I don't understand how a company can be bailed out by a government but still pay out share dividends and bonuses. You would also think giving such a large chunk of money for a bailout would get you a stake in the business.
My understanding is that privatization only appended companies to government run sectors, resulting in the worst outcome possible (fixed inefficiency with the need to generate profits)
Why must taxpayers bail out private companies that have done nothing but hike up their prices and do shady practices? Shouldnt they be held accountable?
@@alphamikeomega5728there is every reason to belief that. Have you not seen how things have been ran the last 50 years? How about all that covid money contracts? Just wrote off. They’ll bail them out to not ‘spook investors’.
Thames Water just attempted to put up my water bill by nearly 9 times the price! They deserve to fail if they need to do that to stay solvent. Water privatisation is an evil monopoly
9x increase to bills when they're failing to actually provide the service you're paying money for is the type of corporation greed you think only exists in dystopian Hollywood movies. To enrages me, as do the train companies charging £30 for 30 mile train journeys when it's 10x as cheap and much better service in other countries.
That's the fundamental problem they are all monopolies with no incentive to offer a good service. If they fail they just get more free money from the government.
yet the internet and mobile operators are, as are transport companies and infrastructure like airlines and airports, or energy providers and distributors. Natural monopolies indeed are most sensibly government run affaires, but there are plenty of aspects of our modern lives that are private and work better for it, when they don't have the luxury of inefficiency. Water is of course not one of these.
@@MrSpeedy99 hence my use of the term "natural monopoly". The high fixed costs and local reach limitations of water make it unsuitable as a competitive enterprise. Telecom has wider reach which eases and improves its economy of scale. Mail is also a good example - there's plenty of competition and actors for this utility, since it can piggyback off of other infrastructure (roads, rail), to keep capital costs low, just like the tourism industry.
That is precisely why you should care who owns it. Someone living in another country who cares only about profits and doesn’t have a moral bone in their body couldn’t care less about sewage being dumped in a foreign far away country.
This is why privatization is so bad. 72 billion paid to shareholders. All that money isn't going back into our economy because the money is being spent overseas.
Re-nationalising water, energy and rail would have been the most effective investment they could have done. It would have resolved a huge amount of problems. Even the legal issues would be worth it.
The problem with that is that it would take too long to implement and for the benefits to manifest. By that time, labor might be voted out by either Reform or the Conservatives and they would privatized it back anyway, wasting taxpayer money. British people do nothing but shoot their feet.
@@wh880😂😂😂 except for the fact we’ve seen what privatised water, rail and energy has done for our country, no innovation all money has gone to dividends instead of investment
If this company was taking out loans just to pay shareholders thats a crazy, unethical way to run a business. Also shame on whoever provided the credit.
Creditors would be crezy to take that deal.... Also, taking a company from its shareholders without proper liquidation process nor compensation is commonly referred as robbery
@@phil2544then the government still needs to pay for the assets of the water company, which in turn would goes to creditors. There's simply no way to leave debt with shareholders
Yeah that’s rly not how businesses work lol. And considering the shareholders include the Canadian sovereign wealth fund and the some big Japanese pension funds, you do that your gonna have some massive geopolitical tensions
@@CoolSocialistit’s not like labour can just easily nationalise all of these water companies. They all have a lot of debt and would cost the government tens of billions, something they can do but the NHS, schools and other investments would suffer
@@shahedali02 Why not? If they can seize peoples housing for government projects, surely they can seize water pipes that are derelict an a national hazard.
@@Patrick-y4d1z you’re not wrong but there’s a difference between derelict and not in use and mismanaged private businesses Although the uk needs to do what the Saudis did to aramco to get that into public ownership
In 1971 we bought a house in SE London the water bill was the CHEAPEST around £50 after the water company was privatized the bills went up and up and up until when I left the UK in 2000 it was as expensive as my gas or electric bills (several hundred in the winter quarter) and for that amount as a "freebie" we got Polluted seas and rivers.
Look at our productivity since Thatcher took government. Her economic practices worked well for 10 years max. After which the UK has become as insufferable as it is today.
And at the time, many commentaries said that privatising water was a step too far. Still, I’m glad that we’re making China, UAE, Canada & Macquarie rich 🤔
@@jacksteven781 the common problem with the liberals: they are good at math, but very bad at history! They can calculate the money they can receive by selling the country, but can’t predict what will happen after a decade.
Water company bosses do so much marketing work to appear like they're 'listening to concerns' and to act like sewage dumping is a last resort, but their actions speak far louder. They intentionally funnel away profits and enrich their shareholders while putting no investment back into a system which they can jump out of with golden parachutes any time they please. Then they have the gall to turn to the state and demand a bailout from the shitty situation they've deliberated maneouvred themselves into. All part of their cynical financial strategy.
@@davidty2006 technically via any act of parliament the government can do whatever it wants as its supreme. They could arrest all the owners take all their money and leave the bill as a generational debt and failure to pay results in painful death. They wont because thats insane. But in reality there is no limits to parliament and what they can enact, if they want to they can. In reality they will bail out and do nothing as our politics is trash
The privatisation of public utilities has been a complete failure. The government created a privately owned monopoly for an essential service. Labour can obtain ownership of the water companies simply by allowing them to become insolvent. It is essential that the regulator acts for the customers, enforcing regulation and price control. The government should carry out the policy of making water company CEOs criminally responsible for environmental pollution.
