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The Nationalisation Thread


Lex

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As Scottish tax payers we all now own:

Prestwick Airport

Ferguson Ship Builders in Port Glasgow

Scotrail

Among others

Are there any other businesses you’d like the state to take over on your behalf? Do you own a failing business and would you like a taxpayer funded bailout? If so, post them here. Don’t worry about inconvenient things like competency or profitability.

The nationalist politicians are here, and they’re going to make it all better. Using your taxpayer money. I think the more relevant question now is, do we even need private Scottish enterprise anymore? Or should every single Scottish business be owned by The Party and The State?

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Media, energy and oil companies. Would like us to turn into some form of banana republic as that looks more fun (plus better weather) than the Victorian era path we're tumbling down. 

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10 hours ago, Lex said:

 

As Scottish tax payers we all now own:

Prestwick Airport

Ferguson Ship Builders in Port Glasgow

Scotrail

Among others

Are there any other businesses you’d like the state to take over on your behalf? Do you own a failing business and would you like a taxpayer funded bailout? If so, post them here. Don’t worry about inconvenient things like competency or profitability.

The nationalist politicians are here, and they’re going to make it all better. Using your taxpayer money. I think the more relevant question now is, do we even need private Scottish enterprise anymore? Or should every single Scottish business be owned by The Party and The State?

 

Nationalising the Railways is a good idea for a number of reasons. It is a natural monopoly and can provide social benefits which are hard to reconcile with a profit motive. Your beloved tories are having to nationalise a few franchises down south because the state is paying millions that is going out as dividends while services get worse. Great example of a market failure. 

The shipyard wasn't nationalised as an old style lame duck bail out but because the government was its biggest creditor and it was insolvent. 

It's not unheard of for governments to own transport infrastructure. I believe the bolshevik council of Bedfordshire owns Luton Airport, for example. 

Lets look at some of the benefits of privatisation shall we? Scottish water is still public and could raise a fortune. As a consumer of water in Wales, i benefit from choice in the market and am able to buy my water from, erm, Welsh Water. Unlike some English companies they're "not for profit" but are ripped off instead by managers-the CEO got £3/4m p. a. not long ago. Still cuts out the waste you get in the public sector though. 

Can you please stake this issue up with that Kenny guy on another thread who is complaining about stuff getting privatised. Thanks. 

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5 minutes ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

Would include broadband/telecoms companies in here as well

Knew I’d forget one of the big ones.

Personally, I’d also have all rented accommodation seized and owned by the state too, but I accept that that’s incredibly unlikely just now. 

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34 minutes ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

Maybe we could also include on the list the £500mnplus guarantee given to mr Gupta for the smelter against the promise of 2000 jobs being created. I think there are 50.

Rather pales into insignificance the £ 4 billion squirreled away to their mates with next to no return corruptly by your beloved Tories. 

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FWIW I'm not sure the current issues with Scotrail are *really* Scotgovs fault. They took over the service like two months ago, and just like when the franchises change hands like where I once worked (East Coast, VTEC, LNER in the space of around 5 years) the folk running the business remain largely the same. Inflation is at it's highest point for decades and it's pay rise time for workers. Having been a member of the RMT in the past, I am assuming they are fighting for a big rise in line with increasing living costs which Scotrail won't want to provide. So the current shitshow(s) with Scotrail and the other TOCS are unsurprising.

Rail services being privatised is quite a stupid idea in general though. When things get privatised it's in the hope that the "free market" provides a better service and value for consumers but there's not really a "free market" for trains because you only have so many trains. The free market doesn't really exist here. 

On things like energy, I am more inclined to want to see this nationalised but I'm quite ignorant on that sector. To me it feels somewhat similar, it's the "same" gas and leccy being piped into your houses (with the infrastructure I assume having been state funded AKA taxpayers at one point) so again the "free market" aspect of this starts to look a bit sketchy to me. 

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13 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

The problem is that you're posting this on the day that the publicly owned Scotrail are about to slash services.

That's only a problem for my argument if you can demonstrate that privately owned Scotrail wouldn't "slash services". 

It seems unlikely that one month of public ownership is the root cause of any issues to be honest. 

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