Private companies vs. Nationalisation
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In the UK at least I think it now just a question of ideollogy - even Labour has fallen into the mantra of Nationalised Industry bad, Private Industry good. We've even got the disaster waiting to happen that is the PFI (private finance initiative) which massages the figures on privately built infrastructure in order that it doesn't appear on the treasury accounts and appears better value than publicy funded alternatives. Every one I've read about has a 'bias for private' built into it. These will come back to haunt us, but probably not in the political lifetime of the %^&*'s that came up with it. Of course nationalized industries can be made to work, especially in areas that should be run as a service like railways. What would you travel on - SNCF with the fantastic TGV, or any of the various private rail networks in the UK? The French obviously see their rail system as an asset to be invested in and yes, even subsidized or invested in on a long-term basis, rather than a 3 year balance-book to be milked for the duration of a franchise. I believe this is to their credit, accountants and other short-term thinkers may disagree. Andy B
Allow me to rephrase: 1. The mantra should be: "competition is good, monopolies are bad". 2. Where competition is technically unfeasable, public monopolies are a lesser evil than private monopolies. 3. Public monopolies have the highest tendency to work well in nations with a tradition of using a guillotine. JM2B.
Pablo. "Accident: An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws." (Ambrose Bierce, circa 1899). "You are to act in the light of experience as guided by intelligence" (Rex Stout, "In the Best Families", 1950).
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As if the owner of the asset determines whether or not it'll be "great"; one can have mismanagement in both private and non-private organizations. The larger companies are trying hard to prove that they're as ineffective as non-private entities would be. The only difference is that private corporations tend to maximize profit. Be happy that the price of water is relatively stable.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
Eddy Vluggen wrote:
Be happy that the price of water is relatively stable.
We are fortunate to live in a part of the world where it falls from the sky in reasonably regular and generous quantities. When that changes we are in trouble.
Veni, vidi, abiit domum
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Is there a reason these two things can't co-exist? It seems the 'big six' are rather taking liberties at the moment, so why not set up a nationalised competitor which, if it can deliver better value, would have people flocking to it. I've thought the same about Visa and Mastercard before. These companies makes huge profits simply on transaction fees. Why doesn't the Bank of England offer a rival service with profits fed back into the treasury?
Regards, Rob Philpott.
As a person who lives in a former communist country where almost everything was state owned I can assure you that privately owned companies are way better for general well-being of the country. People tried nationalization in the past (or even currently - like in Venezuela) - it always leads to dismal failure.
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As if the owner of the asset determines whether or not it'll be "great"; one can have mismanagement in both private and non-private organizations. The larger companies are trying hard to prove that they're as ineffective as non-private entities would be. The only difference is that private corporations tend to maximize profit. Be happy that the price of water is relatively stable.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
Not for much longer. The word has already been circulated that water and treatment prices will have to rise consistently over the next ten years to pay for upgrades to the infrastructures such as new pipes. The consumers will not protest, only grumble. Like the rail commuters who every January bitch and moan about the above-inflation ticket hikes. They stamp their feet and I thought they did that to warm their feet up on a cold day. :-D
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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Is there a reason these two things can't co-exist? It seems the 'big six' are rather taking liberties at the moment, so why not set up a nationalised competitor which, if it can deliver better value, would have people flocking to it. I've thought the same about Visa and Mastercard before. These companies makes huge profits simply on transaction fees. Why doesn't the Bank of England offer a rival service with profits fed back into the treasury?
Regards, Rob Philpott.
It depends on how you manage them. Unfortunately, there's little incentive to manage a nationalized company well, so it tends to result in epic failure. However, "managing a private company well" means "screwing people over as efficiently as possible", so that also tends to result in epic failure. You just can't win.
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Is there a reason these two things can't co-exist? It seems the 'big six' are rather taking liberties at the moment, so why not set up a nationalised competitor which, if it can deliver better value, would have people flocking to it. I've thought the same about Visa and Mastercard before. These companies makes huge profits simply on transaction fees. Why doesn't the Bank of England offer a rival service with profits fed back into the treasury?
Regards, Rob Philpott.
Our experience in Egypt is that nationalized companies tend to be cesspools of corruption, indifference and colossal failure. There is simply no incentive for the employees or management to make the public company succeed, as they will get their salaries anyway. National companies that were privatized in the 1990's became much more successful, especially when it comes to quality and customer service. To address Rob's point about adding income to the treasury, the best approach would be a hybrid one. Ex: The Egyptian government owns a large chunk of Vodafone Egypt.