We are already paying for all this, both through government tax money in bail outs, and through bills that keep going up to pay for disasters _they_ are responsible for, because theyve spent years funneling money to shareholders who shouldnt exist rather than repairs and upkeep they knew was needed. Privatise the profits, socialise the costs; The longer this goes on, the more painful it will be when they do finally nationalise.
Privatisation leading to competition? What a joke. Water companies operate like monopolies. You don't get to choose your water company. The only way you can have a different water company is if you move to an area served by a different water company.
Thirty years of private industry looting has left the UK’s single most crucial resource in utter disaster. But sure, let them borrow more money to give themselves more bonuses.
Thatcher did an *awful* job of privatisation. Why didn't she carve out the parts that _could_ inspire competition like: - Paying individual sewerage treatment plants by volume - Tendering fixed-term maintenance contracts for sections of pipes - Etc
"we can't renationalise, because we wouldn't fund it properly. Instead let's just give them the funds they need but with no requirements to spend that funding on providing services."
I love hearing about SHAREHOLDERS, especially in relation to such basic resources like water... In Poland water/sewage is nationalized and I cannot even comprehend how it's possible to have it any other way...
@babayaga6376 THATS BECAUSE IT WAS NATIONALIZED AND IT HAD NO DEBTS,ALL THE PRIVATE DID WAS BORROW BILLIONS TO GIVE TO SHAREHOLDERS , AND THAT WENT ON FOR 30 YEARS , NOW WE ARE PAYING FOR THEIR LUXURY YACHTS, THATCHER SAID 30 ODD YEARS AGO THAT THE OLD VICTORIAN PIPES WILL NEED REPLACING AND ITS EXPENSIVE, WHAT ARE THEY SAYING TODAY ? YES THE VICTORIAN PIPES ARE OLD AND NEED REPLACING AND I REMEMBER ON THE NEWS BACK THEN IT WOULD TAKE ABOUT 30 YEARS
@@babayaga6376 BUT THE STATE REGULATED IT SO IT WAS AFFORDABLE THATCHER DIDNT BELIEVE IN THAT, SHE BELIEVED THAT COMPANIES COULD CHARGE WHAT THEY WANTED, AND IT GIT STEADILY WORSE AS WE SEE WITH WATER. TRAINS ARE NIT CHEAP TO RUN NO MATTER WHO RUNS IT BUT AGAIN NOTHIN TO STOP THEM OUTTING PRICES UP
It defeats the point of being a private company, who take billions in dividend, but expect the tax payer to bail them out AND put the prices up just to still take out dividends. The UK public get all the risk, while shareholders get all the reward for a bad service!
Speaking as someone outside of the UK... you guys privatized your water supply?! That's somehow even dumber than Nova Scotia selling off its electrical grid, which was also a terrible idea.
The coincidence that Canada's Sovereign wealth fund is a shareholder in this company lol. "Privatizing utilities is an awful move long-term." Well it was done in a time when the government was broke, interest rates were around 20% and the combination of getting rid of the ongoing maintenance obligations while also making a profit in the sale of the company was too attractive to resist. Considering the negative impacts hit only nearly 2 entire generations later, that was a good calculus for the problems of the time.
@RatchetSly there is a list of everything that the uk has privatised it is quite shocking Everything was sold under the idea that businesses are more efficient, but somehow tax payers are left to pay the bill to keep things working, while profits are moved out of the country with little tax being paid to reinvest for the future
If a company has a monopoly on an essential service it cannot be privatised. Its really basic economics. It should never have left public ownership in the first place.
Natural monopolies have long been privatized and regulated. In exchange for a captive "you have to be an idiot to lose money on it" market being allowed they may only have a certain maximum profit margin, usually about 10%. Cannot just plain isn't true.
And here we go again. All the money is going towards investors, not the company, not the people, not the business, it goes directly to the pockets on investors. Private Equity has been killing business for years, in search for endless growth and return. This needs to stop, and bonuses to useless suits need to stop
The government needs to do as much as they can to force these companies to reduce their debt. Otherwise, criminal charges are in order. Unfortunately, the debt can't just vanish. Somebody needs to settle them, so ultimately, there will probably be some bailouts, but the burden of that must be put on the CEOs as much as possible with the strongest possible new legislation.
I just hope they do something about the quality. The tap water at my place is so toxic it killed my betta fish Tsukoiyomi and gave me viral pericarditis that almost killed me too. Now I'm spending extra every week on my food order for bottled water. It's ridiculous. I work hard at a respectable job and I'm almost taken out by tap water?
Same problem with the trains. Local monopolies effectively run by the State (the government sets stuff like prices and salaries) but with privatised profits. This probably worked well at first but it was doomed to fail because there’s no competition and all the companies can do if they start losing money is cut on maintenance and borrow money. The worst of both worlds. Either go full free market, allow competition and remove price controls, or nationalise them and accept the inefficiencies as a preferable outcome.
3:17 Macquarie completely sold their shares in thames water in 2017. however they are still mostly at fault for the current state of the company due to excessive borrowing during the 11 years they were in charge for to pay the shareholder dividends and much of the debt post 2017 was taken on due to the hole Macquarie dug them into.
