In a message dated 18/02/2007 10:44:36 GMT Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
The private operators will charge the market price, and there could even be competition which would keep that price down. What I term a 'plausible falsehood'. The same argument was used for pensions, health services, bus services and train services and any similar privatisation. Private operators are there to make a profit and to screw as much out of the public (or public purse) as they can. Where they fail to make the profits their shareholders expect them to make, the private suppliers go under or merge with other suppliers. When they go under the government (or you and me in financial terms) picks up the pieces having paid over the odds for the setting up of the piratisation because this is where the cost is highest. Where the private supplier does stay in business, they carve up the services so that competing suppliers do not actually compete - while not actually creating a cartel they make sure that they do not usually compete head-on. Instead of a public monopoly we then have a private one, or series of regional ones; instead of an inefficient public service answerable to politicians we have a higher priced one of dubious quality that is answerable to nobody except the shareholders. The only benefits we seem to get are new ways of running the service and different ideas about how to provide what the public wants (or thinks it wants) - but even these benefits are doubtful when you examine them closely. DaveD [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
