Robbing utilities

BillieTheBot

Transco installed gas into one house near Cramlington fior £420- when the next door neighbour enquired about having gas connected to his house, he was quoted £5000. THe neighbour's house is 20 yards away.

This is yet another case of our private utilities bleeding this country dry in the sake of profit. I have no problem with profit, but it must be earned and it must be warranted. However Transco are a terrible example of how companies will always scrimp and save on staff and wages, and rob customers blind, in order to justify obscene executive pay and obscene profits.

Privatisation has worked sometimes, but really not in public services. Thieving filth.

Story.

Former Member

Surely if that's how much it costs to put the mains pipes in though, someone's got to pay it.

I don't know if anyone saw if...the lights go out last night, there's a bit about it here but basically competition between private power companies has driven prices down so far that no one can afford to build new power stations (or maintain the ones we have) because they're essentially controlled by the market price of electricity (which isn't very good). But never mind if there are a few power cuts, at least those market traders can make some (more) money.

edit: arses, the link doesn't work. www.mirror.co.uk/news and it's about half way down the page with a UK flag next to it

Former Member

Re: Re: Robbing utilities

Originally posted by Aspartame
Indeed.

Public services shouldn't be for the sole good of the executives and investors.
They should be state run organisations that reinvest money into a better service or other benefits to the people.

Don't let Thatcher here you say that.

Former Member

There was a piece in the paper today about the lack of infrastructure mentioned earlier.
The power companies can barely afford to keep existing stations open, let alone build new ones. The country needs to replace its existing nuclear and coal power stations by 2006, or we'll start seeing brown-outs as a regular occurence.

Former Member

Re: Re: Robbing utilities

Originally posted by Aspartame
Public services shouldn't be for the sole good of the executives and investors.
They should be state run organisations that reinvest money into a better service or other benefits to the people.

word

Former Member

Originally posted by Whowhere
The power companies can barely afford to keep existing stations open, let alone build new ones.

I'm sure if they cut out the dividends and executive pay then they'd be able to cobble a few quid together.

But it's better for them if they bleat about being skint, and get us to pay for it whilst they keep their dividends, share options and obscene pay.

Former Member

The fact that something as essential as water or energy can be bought or sold offends me.

Former Member

Explain to me what public services are.....Because when i studyed them at college they were the police, the army, the navy, the ambulence survice....nothing to do with gas....(unless my teacher had curry for lunch)

Former Member

Originally posted by Zella
Explain to me what public services are.....Because when i studyed them at college they were the police, the army, the navy, the ambulence survice....nothing to do with gas....(unless my teacher had curry for lunch)

Without getting into the intricacies of Keynesian economics, basically public services and public utilities are services and utilities that are operated for the public, or owned by the public.

The emergency services, the military, the Civil Service, they all count. But so does transport, so do the utilities, the hospitals, and so on. It used to extend as far as companies like British Leyland being owned publicly, but these were sold off, rightly, during Thatcher's mid-1980s privatisations.

Former Member

Ah ok thanks for clearing that up, i was confused for a wee bit.
well im always confused but that just cos im thick

Former Member

i think the gas, water and electricity should have remained in the hands of the government. Might have cost more but at least we'd have been able to hold someone accountable, and we'd have known that the directors weren't being paird £500,000 a year for doing sweet FA