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JNugent

wrote:

"JNugent" wrote:

Robin May wrote...

Do you have any credible evidence that it makes sense to transfer
loss making industries to the private sector, where businesses
must make a profit?

*Apart* from stemming the losses and allowing taxes to be either
reduced or used for productive purposes, you mean?

But that's not what happens is it?

Yes, it is.

What happens is that the business
continues to make losses, possibly together with providing a lower
quality service. The government then has to keep propping it up with
handouts and the taxpayers' money that used to be used for productive
purposes is instead used for the number one priority of private
companies, i.e. lining its shareholders pockets.

Is that what happened with British Gas? Or the electricity generating
industry? Or RJB Mining?

(And the number one priority is always making profit,
not improving service.)

You say that as though the two were incompatible, whereas a glance at the
improvements in services offered by (say) British Telecom in the last
fifteen years proves you wrong.

One can only provide a service if it is paid for - somehow or other. Free
lunches don't exist.

Then and than are different words!

My most common typo, I fear, but not made in the post to which you are
responding.