Robin May wrote...

Jonathan Marten ... wrote...

"Tim" writes:

As long as NPOs are properly regulated with strict employment
rules (i.e. prevent the workers going on strike every six
seconds), contractual arrangements and performance monitoring
then public services can be run cheaply and effectively in this
manner. The problem here is the

This has never been the case for any "public service" or
nationalised industry at any time in the past or at present. Do
you have any credible evidence that it would be possible (out in
the real world, not in your imagination)?

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?







[x-p NGs trimmed; Freeserve will not permit more than a handful]

"JNugent" wrote the following
in:

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

--
message by Robin May, but you can call me Mr Smith.
Hello. I'm one of those "roaring fascists of the left wing".

Then and than are different words!

"JNugent" wrote in message
...
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?



There's a difference between a business and a service though. Laying and
maintaining electricity lines to some remote locations must be a loss-making
business, if there are only three men and a dog living at the end of the
line; but the lines are there because in this day and age it would be pretty
ridiculous to expect them to get by without electricity.

The same applies to public transport. People need it to live. Not every
can - or can afford - to drive. (And some of us fall into both
categories...)

Jonn

Jonn Elledge wrote:

The same applies to public transport. People need it to live. Not
every
can - or can afford - to drive. (And some of us fall into both
categories...)

People manage to get by in many of the more remote areas of the UK where
there is little or no public transport. It *may* in many circumstances
provide a useful service, but to say that people need it to live is
ludicrous.

--
http://www.speedlimit.org.uk
"If laws are to be respected, they must be worthy of respect."

wrote:

Jonn Elledge wrote:

The same applies to public transport. People need it to live. Not
every can - or can afford - to drive. (And some of us fall into
both categories...)

People manage to get by in many of the more remote areas of the UK
where there is little or no public transport.

And we are all descended from people who were alive (not so many generations
back) before there was ever any concept of public transport run by the
state, at a time when the only form of PT was the stagecoach.

It *may* in many circumstances provide a useful service,
but to say that people need it to live is ludicrous.

Well, hyperbole, anyway.

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.

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 18:00:57 +0000 (UTC), "Jonn Elledge"
wrote:
The same applies to public transport. People need it to live. Not every
can - or can afford - to drive. (And some of us fall into both
categories...)
You don't need public transport to live at all do you have two feet or
a bike etc and from the looks of all the buses traveling through my
part of the UK at all hours of the day full of emptiness its only mine
and others council tax that is keeping the bus drivers in
employment !!!!. It certanly isn't the amount of fares they are
collecting in a shift that is paying for fuel and wages .
Grant .

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 18:00:57 +0000 (UTC), "Jonn Elledge"
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?

There's a difference between a business and a service though.

There is. But they are not mutually exclusive

Laying and
maintaining electricity lines to some remote locations must be a loss-making
business, if there are only three men and a dog living at the end of the
line; but the lines are there because in this day and age it would be pretty
ridiculous to expect them to get by without electricity.

Well, maybe. Of course, you could simply say that it's their choice to
live there, and nobody else should have to subsidise that

But even if not, you can still have a business running an inherently
loss-making service. The govt simply proves the a form of subsidy,
just as it does in the public sector

The same applies to public transport. People need it to live. Not every
can - or can afford - to drive. (And some of us fall into both
categories...)

The same does apply to public transport indeed...

cheers

matt

In message m, Grant
Crozier writes
You don't need public transport to live at all do you have two feet or
a bike etc and from the looks of all the buses traveling through my
part of the UK at all hours of the day full of emptiness its only mine
and others council tax that is keeping the bus drivers in employment
!!!!. It certanly isn't the amount of fares they are collecting in a
shift that is paying for fuel and wages . Grant .
You must live in the south east.
--
Clive

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 20:01:20 +0000, Clive
wrote:

In message m, Grant
Crozier writes
You don't need public transport to live at all do you have two feet or
a bike etc and from the looks of all the buses traveling through my
part of the UK at all hours of the day full of emptiness its only mine
and others council tax that is keeping the bus drivers in employment
!!!!. It certanly isn't the amount of fares they are collecting in a
shift that is paying for fuel and wages . Grant .
You must live in the south east.
No the Northwest .
Grant .