Brilliant point well made by David Osland.
We're told pensions are 'unsustainable’, the Post Office is ‘unsustainable’ and now that the NHS is 'unsustainable'. They were all entirely sustainable before the private sector starting looting the public sector.
@IndyRichard "private sector starting looting the public sector" – I have no idea what that means. 😂
@kritischelezer @ech In UK big business is allowed to get away with paying staff so little they need to claim money from the government so they can afford to live. These folk are insultingly called the "working poor". Our taxes are directly subsidising profits of big business.
@kritischelezer @IndyRichard I bet you're a lot of fun at parties.
@ech @IndyRichard
As a yank understands it:
The water/sewer utilities were privatized years ago (under Thatcher? I dunno.) The utilities have pocketed healthy profits while failing to invest in maintenance and now owe billion of pounds in fines for polluting the rivers by sewage overflows.
That leaves the government with clear alternatives:
1) do nothing, don’t collect the fines, and allow the pollution to continue…
2) write off the debt owed to the government and pay for the upgrades out of the treasury, or
3) seize the utilities for nonpayment of fines, pay for the upgrades out of the treasury, and run them as public utilities for the public good.
Under neoliberalism only options 1 and 2 can be seriously considered.
@ech @IndyRichard Erik, Perhaps you should read up on tax breaks and subsidies given to private businesses, paid for with tax revenue, which is public money. You can't have missed the entire last few decades, can you?