Don't start with the Guinea Pigs please....



What's a foe bin and can I have one please?

You click on a twart's Profile and add them as a foe. Then you no longer have to read their drivel, as by default it is removed.



It would be a good feature of the site if each person could see somewhere their own current "foe'd" count.





=#8080FFAnd you'd be wise to leave the Guinea Pigs alone, they have eyes and ears everywhere . . .

Mmm shame, moderators have to read everyone's drivel.

Twart.



Good word.





I shall bear in mind the Guinea Pigs, we have one lurking behind the door as I type.





And thanks for the advice on the Foe bin, off to use it now. Not as much as I could, I need Robinson and Dally for my daily hate.

Using terms like 'ripping off' shows a lack of understanding as to how monopoly businesses are regulated. The regulations are highly formulaic and based on agreed allowances for operating costs and acceptable rates of return for investent in capital. These rules in turn enable the company to raise both equity and debt finance.



Increased capital spend leads to higher prices - otherwise the investment simply won't happen. Delaying necessary investment simply leads to a more significant price shock further down the track. Would you rather a 30% increase in three years time than 8% today (together with deteriorating services in the meantime)? That tends to be what happens when you delay investment in asset-intensive industries.



That's even before you get to the multiplier effect of the investments being made (especially important in times of recession when investment elsewhere is subdued) and the fact that anyone with a pension fund indirectly owns shares in a number of such utlities.

Indeed. Water was sold off at a reduced price in recognition of the investment in infrastructure that would be needed. That was around 23 years ago. So yes, it's quite clear what happens when a private monopoly decides to delay investment – we get to foot the bill. Just as we all face above-inflation price hikes for other utilities (and transport etc). Because they are no longer run as important services, but as ways of making as much profit as possible.

The government spent over £20,000,000 to advertise the water privatisation over a 3 month period. That is a massive amount in any budget for 3 months nearly 23 years ago. but similar in budget to the electricity one and there was one other that escapes me. It might have been the railways, but I really can't recall.



They spent £20m of taxpayers' money to sell off something the taxpayer didn't want selling off in the first place.

The cost of ideology, eh?



It's rather amusing, in a dry sort of fashion, reading the forums at the [iTelegraph[/i of late, where there are increasing numbers of contributors posting things such as: 'I never thought I'd say so, but we should never have privatised X, Y and Z.'

I know, i have the live video feed from Chief Pig HQ







Oh, you wouldn't bin off anyone like that. Just the very rarest of beasts with not even a molecule of point to their existence, where on reading their posts, the answer to the question, "Do I begrudge the wear and tear on my optic nerves for having to transmit this to my brain" is a clear "Yes". I give you Captain Capslock, for example.

With a water board that we all own, we rightly accept that we really are all in it together when there's a water shortage.



But, in the same drought, having to pay a water bill to a profit-making company that doesn't actually supply you with any water is completely different.