The same inefficiencies of publicly owned companies happen to privately owned companies that have no competition and get bailed out. Was obvious from the start that trains and water shouldnt have been privatised.
they should bail them out but then state that 50% off all the profits the company makes will go to paying off its debt to the gov until they have paid off all of the bailouts they have received. you can't privatise the profits and socialise the losses and act like its not a weird form of theft
Almost no country in the world has privatised water. It's nuts and such a waste of money when there's no competition if people are locked to suppliers. Massive borrowing to line the pockets of private inverters is tantamount to fraud. It certainly should be. Surfers against Sewage have been campaigning against CSOs for decades. Bring it back to our ownership.
Public services like water and power should never be bailed out. If the company fails, the government should have right of first refusal to purchase for a dollar.
Water companies expect to privatise the profits but get the government to nationalise the losses, and bail them out. They need to let them fail and then create a public water company to replace them
For reference, water in Scotland is nationalised and water in Northern Ireland is government owned. As a result of this, water bills in Scotland, included as part of the council tax and calculated by your tax band, are much less than those in England and Wales, and is free in Northern Ireland, for now.
There's also a third option when it comes to these water companies. Those that go bankrupt get thier assets nationalised while those that don't can continue. This would actually provide incentives to preform well since they wont be able to rely on the government picking up the bill when they lose their gambles, actually having to suffer the consequences of risky behaviour. It also puts a competitive element into the system since those that are still private will be the most efficient ones with the nationalised companies being the base line. Overall rising the minimum quality of service for the consumer. As apposed to a blanket nationalisation that throws the baby out with the bath water via punishing those companies that are preforming well and putting an unnecessary burden on the Civil service.
@1:34 it used to be one of the cleanest in the world, earlier this year, in part of the country, drinking tap water was not safe because of raw sewage being dumped in waterways.
Lucky I get my water from Essex and Suffolk water and only pay Thames water for Sewage. But this is all down to the reading of my water meter. So I only pay for what I use. Unlike the water rates which are charged on the size of your house. Rates have gone up a lot compared to water meters so if you can get a water meter.
If critical infrastructure like water is going to stay privatised, at the very least the sandtions for mismanaging it need to be a lot more severe. Repeatedly dumping raw sewage into rivers because all your profit goes to shareholders rather than infrastructure should be punishable as environmental terrorism. Doctor's and police can be criminally punished for negligence with time in prison, so why aren't water company executives?
So what I'm hearing is the UK infrastructure network is even worse than expected, as the government hasn't had to claim beleaguered water utilities as well as everything else that seems to be falling apart these days?
I see this on the News,Im with Anglian Water,Mine go up by +13%,Just as well go easy on the water supply,Keep taps turned of at all times,Also no longer have a bath any more,Got a shower now,Takes about five mins,Im all nice and clean
During the last Labour conference i paid any attention to Starmer berated the SNP at every opportunity while also announcing the adoption of around 7 of their policies. And the electorate fell for it too! 😂 Expect an announcement about policy on period poverty in the future.
The UK wide statistic on water cleanliness can’t be used when you’re discussing England and Wales. Scottish water is famously cleaner than southern water.
Being a little bit long in the tooth, I can remember the privatisation. And how our water bills went up to improve the infrastructure and stop leaks.. that money was granted but the work not done and the investors paid handsomely. But now it’s the fault of the infrastructure that has already been paid for by the consumers.. why should they get a bail out? I thinkrationalisation would be a good thing.
So a broken, bent monopoly that nobody wants, jacks up prices and allows the standard of the service they provide to crumble, they don’t even come close to meeting the required standard fiscally or materially and we have to have endless debates on the matter. If it were a marriage? You’d leave. If it were a job? You’d leave. If it were a car? You’d scrap it.
Privatisation of these vital industries has proven to be an unmitigated disaster of domestic policy. Nationalisation would now be unreasonably expensive, so Labour’s only option is to force the companies to reinvest and restrict profits. Hopefully we can nationalise sooner rather than later and get out of this mess.
Yeah surely the government could use that 3bln to buy the company. All those returns and dividends could then be kept in the country and used to repair and upgrade infrastructure.
Solving the crisis is in theory quite simple. You ban water companies from doing bonuses, dividends and even controlling the crazy high wages of the executives. Or, you encourage real competition by allowing new water companies to buy water assets. This would reduce consumer bills as they would have a choice of supplier, and would allow the water companies to sell off assets and reduce some of their debt. A combo of the 2 strategies would dramatically raise funds of the water companies, without nationalising. Obviously the caveat is that this radical change could easily be cocked up and not work
Government should own the infrastructure, plan the system, finance it and set prices. Funding by customers is appropriate. However, the water authorities should only have small workforce and rely on private contractors to perform services for it like, system design, construction, maintenance, meter reading and other data collection. But the authorities should own and keep data about their infrastructure. Also, the UK, like Italy is doing, build a national geographic information system to record all the made made infrastructure from prehistoric times onwards and also the natural environment.
I don't understand why governments see the need to fully privatize essential services like water and rail for example. There are very suitable alternatives available such as a State Owned Enterprise. They can follow a China model where it is for profit but fully regulated. If they had done this the company would not be in this position.
