Am 07.01.2012 00:10, schrieb bob:
At which percentage of ownership by a state entity does a company
stop being "really a commercial operator"?

50% +1 share.

Didn't you say 30% before? Or was that somebody else? Those marks are
really very arbitrary, don't you think so? Too arbitrary to be a
scientific fact.

That was somebody else.

You see, both are abritrary limits.

You elevate some specific habits or laws (which can always be
changed) to eternal laws of nature. That is wrong.

At Deutsche Bahn AG, the Federal Republic of Germany may not have
more than 3 seats out of 20 on the supervisory board. Can those three
really make a majority of 20?

As the owners, they have the right to nominate the membership of the
board as they see fit.

No, Sir, you should take off your blinkers.

What I quoted from the DB website presenting the 20 members of the
Aufsichtsrat is actually a verbal quote from the "Satzung" (bye laws) of
Deutsche Bahn AG. Article 10, paragraph 2: "Die Bundesrepublik
Deutschland hat, solange sie mehrheitlich Aktionär ist,
das Recht, drei Mitglieder in den Aufsichtsrat zu entsenden."

You can download the "Satzung" from he
http://www1.deutschebahn.com/ecm2-db-de/ir/cg/satzung.html

That they chose only to exercise that right on 3 of the 20 seats
is their prerogative, but if they chose to they
could nominate all 20.

Not at all. In a company of the size of Deutsche Bahn AG, the capital
owner can only nominate one half of the Supervisory Board, the other
half is being elected by the workers and trade unions. That is the law
in Germany. You know, the existence of the GDR created a certain amount
of scare for the German capitalists.

Do you really believe this idiotic nonsense?

The courts and parliament do.

The _British_ parliament maybe. But that could also change the rules
if they wanted (completely leaving out if that is really a rule, or if
it is just your thought that the ideology that no occasion to make a
fast buck should be barred to any bloodsucker).

The owners of Northern Rock (the UK government) believe that it is not
in the long term interest of the UK economy to run Northern Rock in
such a way, so they chose to run it on commercial lines instead.

Of course. But this contradicts this ideological nonsense that the
very nature of a company changes radically if some arbitrary limit is
bypassed, and be it by only one share.

Actually, I heard that the British government wants to sell their
share in Northern Rock for much less than what they slashed out for
"saving" this capitalist venture.


Bye, bye

L.W.