Amr Abdel Majeed Senior Software Developer
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It depends on how you manage them. Unfortunately, there's little incentive to manage a nationalized company well, so it tends to result in epic failure. However, "managing a private company well" means "screwing people over as efficiently as possible", so that also tends to result in epic failure. You just can't win.
harold aptroot wrote:
there's little incentive to manage a nationalized company well
Theoretically the same incentive as the manager in a private company; keeping one's job. One can evaluate the work done each year, and replace the manager if he does not deliver. Works for both private and public entities, even though our American friends would like to have us believe that managers of public companies cannot be replaced even if inadequate. Larger companies have a shareholders-meeting; they determine whether the manager does his job well. If they want a manager that screws their customers and employees (and killing the corporation in the process), then they're free to keep him. Does not mean that large corporations "have" to fail epically.
harold aptroot wrote:
You just can't win.
Not with them one-liners from the economics-corner.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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harold aptroot wrote:
there's little incentive to manage a nationalized company well
Theoretically the same incentive as the manager in a private company; keeping one's job. One can evaluate the work done each year, and replace the manager if he does not deliver. Works for both private and public entities, even though our American friends would like to have us believe that managers of public companies cannot be replaced even if inadequate. Larger companies have a shareholders-meeting; they determine whether the manager does his job well. If they want a manager that screws their customers and employees (and killing the corporation in the process), then they're free to keep him. Does not mean that large corporations "have" to fail epically.
harold aptroot wrote:
You just can't win.
Not with them one-liners from the economics-corner.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Is there a reason these two things can't co-exist? It seems the 'big six' are rather taking liberties at the moment, so why not set up a nationalised competitor which, if it can deliver better value, would have people flocking to it. I've thought the same about Visa and Mastercard before. These companies makes huge profits simply on transaction fees. Why doesn't the Bank of England offer a rival service with profits fed back into the treasury?
Regards, Rob Philpott.
One thing overlooked in the private vs government run, when private organization fail a project is that governments, often, never stop interfering. Also, with government run projects, creative "financing" can often be used to make a project appear successful.
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost "All users always want Excel" --Ennis Lynch
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Is there a reason these two things can't co-exist? It seems the 'big six' are rather taking liberties at the moment, so why not set up a nationalised competitor which, if it can deliver better value, would have people flocking to it. I've thought the same about Visa and Mastercard before. These companies makes huge profits simply on transaction fees. Why doesn't the Bank of England offer a rival service with profits fed back into the treasury?
Regards, Rob Philpott.
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harold aptroot wrote:
You appear to have found a nice pair of rose-coloured spectacles.
..and you appear to have run out of arguments. The only technical difference is profit, and only the Anglosaxon model of capitalism would state that (short term) profit is the ultimate goal. Your abstraction is leaky, to quote Joel Spolsky.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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harold aptroot wrote:
You appear to have found a nice pair of rose-coloured spectacles.
..and you appear to have run out of arguments. The only technical difference is profit, and only the Anglosaxon model of capitalism would state that (short term) profit is the ultimate goal. Your abstraction is leaky, to quote Joel Spolsky.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
I have arguments. I'm not interested in using any of them - they'd just lead to a pointless discussion that would take us from economics to human nature to other stuff, and neither one of us would convince the other. Waste of time. Let's just disagree without arguing about it first.
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Is there a reason these two things can't co-exist? It seems the 'big six' are rather taking liberties at the moment, so why not set up a nationalised competitor which, if it can deliver better value, would have people flocking to it. I've thought the same about Visa and Mastercard before. These companies makes huge profits simply on transaction fees. Why doesn't the Bank of England offer a rival service with profits fed back into the treasury?
Regards, Rob Philpott.
Rob Philpott wrote:
Why doesn't the Bank of England offer a rival service with profits fed back into the treasury?
A big reason is infrastructure. How do you process the transactions? How do you handle charge backs? What about customer service? Billing? Visa, Mastercard, American Express, etc. have built all this up over decades. Discover was able to avoid many of the same mistakes the "pioneers" made, but their success was arguably built on having no-fees and cash back, both of which are common today. WIth the market so flooded with cards, issuing a completely new one would be pretty risky. (Besides, I'm sure Bank of England has a rebranded card and gets some of those transaction fees. I'm also surprised you'd think the profits would be fed back into the treasury and not bureaucrats' pockets.)