Quote:
Originally Posted by AndrewJ
I wonder how much can be tied back to the longer term effects of privatisation, where profit trumps product, and maintenance by failure is assumed to be cheaper overall???
Ie This privatising process essentially broke apart the core groups of engineers ( mainly ) who planned and maintained the grid as an integrated grid. They were responsible for the lot, not just the bits they bought and profits went back into the maintenance. ( Not to mention the training of apprentices to keep it all going )
Now we appear to have hundreds of semi disconnected companies, all having to feed their own CEOs, managements, boards, advertising depts and shareholders first. Each one gets to blame someone else and collect a bonus if they avoid being blamed.
Andrew
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Quoted for truth. This is the end result of privatisation. That and HIGHER prices. There have been many studies on how public entities are more efficient than private companies in things like power, health, law enforcement and prisons, roads, and many other areas. Plus they provide many more jobs, job security, and train their staff long term. The notion that private companies do it better is a complete and utter lie that is backed by NO reputable data sets.
If you won't take it from me (BA and Masters in Economics and Political Economy) then just look it up in the relevant journals, or even google scholar. Privatisation is one big con on the general public, much like trickle down economics. All economists know this, but there are no jobs and scant research funding if you don't sell out and spin the lies.
On a side note though, no comments on how no power = dark skies for anywhere in the state where it wasn't raining? ��
Glad everyone was OK though, so we can make jokes.
Plus I am heartened that at least here there is the intelligence to realise that the power went out simply because the power lines blew over... pretty simple really. I weep for the future.