Listening to the radio and how Chevez did this with mixed success, would this not solve all our ills? Knowing the the billions in profit are going towards the cost of education, welfare, health....while reducing taxes....or will it be crippled by cost and over resource ala years of old...erm...
Two things spring to mind. First, the government would have to use our money to buy anything back, how many people want to pay even more of their salary out for state ownership? Two, and this is an opinion not a fact, I thing governments in general are crap at running anything and are extremely inefficient. Why would you want them to get their hands on more industry or services than they are already phuquing up ? Look at this for an example, imagine the NHS stood for National Holiday Service and we all contributed to it in our taxes and were then offered specific places to go but only when there was space as allocated by the NHS. You could pay extra for a private holiday of course but best of all, those that cannot afford a holiday for whatever reason can now get one at the taxpayers expense. Marvellous, after all 2 weeks in Benidorm is practically a Human Right! I dont have a political allegiance but I cannot abide too much state intervention and the terrible wasteage that goes with it.
The theory has some merits but can't see it work in practice. Private ownership for example sets employment and expenditure based on market forces. The state is under political pressure to offer the service regardless of market forces or use it for political gain beyond what is right for the business. That means high employment and high cost even when it's losing shed loads. Like the NHS if we want the state to provide a level of service and not below then public has to accept it bucks the trend spending wise when all around is shrinking. Not sure they would tolerate that for everything. If the state owned them but didn't run them and someone with some proven business nowse did then just maybe. But i fear Political interest would limit their mandate.
Chavez was a dictator who spent Venezuela's oil wealth on whatever whim took his fancy. Venezuelans are still poor. Governments are just not good at running businesses and spending other peoples money.
If a corporation is in a state of collapse (examples: railways in 1947, Rolls-Royce in 1971, Northern Rock in 2008) but it is against the national interest to let it collapse completely, a practical option is to nationalise it. In succeeding years in public ownership it can be nursed back to health, restructured, modernised, have losses written off, have investment made, and be turned into a profitable business. Then there is the option of selling some or all of the business, thus recouping the taxpayer's investment. The model is quite practical if the relevant industry is fundamentally a viable one, and has been done successfully many times. Of course it does depend on acceptance that the business can be better run as a nationalised industry for a time than it was in the private sector, which many politicians are unwilling to acknowledge for doctrinaire reasons - even whilst they are actually doing it. Which is quite amusing really.
True. Well-meaning but chaotic and ignorant of economic principles, it seems. Some are, some aren't - much like private managements of businesses, really. Chavez's wasn't.
Utilities and public transport should be nationally owned, and run for break even plus a margin for reinvestment in infrastructure. As soon as you introduce a benefit to shareholders you introduce an incentive to cut costs and push pricing up. You employ the minimum of staff for the lowest possible wage, and charge the highest possible price.
Seems nationalising the profitable, well run ones is the way forward; why pick up the dross, invest a load of taxpayers money (the opposite of the end game) when you can take low hanging fruit and makes dosh as a govt?
Nationalising utilities and profitable industries is tempting in principle, but there are sadly several serious snags. Here are two: First, private property cannot be simply seized without compensation, so long as owners have human rights; a fair price has to be paid, and with taxpayers money. The price for a bankrupt concern might be low but the value of a viable profitable one would certainly be high, and there are many other pressing demands on public funds. Second, assuming our hypothetical government has found the money at great sacrifice and nationalised the commanding heights of the economy, one day there will be an election following which a different government will get into power. They will then be irresistably tempted to hand the public assets over to their friends and supporters as a sort of bribe, by selling shares at a deep discount (e.g. British Telecom 1984). Indeed the promise of doing so may well have helped win them the election. So the process is thrown into reverse, and only benefits our opponents. So nationalisation as a policy objective is not really feasible - a Clause 4 moment. Nationalisation as an expedient in emergencies is certainly feasible, I suggest, and may even become more common.
So in essence, what you are saying is that thatcher irretrievably f**ked the country. I still maintain she should be put against the wall and shot for what she did to the UK.
You mean like RBS and Northern Rock; shit bits kept by the taxpayer, good bits sold (read given away) to private enterprise then low and behold the bits left aren't worth what the govt thought
I think that's a bit specious, Pete. If you can nationalise an industry or company in trouble, you can do the same to one that isn't. It's the same mechanism. All you have to do it buy up the shares, like any takeover. You'd print the money you need or borrow it (leveraged buy out). You'd use the profits to pay back the debt (which is what leveraged buyout people do). Then the people would have an asset. Do shareholders really run companies anyway? They don't seem to. So what would be the difference if government owned them (on paper) and left management to get on with it (but stuck in oars if the public was being ripped off, or investment not carried out)? Just stick something in the company statutes about it being illegal for it to be sold for x amount of years, to prevent incoming administrations making a quick buck. The thing is, do you want a private police force, a private NHS, an entirely private education system, private universities, a private army (like the ones they have in the States)? There is nothing magical about these things. You might say you don't want private water, electricity and nuclear power stations. It's a point of view, that's all. I think more stuff should be state owned, if it means fairer prices to consumers, or a better service, or profits reducing tax liability. In this age of corporatism, I'd sooner have some of the corporations nominally held to account by government. Thatcher wanted everyone to be a shareholder (supposedly). It's a philosophy, but not one that I personally share.
So 'we' buy Centrica, that adds say 2% to tax for a year and in returm we all get a number of shares based on the tax contribution, then 1st years profit release a % or so, same with 2nd, then govt can start reducing tax and putting all the profits into invetsment in power stations etc to make the UK selk sustainable and non reliant on the Middle East or wherever. Not forgetting of course that Centrica both produces and sells energy around the world not just UK Shares sit until retirement where they can be cashed in fr a pension, thus releasing the shares value to the next generation....or something like that
Sorry, that bit doesn't work. Nothing can prevent a future parliament passing an Act over-riding any such provision. No parliament can bind its successors in that way. Incoming administrations can always sell off or give away public assets, if parliament so votes.
Private shareholders could not keep the boards of their banks from wrecking them.. any idea what state owned companies will be like?
If you haven't done so already,read,"The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists"..it may appear to be book about 19th century house painters.but it will tell you all you need to know about the privatisation of Utilities... You can even get it for free: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3608/3608-h/3608-h.htm
In general: we don't we give communism a try? frankly no one has ever tried it before.. it was always turned into a more fascist like system.. what if (russian) communism had not proclaimed itself to have to go global? and therefore spent 40% if ngp on the military.. in stead of on improving internally? can governement owned companies be run as efficiently as private ones? or makes the lack of connection between capital and responsibility make this outright impossible? being active in the care industry, i can only confirm that the notion of ' bang for the buck' is as alien as snow in the tropics.. the word itself is like banned to be used... he who raises it is regarded as not fit for the industry... free money seems to be taking away all notions of responisbility on that field... now, what do you get if major companies are run by people having to be reeelected every couple of years... will it increase or decrease responsiblity?
In practice you'd ensure that politicians were not running the companies. That's the last thing you want. But what is wrong with shares being in public ownership? I was thinking about this last night: surely the Kuweiti Investment Fund or whatever it's called, is a state run organisation that buys companies and shares for the Kuweiti people? Why is it acceptable to sell your company to Kuweitis but not to Brits? Do the railways work better now with a better service than in the days of BR? All I have noticed is that Paddington to Didcot trains are slower now than in the 70s and a lot less comfortable. In Switzerland the railways are not private - with some small exceptions. Benchmark service.