The fact that new reservoirs have not been built is irrelevant. we don't need new reservoirs. What we need is new/upgraded infrastructure e.g sewage treatment etc.
No new reservoirs isn't a good metric to establish a lack of investment. Surface water storage creates treatment challenges, and there are tremendous logistical and permitting hurdles to building a reservoir - you would expect to arrive at a point where you stop building reservoirs. The point may be valid but you should find a better metric
It's wrong to say that no reservoirs have been built as though it is the water companies fault. Most companies have put reservoir construction in their plans in previous years which have then had their financing rejected by OFWAT and EA.
If a private company is willing to buy a public service then they should definitely NOT be sold. The reasoning being that the private company implicitly thinks that ownership will make them greater or equal to market average returns. (they will make money off it) And if they're going to make money off it then either the public are being over charged, or it should go to the government who can use that increased revenue to reduce taxation. (I realise in reality it's not necessarily that simple because it could cost the public less to just charge less for the service and make less profit, rather than the bureaucratic overhead in then separately lowering taxation... )
I think either in the long term the water companies need to be bought out and the contracts become nationalised eventually, however in this current moment I would implement stronger financial regulations and other legislation with tackling unethical management by the water companies unfortunately with the private sector it has got too greedy and there’s become a lack of investment and these debt levels need to be hugely resolved
That epi score is a) old, and b) really strange. I can drink the tapwater in Vienna, and it doesnt taste of chlorine. In London I can guess the latest leak by the smell of chlorine out of a tap. The epi is more about safe water too.
BRO I have been waiting to use this word for like five years. This is known as remunicipalisation and I read it from a book on monopolies five years ago.
Shareholders have earnt enough. If there was a case for forceful renationalisation - without paying billions to buy these companies, it was water companies.
I dont have any specific issue with priviate water companies if they werent just local monopolies. If you dont have competition you dont have a free market thus you're not going to gain from the effects of the free market
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
I don't understand how a company can be bailed out by a government but still pay out share dividends and bonuses.
You would also think giving such a large chunk of money for a bailout would get you a stake in the business.
damn didn't expect to see you here
ay yo it's ya boi
US banks are on the line. Shall I put the call through? Make it quick because the auto industry is waiting also.
Its allowed to happen due to crooked government legislation
My understanding is that privatization only appended companies to government run sectors, resulting in the worst outcome possible (fixed inefficiency with the need to generate profits)
Why must taxpayers bail out private companies that have done nothing but hike up their prices and do shady practices? Shouldnt they be held accountable?
Because the politicians are friends or are pressured by investors or owners
They run the numbers each time. Its more expensive to nationalise
Bail out? There's no reason to believe that the government would take on the debt nor pay for the shares if TW goes bankrupt.
@willumbermarchant5510 how does that make sense? If people are making money and profiting, usually as the government subsidies the cost.
@@alphamikeomega5728there is every reason to belief that.
Have you not seen how things have been ran the last 50 years?
How about all that covid money contracts? Just wrote off.
They’ll bail them out to not ‘spook investors’.
Thames Water just attempted to put up my water bill by nearly 9 times the price!
They deserve to fail if they need to do that to stay solvent.
Water privatisation is an evil monopoly
9x increase to bills when they're failing to actually provide the service you're paying money for is the type of corporation greed you think only exists in dystopian Hollywood movies. To enrages me, as do the train companies charging £30 for 30 mile train journeys when it's 10x as cheap and much better service in other countries.
That's the fundamental problem they are all monopolies with no incentive to offer a good service. If they fail they just get more free money from the government.
It’s a SCAM, pure and simple. Every single taxpayer in this country is being scammed. Repeatedly.
This is disgraceful, access to water should be a human right, especially in a place where it falls out of the sky every 10 minutes
Basic utilities should never be in private hands
yet the internet and mobile operators are, as are transport companies and infrastructure like airlines and airports, or energy providers and distributors. Natural monopolies indeed are most sensibly government run affaires, but there are plenty of aspects of our modern lives that are private and work better for it, when they don't have the luxury of inefficiency. Water is of course not one of these.
@@serebii666there’s a key difference though. At least with those utilities, you have a choice in who to go to. With water, you have no choice.
@@MrSpeedy99 Internet? It's the same backbone. Energy too, it's all one grid with illusion of choice.
@ I agree
@@MrSpeedy99 hence my use of the term "natural monopoly". The high fixed costs and local reach limitations of water make it unsuitable as a competitive enterprise. Telecom has wider reach which eases and improves its economy of scale. Mail is also a good example - there's plenty of competition and actors for this utility, since it can piggyback off of other infrastructure (roads, rail), to keep capital costs low, just like the tourism industry.
I don't care who owns it as long as they stop dumping sewage into rivers on a daily basis
Probably better if it isn't a commercial business then.
@@JeffBilkins yerp
It ridiculous that it's legal for that to take out loans to pay shareholders
That is precisely why you should care who owns it. Someone living in another country who cares only about profits and doesn’t have a moral bone in their body couldn’t care less about sewage being dumped in a foreign far away country.
This is why privatization is so bad. 72 billion paid to shareholders. All that money isn't going back into our economy because the money is being spent overseas.
