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136

Water firms ask for bill rises of between 24% and 91% (www.bbc.co.uk)

submitted 7 months ago by Mex@feddit.uk to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk

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[–] spacedogroy@feddit.uk 48 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Nationalise the lot of them. They had their chance.

[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 3 points 7 months ago

Their chance to do what...? This was always about handing them a gravy train.

[–] thr0w4w4y2@sh.itjust.works -3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

would love to but where does the money come from to buy out all the shareholders? you would need to raise tens of billions - remember we just spent £10bn to give people a 1% tax cut

and before you say “fuck the shareholders,” remember that lots of them are your pension fund

[–] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You pass legislation to make the company unprofitable by making it fulfill it’s obligation to invest in infrastructure to the point where the funds run for the hills.

[–] thr0w4w4y2@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

so the shareholders pull their funds, the water companies struggle and the taxpayer has to step in to bail them out.

[–] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Bail them out? Nah, make it publicly owned.

[–] thr0w4w4y2@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

yes that would be awesome, but the problem is that “make it publicly owned” means “buy out their shares” which is giving them a bailout, plus “service all the debt the company is in” which is another bailout, before you’ve even got started with fixing the horrible lack of investment over many years

[–] ephemeral_gibbon@aussie.zone 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Buying the shares is cheap if the company is worth nothing /goes bankrupt from fines for their environmental breaches

[–] thr0w4w4y2@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago

I’d be happy if that happened.

[–] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

but the problem is that “make it publicly owned” means “buy out their shares” which is giving them a bailout

The shares would be almost worthless.

plus “service all the debt the company is in” which is another bailout

Nope, the company would be wound up.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It shouldn't be "lump it on the tax payers" or "we can't do anything, because innocent pension holders may lose out".
It's like the bad guy in the movie holding a hostage so they don't get shot.

The haircuts should be extracted from the people responsible: The funds that felt it was appropriate to include asset stripping of public utilities in general pension funds, and the executives they put in place/votes they cast at AGMs to make it happen.

If that means that general pension funds fall, the holders should be going after the ones who mismanaged their pension, not the poor bastards having their water bills doubled, or having the cost of bailing out heaped on their government.

[–] thr0w4w4y2@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago

I’d like it to go that way too but realistically, no government in the world is going to go after a massive hedge fund or investment bank for failing to stop a company asset stripping a public utility for profit.