This type of shit happens every single time something is privatized
and yet, we still have lots of mouth breathers running around supporting privatizing services
Everywhere I look I see austerity, and every time I think of Clara Mattei's book "The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism"
Here's a nice appearance on the Richard Wolff podcast that she did for those interested
For profit industry will always be more expensive than public. Because the goal of the public industry is to provide the public with that good/service. It often sells at cost or even at a deficit since it does not need to profit. Its prices will only raise if material or labor costs increase.
Meanwhile private industries will always be looking for ways to increase price. Whether it be by cutting wages even further, adding pointless additions to up sell, “shrinkflation” etc. Because the goal is to make money despite the actual value of it’s good/service.
Because the goal of the public industry is to provide the public with that good/service. It often sells at cost or even at a deficit since it does not need to profit.
reminds me of how many western commentators disparage china's high speed rail system for running at a loss and supposedly wasting money. yes, of course it does. the trains are the point, not the pursuit of profit. the government pays for high speed rail because it's a needed service, and the costs of operating hsr is worth it in the long run and will even pay for itself.
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Exactly. Money from train ticket sales is not the point of the public transport. The payoff lies in the population being able to travel the country cheaply. Yes the train will run a loss but the country as a whole will greatly benefit with the ease of transportation.
Capitalists only care about the sale. It is very short sided when trying to improve a nation as a whole. A private industry must constantly grow more and more to stay in business. This is detrimental in the long run as it will constantly require more and more degradation of the service and collusion with the state to maintain this profit growth. Overall, it will cost the population much more than the “losses” a public industry would.
Yes but have you ever thought about if it was a truly free market? We could have 20+ electric providers all with their own dedicated infrastructure and telephone poles competing with each other! That would make perfect sense and I am very smart dot libertarian
Funniest thing is that we can compare it somewhat to internet providers, and of course it works like predicted, local providers each had their own nets, the access was shitty, expensive and had barely any coverage, then the big companies like phone and tv providers came in and locals bankrupted instantly except the rare cases of those that got public support (from the local administration) and access to public infrastructure.
Damn, Alberta really is the Texas of Canada
there is a lot of cultural cross pollination happening between the two thanks to the oil industry
We are suffering
It's almost like introducing a profit motive doesn't in fact drive prices down 🤔
Thing is that it can in the early stages which is how people end up getting tricked. Private industry starts undercutting public services to get a foothold, and then once they become entrenched then the quality of service goes down and price goes up.
Financialization is basically this. The trick is to have the financial runway to capture market share. Customers buy-in because it's the best deal (temporarily). This is why walled-gardens exist in tons of places for seemingly no benefit. The benefit is locking in the customers to your 'ecosystem' or whatever.
Yes but have you considered they don't have to live under authoritarianism? Checkmate tankies. 😎 😎
Alberta, looking at California in 2000 when Enron was manipulating the market to cause blackouts, and saying "yeah that's a good idea"
Is there even a plausible claim like a bunch of infrastructure burning down? Or did they just openly jack prices up for no reason?
mostly just jacking up prices cause they can
Based on my utility bills most of the cost is from “service fees.” I don’t know what service they’re providing that warrants charging us up the ass but, yeah, it’s service fees.
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that's what happens when you get high on your own supply :)
I was looking for this graph to post! It’s been tough out here in Alberta….
Reminds me of the book “A libertarian walks into a Bear”.
I know for a fact that there are many chomping at the bit to privatize the electricity infrastructure in my province, which is hilarious to me because our significant hydro electric generation capabilities are one of the only competitive advantages we have here. If anything we should be expanding our infrastructure, selling electricity to other provinces and states, and encouraging things like data centers and what not to set up shop here. Instead I would not be surprised if we end up like Alberta sometime in the next 10-20 years.
I find it amazing that people keep acting as if we don't know what will happen when private services get privatized despite the fact that we have mountains of evidence for that
I guess that just goes to show how strong the propaganda and mythology of the "free market" and liberal economics really is. I mean, literally less than a decade ago where I live they finished privatizing the telecom services, and internet/phone/TV have probably roughly doubled in price since then, if not more. Ask anyone and they will say that its worse now, yet many of those people would still support privatizing hydro or insurance or whatever. Mind boggling.
: "But muh fweeeeedumz! Why do you hate freedumbs?! At least be happy dear porky is making money off of this! It's GoOd FoR tHe EcOnOmy!1!1!1!1!1"Hey, let’s take the distribution methods for basic necessities and give it a profit motive, so that if it doesn’t make money, the basic necessities won’t exist anymore! What a brilliant idea!
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