Instant thumbs up for "shitstorm" in a news story. Earned, and genuinely got a chuckle out of me
A shame they censored it. Makes me wonder why they even bothered
Re-nationalising water, energy and rail would have been the most effective investment they could have done. It would have resolved a huge amount of problems. Even the legal issues would be worth it.
The problem with that is that it would take too long to implement and for the benefits to manifest. By that time, labor might be voted out by either Reform or the Conservatives and they would privatized it back anyway, wasting taxpayer money. British people do nothing but shoot their feet.
It isnt a good thing! It strangles inovation and competition!
@@wh880😂😂😂 except for the fact we’ve seen what privatised water, rail and energy has done for our country, no innovation all money has gone to dividends instead of investment
@@wh880those are natural monopolies, so no competition anyway
Even a random RUclips commenter can see that. Why do you think Steve Reed doesn't want to do that? Cmon, its clear as day - just say it.
If this company was taking out loans just to pay shareholders thats a crazy, unethical way to run a business.
Also shame on whoever provided the credit.
And shame on the corruption in OfWat that allowed them to do it. But apparently it would be bad for business to prosecute them?
Let's hope So, but leave the debt with the shareholders.
Creditors would be crezy to take that deal.... Also, taking a company from its shareholders without proper liquidation process nor compensation is commonly referred as robbery
So, essentially you want to say you will build a wall, but make another country pay for it.
@@悠悠雪野 not if it goes bankrupt first
@@phil2544then the government still needs to pay for the assets of the water company, which in turn would goes to creditors. There's simply no way to leave debt with shareholders
Yeah that’s rly not how businesses work lol. And considering the shareholders include the Canadian sovereign wealth fund and the some big Japanese pension funds, you do that your gonna have some massive geopolitical tensions
One of the most sickening things thatcher did in my view.
And Starmer still refuses to ever nationalise it, Red Tories!
@@CoolSocialistit’s not easy to nationalise tbf
@@CoolSocialistit’s not like labour can just easily nationalise all of these water companies. They all have a lot of debt and would cost the government tens of billions, something they can do but the NHS, schools and other investments would suffer
@@shahedali02
Why not? If they can seize peoples housing for government projects, surely they can seize water pipes that are derelict an a national hazard.
@@Patrick-y4d1z you’re not wrong but there’s a difference between derelict and not in use and mismanaged private businesses
Although the uk needs to do what the Saudis did to aramco to get that into public ownership
In 1971 we bought a house in SE London the water bill was the CHEAPEST around £50 after the water company was privatized the bills went up and up and up until when I left the UK in 2000 it was as expensive as my gas or electric bills (several hundred in the winter quarter) and for that amount as a "freebie" we got Polluted seas and rivers.
yep going down in hystory as the tory junkieson input!!!!! how junkie sh-t all over the uk lol
A country where it's constantly raining running out of water... pretty much sums up modern day Britain
Thatcher really fucked up this country, isn’t it?
Yeah, and other countries followed her lead, for example Germany. Same shit here. Look at our railway.
Look at our productivity since Thatcher took government. Her economic practices worked well for 10 years max. After which the UK has become as insufferable as it is today.
She spent the country's life savings on hookers and coke, and people say she was successful because life was good for a while.
And at the time, many commentaries said that privatising water was a step too far.
Still, I’m glad that we’re making China, UAE, Canada & Macquarie rich 🤔
@@jacksteven781 the common problem with the liberals: they are good at math, but very bad at history! They can calculate the money they can receive by selling the country, but can’t predict what will happen after a decade.
Water company bosses do so much marketing work to appear like they're 'listening to concerns' and to act like sewage dumping is a last resort, but their actions speak far louder. They intentionally funnel away profits and enrich their shareholders while putting no investment back into a system which they can jump out of with golden parachutes any time they please. Then they have the gall to turn to the state and demand a bailout from the shitty situation they've deliberated maneouvred themselves into. All part of their cynical financial strategy.
The smart move here is to renationalise the company without compensation and make it clear that the debts stay with the old owner
Well theres a possible way for that, bankrupt the company and take the infrastructure. In theory could only cost the government transaction fee.
@@davidty2006 technically via any act of parliament the government can do whatever it wants as its supreme. They could arrest all the owners take all their money and leave the bill as a generational debt and failure to pay results in painful death. They wont because thats insane. But in reality there is no limits to parliament and what they can enact, if they want to they can. In reality they will bail out and do nothing as our politics is trash
The privatisation of public utilities has been a complete failure. The government created a privately owned monopoly for an essential service. Labour can obtain ownership of the water companies simply by allowing them to become insolvent. It is essential that the regulator acts for the customers, enforcing regulation and price control. The government should carry out the policy of making water company CEOs criminally responsible for environmental pollution.
We are already paying for all this, both through government tax money in bail outs, and through bills that keep going up to pay for disasters _they_ are responsible for, because theyve spent years funneling money to shareholders who shouldnt exist rather than repairs and upkeep they knew was needed.
Privatise the profits, socialise the costs; The longer this goes on, the more painful it will be when they do finally nationalise.
If they go bust, then the government can at least buy the company at a bargain basement price
No surprise all these companies are mismanaged. There's no consequence for incompetence or carelessness
Privatisation leading to competition? What a joke. Water companies operate like monopolies. You don't get to choose your water company. The only way you can have a different water company is if you move to an area served by a different water company.
