oil is shippable anywhere, maybe it isn’t a fair comparison and amounts to little more than price fixing via a handy constant.

Comparing oil prices from 2008 is fairly meaning less anyway as there was so much variation in the price that year that whatever anyone says will be true provided you cherry pick the appropriate dates.

I was comparing to before the giant spike, when it was considered to be fairly reasonably constant.

However one point to note is that if it’s a damn sight cheaper elsewhere, it’s a bit daft to consider only a local standard, as that’s bound to produce erroneous results

The difference in price between diffenet crudes is a function of composition of the oil which isn’t a constant (unlike water or electicity) so that the different energy values and other nasties is taken into account. You can’t buy a barrel of crude from the middle east and expect to sell it for the same price as a barrel of Brent simply by bringing it to market in the UK, it doesn’t work that way.

Brent Crude price in Jan 2008 was circa $90/barrel, Jan 2011 prices circa $120, and current price is crica $116. The price of oil has therefore risen from Jan 2008 ’til now. The dollar values for different crudes over the same period time will be different but they will show the same basic trend, just remember that to do a comparison of the oil price over time you have the use the same (or very similar) type of crude.

Koreans are expected to get 1Gbps links to their homes this year. Broadband penetration rates are the highest in the world, and so are the speeds. This was only achievable because the revolution was government-backed

I’m very surprised at you being so enthusiastic about the South Korean state channelling public and private resources into top-down development of the means of distribution to drive economic growth, TJ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Chung-hee

water prices out of control, so whats new? mr woppit, i take it you don’t line in cornwall, or indeed the south west, then.

1Gbps

I had a 100mbps line in my apartment there in 2003. 8 years ago.

How many people in the UK now have access to 100mbps line at home?

Nowhere I can think of in KOrea did anybody have to endure sub 1mbps lines, like we do here in the sticks of the UK.

My last apartment there, up in the wilds of the mountains, had a fibre optic line into my house delivering me TV, internet and phone.

The UK is an absolute disgrace when it comes to it’s Internet setup

Energy prices going up? I just had a £76 refund from my leccy company as a result of us getting one of those energy monitors and subsequently working out what innocent little things were sucking up the juice, and what stuff we were turning off that makes next to no difference 🙂

Didn’t even have to ask for it, just got a credit out of the blue 🙂

simple, it was to allow financing of all the environmental improvements that were needed such as sewage treatment and the improvement of water quality

So, this means that, say, Severn Trent Water was privatised and the money that was gained by the sell-off was given to, erm, Severn Trent Water to improve their shareprice the infrastructure that was just sold off?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/08/green_stealth_taxes_driving_up_leccy_price/

The UK is an absolute disgrace when it comes to it’s Internet setup

+ 1.6gb that is my max ISP speed. 😡

konabunny – Member

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/08/green_stealth_taxes_driving_up_leccy_price/

If that’s accurate, it’s worrying 😯

In essence the ROC scheme is a hidden tax on electricity which is used to subsidise renewables. But a flat tax like that – one which hits poorer people, to whom the electricity bill is a noticeable expense, disproportionately hard – would be politically difficult to implement, so the way it is kept off the government’s books is particularly cunning.

…
nd that’s not all. The government has also seen fit to introduce another mechanism known as Feed In Tariffs (FITs) designed to shower cash on certain kinds of smaller-scale renewable generators such as rooftop solar panels. A householder installing solar panels on their roof gets paid a large sum of money simply for producing energy and using it himself: he gets paid a small additional amount if any of the juice is supplied to the grid. A person meeting all their electricity needs using their own solar panels added to their roof gets paid quadruple what their electricity bill would have been otherwise.

Again, this money comes not from the government but from that person’s chosen electricity supply company: as FIT advocates gleefully note “the bottom line is that people who don’t install renewable energy systems pay for those who do!”.

1.6gb that is my max ISP speed

How much extra on your bill are you willing to pay in order to increase it?

No offence but no one was complaining when prices were falling about 5 years ago.

As for water the bills are ridiculously cheap – arguably too cheap as they don’t reflect the scarcity of the resource. Plus customers aren’t paying the full cost of the investment ( companies recover costs on a real basis but it costs them on a nominal basis) so they run massively, and I mean massively, cash negative.

Most people’s mobile phone bill for their house will be 3x what their water bill is. Anyone complaining there?

South west water bills are high predominanly because they stuffed up their pricing structure which means you have some customers with enormous bills.

Rant over 🙂

Network rail is rubbish though on cost but my trains are pretty much on time every day so some improvement has happened.

Drain to the forum please 🙂

Possible. But it’s still lower than in 2008, yet the prices are higher here.

WTI is still below 100$ a barrel.

http://oil-price.net/dashboard.php?lang=en

The Register article is absolutely right, the incentives for green electricity generation are initially paid for by the electricity distributors but ultimately will be borne by the consumer through their bills. Similarly, those cheap light bulbs that you could buy in Tesco, guess who will ultimately bear their cost. As they say there is no such thing as a free lunch.

One thing that does confuse me on this site is how one of the continuing themes is how useless politicians are, but on this thread there seems to be a clamour to renationalise and thus give them even more power. Odd.

1.6gb that is my max ISP speed

How much extra on your bill are you willing to pay in order to increase it?

I would pay more if I can be guaranteed a faster more stabile broadband, all you get is empty promises from providers.

So if you’re willing to pay more for it and net access is a product that private companies are willing to provide, what does the government have to do with it?

Similarly, those cheap light bulbs that you could buy in Tesco, guess who will ultimately bear their cost.

Which cheap light bulbs?

You used to be able to buy energy saving light bulbs for 50p in Tesco in a promotion funded by one of the electricity companies (edf or eon, can’t remember which). Seems to be over now.

Ohh, OK.

Edit: hold on, but wasn’t that an attempt to reduce load on the network and sell less power (!) so that the leccy companies didn’t have to invest more in distribution?

I admit I am only vaguely remembering details so I might be quite wrong.