• skip0110@lemmy.zip
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    8 hours ago

    Why are utilities privatized?

    Our energy provider increased our rates, then reported record breaking profits the next year. :(

    (US)

      • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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        4 hours ago

        Nah, let’s privatize all the services you need to have a functional home. That way the companies can extract maximum value from the customers.

        Brilliant.

          • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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            3 hours ago

            Won’t anyone think of the shareholders!?

            For real though, I had a job where the management team tried to motivate us by setting “shareholder expectations” or some such nonsense. Obviously this didn’t work. Also the company was small enough that pretty much everyone working there personally knew all the shareholders… Because they also ran the business. They were the managers.

            The balls it must take to be a shareholder, and to be known as a shareholder then talk about shareholder expectations like those are for a different set of people that isn’t just you… Gotta be massive…

    • deHaga@feddit.uk
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      7 hours ago

      So government can spend the investment on schools and hospitals instead. (In the civilised world, obviously not America)

      • Bademantel@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        This has little to do with where you’re from. It’s just neoliberal rhetoric. Having a public energy sector would be beneficial in the long run and would reduce what we have to pay for it. Right now the earnings are privatized in most places.

        • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          My area privatized the publicly owned electricity provider and since prices started going up they then had to implement rebates to bring bills down a bit. Effectively a roundabout way to move public funds from paying for the actual infrastructure into subsidizing corporate profits instead

          • Bademantel@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            Exactly. Privatize the profits and socialize the costs. What a brilliant system. Unfortunately it benefits only a small handful while everyone else picks up the tab.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          Having a public energy sector would be beneficial in the long run and would reduce what we have to pay for it.

          A well-run public energy sector, certainly. Idk what we’d end up with given the most recent rotation of people in charge.

          The state does have an incentive to keep consumer costs low in a way the private sector does not. But state officials also traditionally do a bad job of maintaining and expanding utilities to match consumer demand.

          The end result tends to be low end user prices at the expense of reliable distribution and surplus volume.

        • deHaga@feddit.uk
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          22 minutes ago

          It’s not rhetoric. It’s economics 101. Opportunity cost.

          A mixture of private and public is best.

          Edit. A mixture allows more spend on more things. Govts can’t sell infinite debt

            • deHaga@feddit.uk
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              1 hour ago

              Opportunity cost. If you spend money on one thing, it means you can’t spend it on something else

          • Bademantel@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            Thanks professor. Do you know private debt and state debt are hardly the same? Have you considered the opportunity cost of not having public energy, therefore losing potential “earnings” to private investors? Or are you telling me next that rich people are a necessity as well? Is trickle-down part of this course or do I have to wait for 201?