Competition happens when access is free. Access to utilities with exclusive networks are automatic monopolies.
Thirty years of private industry looting has left the UK’s single most crucial resource in utter disaster. But sure, let them borrow more money to give themselves more bonuses.
Thatcher did an *awful* job of privatisation. Why didn't she carve out the parts that _could_ inspire competition like:
- Paying individual sewerage treatment plants by volume
- Tendering fixed-term maintenance contracts for sections of pipes
- Etc
The point was not to do a good job, it was to make money for the wealthiest.
This shouldn’t even be a debate. Access to clean water is human right that shouldn’t be controlled by a profit driven corporation
Exactly.
UK water companies have shown they are capable of taking the piss, just not out of our drinking water.
"we can't renationalise, because we wouldn't fund it properly. Instead let's just give them the funds they need but with no requirements to spend that funding on providing services."
Water should belog to everyone ✊️
we pay for the cleaning of the water.
Water belongs to everyone indeed. But processed water delivered to your home by pipe has to be paid, either by ourselves directly or through our tax
@@悠悠雪野read marx
I love hearing about SHAREHOLDERS, especially in relation to such basic resources like water...
In Poland water/sewage is nationalized and I cannot even comprehend how it's possible to have it any other way...
Imagine bloody being the sole Water company in England and Wales and now on brink of bankruptcy while holding monopoly..
As an Aussie, I sincerely apologise 💀
Don't, I'm sure UK corporations are doing something just as evil in Oz as we speak. This is about corporations vs people not nationality.
@@archvaldor Yup, it's just capitalism at work :(
It hasnt worked to date. We have in effect monopolies with trapped markets. The sewer system they inherited though wasnt fit for purpose
they used profits for C suite bonuses and shareholder pay-outs, not investing in infrastructure. no excuses
Yeh they promised to use profits to upgrade the systems but just never bothered!
If it wasn't fit, maybe reinvest into gradually building a new one instead of paying dividends and bonuses
Water should have never been Privatised.
AND HOW CAN YOU HAVE COMPETITION ? BIGGEST LIE THATCHER TOLD US AND MANY BELIEVED HER ONLY FOR THE MONEY THEY WILL GET OUT OF IT
Yeah...I didn't get that either. But on the other hand, there was no competition before either.
@babayaga6376 THATS BECAUSE IT WAS NATIONALIZED AND IT HAD NO DEBTS,ALL THE PRIVATE DID WAS BORROW BILLIONS TO GIVE TO SHAREHOLDERS , AND THAT WENT ON FOR 30 YEARS , NOW WE ARE PAYING FOR THEIR LUXURY YACHTS, THATCHER SAID 30 ODD YEARS AGO THAT THE OLD VICTORIAN PIPES WILL NEED REPLACING AND ITS EXPENSIVE, WHAT ARE THEY SAYING TODAY ? YES THE VICTORIAN PIPES ARE OLD AND NEED REPLACING AND I REMEMBER ON THE NEWS BACK THEN IT WOULD TAKE ABOUT 30 YEARS
You can’t, the state regulates whom you can and can’t serve.
@@babayaga6376 BUT THE STATE REGULATED IT SO IT WAS AFFORDABLE THATCHER DIDNT BELIEVE IN THAT, SHE BELIEVED THAT COMPANIES COULD CHARGE WHAT THEY WANTED, AND IT GIT STEADILY WORSE AS WE SEE WITH WATER. TRAINS ARE NIT CHEAP TO RUN NO MATTER WHO RUNS IT BUT AGAIN NOTHIN TO STOP THEM OUTTING PRICES UP
It defeats the point of being a private company, who take billions in dividend, but expect the tax payer to bail them out AND put the prices up just to still take out dividends. The UK public get all the risk, while shareholders get all the reward for a bad service!
Water water everywhere and all the boards did shrink
Water water everywhere nor any drop to drink
Speaking as someone outside of the UK... you guys privatized your water supply?! That's somehow even dumber than Nova Scotia selling off its electrical grid, which was also a terrible idea.
We did that too 🙄
@rob8049 Good lord. Thatcher was a disaster for your country. Privatizing utilities is an awful move long-term.
Don't forget about BP in the north Sea
The coincidence that Canada's Sovereign wealth fund is a shareholder in this company lol. "Privatizing utilities is an awful move long-term." Well it was done in a time when the government was broke, interest rates were around 20% and the combination of getting rid of the ongoing maintenance obligations while also making a profit in the sale of the company was too attractive to resist. Considering the negative impacts hit only nearly 2 entire generations later, that was a good calculus for the problems of the time.
@RatchetSly there is a list of everything that the uk has privatised it is quite shocking
Everything was sold under the idea that businesses are more efficient, but somehow tax payers are left to pay the bill to keep things working, while profits are moved out of the country with little tax being paid to reinvest for the future
If a company has a monopoly on an essential service it cannot be privatised. Its really basic economics. It should never have left public ownership in the first place.
These firm were established as legal monopolies by the state when they were all created, there’s nothing natural about them.
Natural monopolies have long been privatized and regulated. In exchange for a captive "you have to be an idiot to lose money on it" market being allowed they may only have a certain maximum profit margin, usually about 10%. Cannot just plain isn't true.
