Controlled products

[Roamy]

Which products are nationalized in your country such as petrol and electricity etc. What is your opinion - for or against

[Mark]

Products, or industries and services?

There's not much left in the UK really, the Tories sold it all off in the 1980's.

Royal Mail is still in government hands, although they are trying their best to get rid of it. But the water and electricity companies are private monopolies - a bad situation IMO.

The railways were entirely sold off to the private sector but since the private company responsible for the rails (as opposed to the trains) concentrated on profits and not on maintenance, that has been brought back under government control.

And of course, Northern Rock; the building society the government nationalised when it got into trouble after lending far too much money.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

I think that all the 'Natural Monopolies' should be controlled by the government.

[Roamy]

Thanks Mark
I didn't know the capitalist were doing so well. Spackman must be having fits.

So Brown - You would be more aligned with Hugo??

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Thanks Mark
I didn't know the capitalist were doing so well. Spackman must be having fits.

So Brown - You would be more aligned with Hugo??

Well when it comes to 'Natural Monopolies' the barriers to entry for a new competitor are so high there really isn't any point of using the capitalist system. It really isn't practical to build a competitor railway network, national grid or water network system. When these things are privatised we are left with a monopoly, where price isn't determined by the same things in a normal free market where the consumers can benefit. Instead consumers are left to be ripped off.

[Robinho]

Well when it comes to 'Natural Monopolies' the barriers to entry for a new competitor are so high there really isn't any point of using the capitalist system. It really isn't practical to build a competitor railway network, national grid or water network system. When these things are privatised we are left with a monopoly, where price isn't determined by the same things in a normal free market where the consumers can benefit. Instead consumers are left to be ripped off.

except all those things you mentioned are regulated heavily by the govt. to prevent the natural monopoly from just ripping people off, a far better situation from Govt. run monopolies which are vast, inefficient and beuracratic entities, invariably corrupt to some extent and any profits made are unlikely to be reinvested into the industry, but siphoned off to wherever the govt has a defecit (which at the moment is everywhere)

for electricity, gas, phones, rail travel, etc we do have competition and regulation to keep prices in check, its only the network, or grid or whatever which is singularly run/owned, but the services are often available from several sources.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

except all those things you mentioned are regulated heavily by the govt. to prevent the natural monopoly from just ripping people off, a far better situation from Govt. run monopolies which are vast, inefficient and beuracratic entities, invariably corrupt to some extent and any profits made are unlikely to be reinvested into the industry, but siphoned off to wherever the govt has a defecit (which at the moment is everywhere)

for electricity, gas, phones, rail travel, etc we do have competition and regulation to keep prices in check, its only the network, or grid or whatever which is singularly run/owned, but the services are often available from several sources.

Do you really think Ofgem is doing a good job of regulation?

[J4MIE]

Do you really think Ofgem is doing a good job of regulation?

Jon, I work for a company that provides gas connections (that narrows it down then) and it is very heavily regulated. So much so that, if we don't reach certain standards and give customers poor service that compensation of varying levels is paid out to those affected automatially without them having to complain and ask for it. There is the risk in the end of being fined more than a decades worth of company profits. I don't believe that anyone who is interested in still working for us wouldn't try their best to avoid this as it would probably close our part of the company down.

Now for gas prices that is a whole different area, and I'd probably agree that gas prices should be lower than they are. The problem is that most people don'y go to the bother of switching suppliers and so there is less competition in the market than there could be, it's in everyone's interest to keep checking prices and act rather than wait for a huge bill and complain about it.

[Robinho]

Do you really think Ofgem is doing a good job of regulation?

yeah i think they are doing an ok job, as Jamie mentioned, perhaps the gas prices could be better, but if we were subject to a single Govt owned source they would be suffering the same high input prices with bugger all incentive to compete to keep prices lower. i think its better for the govt to only be involved in regulating rather than running industry on the whole, except in the rare cases where market forces would lead to a necessary service bing mothballed (rural bus and train routes, local post offices for eg)

i blame Govt intervention for the state of the UK car industry, which should be comparable with the German industry if it weren't for the nationalisation, poor management (and raging unionism) that tore it apart in the 70's

[Mark in Oshawa]

In Canada, the Mail is a Crown Corporation, but has to compete in the marketplace outside of daily home delivery with courier companies, just like the US Postal Service would. We have the CBC using tax payers dollars to actually provide some shows that any network would be proud of, but they have at times trod on private toes. However, considering their budget, they need commecial support to survive, so they at least are not a typical gov't entity.

Utilities in Canada are private now in most provinces although some provincial gov'ts still run power companies, but most also allow private competitors. That said, the lines are publically held crown corps, and there is a lot of regulation. Are we being ripped off? Maybe...maybe not. I haven't seen a huge spike in prices or a drop really in most utilities. Oil and Gas are now private, and the only time this was in doubt was in the early 80's when Pierre Trudeau did his best Hugo Chavez and bought up a bunch of small oil co's, bought up Petro Fina's Canadian division and Gulf's Canadian division, and created Petro Canada, which had the dubious distinction of being the only oil company that could lose money in the oil biz when the prices were going up. Since the Conservatives privatized some and later the Lib's under Chretien sold off the rest, Petro Canada is a normal oil company that makes money like the others.

We have regulation of industry and business, not gov't owned industry and business. Oh ya..the trains. VIA rail is a gov't partnership with CN and it sorta loses money, but any national train network for passengers is going to lose when it is trying to service a nation with 7 time zones, and way too much geography. Lets face the reality, trains don't make money competing with the airlines on trips over 3 hours (train time). In Canada, it is rare to not have a 3 hour or greater longer trip. Running on tracks shared by freight trains sorta puts the lid on any high speed trains, although every election some idiot in the Liberal party keeps promising high speed units to run between Quebec and Ontario in the most heavily travelled and logical location. The problem is, they don't actually get around to funding VIA to try it to see if it might fly. Like AMTRAK to the south, rail service in Canada just wont compete with the airlines without massive subsidies....and last time I looked, not even the Liberal party of Canada is THAT stupid to pour that much money down a hole.....