Mastodawn

Erotic Mythology 🌹1d ago

Mark Holtom (aka Kingbeard)

The English water companies have told the govt that to fix the infrastructure problems they will have to increase prices to customers.
Just worth remembering that Scottish Water – which is publicly owned – has invested nearly 35 per cent more per household in infrastructure since 2002 than the privatised English firms, charging 14 per cent less and not paying out dividends.
Conclusion ….Nationalised water works better!

Stoneface Vimes 1d ago

@MarkHoltom take the English water companies back into public ownership. With no compensation to shareholders etc. They've had their chances time and again and blown them. Patience has long since run out - not that there was much to begin with. Confiscatio!

Stage name Jay Peach 1d ago

@MarkHoltom Thatcher should be exhumed and hung from a light post.

Frantic 🇬🇧 + 🇪🇺1d ago

@jaypeach53 @MarkHoltom why do you hate light posts so much, what did they ever do to you?

This toot is brought to the Fedi by the Popular Front for Light Post Liberation.

#StillHateThatcher #MargaretThatcher

Walrus 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿1d ago

Perhaps they should be forced to stop paying out to shareholders until they have fixed all the things they haven't bothered to fix so they could pay dividends instead?

It would make sense to pass a law, saying we now owned the water companies, and the shareholders should give back the money they've had from what we built.

staringatclouds 22h ago

@Walrus @MarkHoltom Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't shareholders told that the value of shares can go down as well as up

They aren't guaranteed a dividend

SphereSystem2 1d ago

@MarkHoltom Wait, profit motives make services worse? Who could have predicted that. (Only anyone who pays any attention at all)

@SphereSystem2 @MarkHoltom I think that depends on WHO profits - someone caring about the product and its quality, who actually works with it and its clients on a base level - or someone so far removed that they might not even know what the product even is.

SphereSystem2 1d ago

@nachtet @MarkHoltom Profit gets in the way of fair pay and recompense for those people, for the workers keeping a service running or good made.

@MarkHoltom question for law students: if the board of a company deliberately restricts necessary investments to keep the production lines in good shape in order to give artificial profits and pay themselves large dividends, how is it called?

At this point it's not a matter of crying "nationalize water", but rather "send managers to a dark wet clink"

Dark Matter Zine 1d ago

@MarkHoltom shock. horror. When I was a young adult and privatisation became a thing in Australia, EVERYONE knew what would happen. And now we have billionaires, the gap is bigger, and everything is shit. And STILL govts are all “privatise” and enshittify.

Bo Tally 1d ago

@MarkHoltom Socializing water is the traditional way to distribute it fairly and efficiently.

@MarkHoltom just stumbled upon your post; and what the hell - England privatised water infrastructure? I didn't know and tbh who could've thought that privatising such common good is a good idea???

It’s even worse than leaky and expensive, the sewage contamination seems to have moved from “events” to just business as usual

@simra @MarkHoltom

Kierkethumbs up convincingly 1d ago

@MarkHoltom seems more reasonable to nationalize the services instead. They forfeited the value of the business by mismanaging it

tkissing 1d ago

@MarkHoltom But capitalism teaches that everything gets better, if you add a rich dude to it, who doesn't do anything except take out some money on a regular basis?! Are you suggesting capitalists are not honest?

SecondUniverse (she/her/they)1d ago

"...and not paying out dividends" - massive institutional failure in Scotland with an absolute failure to generate shareholder value.

SecondUniverse (she/her/they)1d ago

@MarkHoltom tighten the regulator framework to make the water companies unprofitable, and then nationalize them when they are worthless.

Matt Mascarenhas 1d ago

@MarkHoltom Totally, and the brilliant C4 drama Dirty Business presents a laser-focused understanding of England's sewage problem – scandal, frankly – as a direct product of privatisation.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/dirty-business

samiamsam 1d ago

privatization is evil

privatize the profits, everyone else pays for everything

Herefordrob 1d ago

@MarkHoltom
The commons should never have been a part of predatory capitalism, isn't that the point?

MostlyTato 1d ago

@MarkHoltom
My bill went up 28% last year and another 14% on that this year. Fucking rip off criminal bastards. I also have to keep an emergency water store cuz it goes off around once a year. It did this once for three days without notice.
When they send me a warning to conserve water in the summer I'll tell them to fuck off - I'm paying for it and I'll leave the bloody tap running if I want to and screw you. I won't, not the sort of thing I'd do, but they don't know that. Bastards.

Nobody ناچیز नास्ति (he/him)1d ago

@MarkHoltom
Nationalised electricity, education, transport, telecommunications, healthcare, etc., are good.

For whom the Taco Bell tolls 1d ago

@MarkHoltom this sounds like the same result in Detroit

Michael Maguire 🇨🇦 🇬🇧🇨🇭🇮🇹23h ago

@MarkHoltom Obviously a private, free market water system would be the most efficient for my water - I can just freely pick from the 4 different providers already hooked up to my house, based on quality, service and price, right? Right?

@MarkHoltom looks like if the water regulators fails to make the water companies take responsibilities for the tasks they suppose to do and fail to keep the best interest of the public (by allowing service charge increase) can we not prosecute the members in water regulator body?

Neil Moffatt 2h ago

@MarkHoltom It always has been more likely to be more effective not least is that it is driven by service not profit obsession that blinds them to impact on others and the planet.