As expected, when monopolies are privatized. Strange, that there were payoffs in the beginning.
Critical infrastructure like water, energy or transport should NEVER be sold to foreign investment. One of the most idiotic things a country can do.
And here we go again. All the money is going towards investors, not the company, not the people, not the business, it goes directly to the pockets on investors. Private Equity has been killing business for years, in search for endless growth and return.
This needs to stop, and bonuses to useless suits need to stop
The government needs to do as much as they can to force these companies to reduce their debt. Otherwise, criminal charges are in order.
Unfortunately, the debt can't just vanish. Somebody needs to settle them, so ultimately, there will probably be some bailouts, but the burden of that must be put on the CEOs as much as possible with the strongest possible new legislation.
The fact that TLDR rarely curses in their videos somehow makes it very funny in the brief moments it happens.
I just hope they do something about the quality. The tap water at my place is so toxic it killed my betta fish Tsukoiyomi and gave me viral pericarditis that almost killed me too. Now I'm spending extra every week on my food order for bottled water. It's ridiculous. I work hard at a respectable job and I'm almost taken out by tap water?
Same problem with the trains.
Local monopolies effectively run by the State (the government sets stuff like prices and salaries) but with privatised profits.
This probably worked well at first but it was doomed to fail because there’s no competition and all the companies can do if they start losing money is cut on maintenance and borrow money.
The worst of both worlds. Either go full free market, allow competition and remove price controls, or nationalise them and accept the inefficiencies as a preferable outcome.
3:17 Macquarie completely sold their shares in thames water in 2017. however they are still mostly at fault for the current state of the company due to excessive borrowing during the 11 years they were in charge for to pay the shareholder dividends and much of the debt post 2017 was taken on due to the hole Macquarie dug them into.
Oy, this is an awesome report. Well done tldr team.
The same inefficiencies of publicly owned companies happen to privately owned companies that have no competition and get bailed out. Was obvious from the start that trains and water shouldnt have been privatised.
another W for Scottish Water
Shut upppp
they should bail them out but then state that 50% off all the profits the company makes will go to paying off its debt to the gov until they have paid off all of the bailouts they have received. you can't privatise the profits and socialise the losses and act like its not a weird form of theft
Almost no country in the world has privatised water. It's nuts and such a waste of money when there's no competition if people are locked to suppliers. Massive borrowing to line the pockets of private inverters is tantamount to fraud. It certainly should be.
Surfers against Sewage have been campaigning against CSOs for decades.
Bring it back to our ownership.
Public services like water and power should never be bailed out. If the company fails, the government should have right of first refusal to purchase for a dollar.
Water companies expect to privatise the profits but get the government to nationalise the losses, and bail them out. They need to let them fail and then create a public water company to replace them
For reference, water in Scotland is nationalised and water in Northern Ireland is government owned. As a result of this, water bills in Scotland, included as part of the council tax and calculated by your tax band, are much less than those in England and Wales, and is free in Northern Ireland, for now.
There's also a third option when it comes to these water companies. Those that go bankrupt get thier assets nationalised while those that don't can continue. This would actually provide incentives to preform well since they wont be able to rely on the government picking up the bill when they lose their gambles, actually having to suffer the consequences of risky behaviour.
It also puts a competitive element into the system since those that are still private will be the most efficient ones with the nationalised companies being the base line. Overall rising the minimum quality of service for the consumer. As apposed to a blanket nationalisation that throws the baby out with the bath water via punishing those companies that are preforming well and putting an unnecessary burden on the Civil service.
@1:34 it used to be one of the cleanest in the world, earlier this year, in part of the country, drinking tap water was not safe because of raw sewage being dumped in waterways.
lets just increase the legislation to reduce sewerage in rivers and wait for them to go bust.
once there bust we can just buy them for nothing.
Does anyone else think, that as a nation, how could we the public let this go on for so long
Water is too important a resource to be privatized.
Perhaps hold off on some of the new houses and simply dig some decent reservoirs?
Last night, i found out that water isn't free, and my missus has been paying for it this whole time. Shocking.
Lucky I get my water from Essex and Suffolk water and only pay Thames water for Sewage. But this is all down to the reading of my water meter. So I only pay for what I use. Unlike the water rates which are charged on the size of your house. Rates have gone up a lot compared to water meters so if you can get a water meter.
If critical infrastructure like water is going to stay privatised, at the very least the sandtions for mismanaging it need to be a lot more severe. Repeatedly dumping raw sewage into rivers because all your profit goes to shareholders rather than infrastructure should be punishable as environmental terrorism. Doctor's and police can be criminally punished for negligence with time in prison, so why aren't water company executives?
So what I'm hearing is the UK infrastructure network is even worse than expected, as the government hasn't had to claim beleaguered water utilities as well as everything else that seems to be falling apart these days?
Having inelastic goods private is economically ridiculous.
Saying ‘shitstorm’ instantly made me feel like I’m watching The Onion’s Future News lool
The subtle and not-so-subtle puns in here means someone had fun writing this.
I feel like something as important as the nation's water supply shouldn't be put in the hands of random businessmen
I did not expect her to say "shitstorm" so causally, almost spat out my coffee. x'D
I see this on the News,Im with Anglian Water,Mine go up by +13%,Just as well go easy on the water supply,Keep taps turned of at all times,Also no longer have a bath any more,Got a shower now,Takes about five mins,Im all nice and clean
During the last Labour conference i paid any attention to Starmer berated the SNP at every opportunity while also announcing the adoption of around 7 of their policies. And the electorate fell for it too! 😂 Expect an announcement about policy on period poverty in the future.
The UK wide statistic on water cleanliness can’t be used when you’re discussing England and Wales. Scottish water is famously cleaner than southern water.
If taxpayers are going to be giving private water companies bailouts anyway, why the hell shouldn't they be nationalised?
Being a little bit long in the tooth, I can remember the privatisation. And how our water bills went up to improve the infrastructure and stop leaks.. that money was granted but the work not done and the investors paid handsomely. But now it’s the fault of the infrastructure that has already been paid for by the consumers.. why should they get a bail out? I thinkrationalisation would be a good thing.
When will we learn that private companies only care about profit.
Customers always come after cash.
🤦🤦♀️🤦♂️
As a Chilean-British national, private water system is not something I am proud of :/
You get a big thumbs down today for preventing me from hearing Georgina say $hit storm!
😂😂😂😂caught me off guard
So a broken, bent monopoly that nobody wants, jacks up prices and allows the standard of the service they provide to crumble, they don’t even come close to meeting the required standard fiscally or materially and we have to have endless debates on the matter. If it were a marriage? You’d leave. If it were a job? You’d leave. If it were a car? You’d scrap it.
Privatisation of these vital industries has proven to be an unmitigated disaster of domestic policy. Nationalisation would now be unreasonably expensive, so Labour’s only option is to force the companies to reinvest and restrict profits. Hopefully we can nationalise sooner rather than later and get out of this mess.
Yeah surely the government could use that 3bln to buy the company. All those returns and dividends could then be kept in the country and used to repair and upgrade infrastructure.
Solving the crisis is in theory quite simple. You ban water companies from doing bonuses, dividends and even controlling the crazy high wages of the executives. Or, you encourage real competition by allowing new water companies to buy water assets. This would reduce consumer bills as they would have a choice of supplier, and would allow the water companies to sell off assets and reduce some of their debt. A combo of the 2 strategies would dramatically raise funds of the water companies, without nationalising. Obviously the caveat is that this radical change could easily be cocked up and not work
Government should own the infrastructure, plan the system, finance it and set prices. Funding by customers is appropriate. However, the water authorities should only have small workforce and rely on private contractors to perform services for it like, system design, construction, maintenance, meter reading and other data collection. But the authorities should own and keep data about their infrastructure.
Also, the UK, like Italy is doing, build a national geographic information system to record all the made made infrastructure from prehistoric times onwards and also the natural environment.
I don't understand why governments see the need to fully privatize essential services like water and rail for example. There are very suitable alternatives available such as a State Owned Enterprise. They can follow a China model where it is for profit but fully regulated. If they had done this the company would not be in this position.
The fact that new reservoirs have not been built is irrelevant. we don't need new reservoirs. What we need is new/upgraded infrastructure e.g sewage treatment etc.
Don't bail them out, wait for them to go bust, then buy the assets for £1 ... and do not buy the company and it's debts ....
No new reservoirs isn't a good metric to establish a lack of investment. Surface water storage creates treatment challenges, and there are tremendous logistical and permitting hurdles to building a reservoir - you would expect to arrive at a point where you stop building reservoirs. The point may be valid but you should find a better metric
It's wrong to say that no reservoirs have been built as though it is the water companies fault. Most companies have put reservoir construction in their plans in previous years which have then had their financing rejected by OFWAT and EA.
If a private company is willing to buy a public service then they should definitely NOT be sold. The reasoning being that the private company implicitly thinks that ownership will make them greater or equal to market average returns. (they will make money off it) And if they're going to make money off it then either the public are being over charged, or it should go to the government who can use that increased revenue to reduce taxation.
(I realise in reality it's not necessarily that simple because it could cost the public less to just charge less for the service and make less profit, rather than the bureaucratic overhead in then separately lowering taxation... )
I think either in the long term the water companies need to be bought out and the contracts become nationalised eventually, however in this current moment I would implement stronger financial regulations and other legislation with tackling unethical management by the water companies unfortunately with the private sector it has got too greedy and there’s become a lack of investment and these debt levels need to be hugely resolved
There are a few potential dad jokes to make here.
It is kind of funny though that a water company is facing a liquidity crisis
Just to upset everyone - in Scotland you pay around £350 per year and can use as much as you like(it's a part of the council tax)
That epi score is a) old, and b) really strange.
I can drink the tapwater in Vienna, and it doesnt taste of chlorine.
In London I can guess the latest leak by the smell of chlorine out of a tap.
The epi is more about safe water too.
BRO I have been waiting to use this word for like five years. This is known as remunicipalisation and I read it from a book on monopolies five years ago.
Shareholders have earnt enough.
If there was a case for forceful renationalisation - without paying billions to buy these companies, it was water companies.
One like for the use of shrm.
The problem is international private equity
I dont have any specific issue with priviate water companies if they werent just local monopolies. If you dont have competition you dont have a free market thus you're not going to gain from the effects of the free market
Ireland's water charges don't look so bad now.
1:20 what competition?
IT'S WATER!