#MastoHelp Alors voilà, dimanche dernier, dans mon TER pour revenir d'Amiens à Paris, j'étais toute seule, épuisée, je suis handicapée à 80%, et ma maladie Chronique fait que si je ne change pas de position, assez souvent, j'ai très mal.
Donc j'ai allongé mes jambes sur la banquette devant moi. Mes pieds ne touchaient pas le siège, juste mes mollets et le dessous de mes talons. Des contrôleuses sont arrivés en disant que c'était indécent et que c'était illégale. Et hop une amende de 60 euros.1/2
Hold on a sec, weren't we all told that privatisation would lead to cheaper electricity prices?
Weren't we told that repealing the carbon tax would lead to cheaper electricity prices?
Weren't we told that sticking with (more expensive) coal and gas power over (cheaper) renewables and storage would lead to cheaper electricity prices?
From the ABC:
"At the heart of the price gouging inquiry, initiated by the ACTU and led by Allan Fels, is determining in a high inflation environment what's general inflation and what else might be influencing pricing behaviour, the main offending price gouging industries, how they do it and how it impacts everyday Australians.
"Part of the problem is Australia is awash with oligopolies, which means there isn't as much price competition as there might otherwise be, which helps explain why real wage growth has been low and why the real prices of so many goods are so high.
"And while most of the media attention has been on Coles and Woolworths, the report will include other sectors accused of customer gouging and breaching trust such as energy, airlines and banks.
"Sydney University professor Lynne Chester, from the school of social and political sciences, supplied the inquiry with a detailed submission ... [which] said electricity prices have been escalating since 2005, largely due to increases in the charges paid for the generation of electricity. She said the charge for electricity makes up a significant component of the electricity price paid for by consumers.
"A key issue was that the regulation was designed for a competitive market, assuming competition would deliver lower prices, but the market was never competitive due to the presence of big powerful generator companies that have been merging with retail companies to create giants such as AGL, Origin and Energy Australia."
🚨Tories turn to private sector in a bid to cut NHS waiting lists🚨
NHS waiting lists stood at 7.5m at the end of May, the highest number since records began. The private sector will be operating eight new Community Diagnostics Centres, but they will remain free to patients
1/ I'm torn over this but broadly agree. In 2020 I was due a minor, but, debilitating procedure that was cancelled because of lockdown.
Its quite an extraordinary 'natural experiment' - from which we can draw the conclusion (without too much difficulty) that #privatisation is not the way forward if #busses are to be part of the #greentransition
(and don't get me started on #London exceptionalism....)
Everybody should watch this #LedByDonkeys clip: Water Privatisation is a con. A complete, utter con. We should just get rid of all this - nobody benefits but rich investors
This is the classic scam. Privatise an essential service. Load it with masses of debt, while investing the minimum it can get away with. Pay shareholders as much as it can get away with. When it collapses, walk away so the state has to pick up the pieces until it becomes viable again. Rinse and repeat.
Great news for NHS privatisers this morning. The Tories' policy is working.
"That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital"
Noam Chomsky
#UK#Health Secretary Steve Barclay: Stop Palantir’s NHS data takeover
The government wants to hand US spy tech firm Palantir a £480 million contract to run a new database that will likely include huge amounts of our health data held by the NHS – the “Federated Data Platform”
Chief Executive of Reading-based Thames Water to step down with immediate effect
The boss of Thames Water has stepped down with immediate effect weeks after being forced to give up her bonus over the company’s environmental performance.
Ms Bentley said in May that she would give up her bonus.
But even after giving up the bonus, the chief executive managed to double her pay, raking in £1.5 million.
There may be no national policy of renationalising the railways, but that's where we're headed; by this year around 40% of passenger rail-KMs were being managed by the state.
This would be so much better if it were a clear & well managed policy, not the political result of fire-fighting as subsidy-hungry operators still fail to provide an acceptable service.
Like other privatisations, its time to conclude there are some 'natural monopolies' that should be state-run!
We have a private company (Roots Allotments) bidding to set up private #allotments on council (public) land. They want to take what is ours and rent it back at many multiples of the cost.
Tori Whanau's column in this weekend's Sunday Star-Times talked about introducing water meters and charging households for water.
Have we learned nothing from the privatisation of the publicly-funded electricity network? Which has led to households facing massive price hikes since the 1990s - a contributor to the rising cost of living - while effectively subsidising commercial users who can get power much cheaper on the spot market.
A water crisis in the United Kingdom reopens the privatisation debate.
Debt-ridden Thames Water, the company managing the water supply of the London area, announced on Monday it had raised €880 million from its shareholders.
But the company has a debt of nearly €16 billion.
The government said in June it was ready for any scenario, amid concerns the largest water company in the UK may go under.
"More than anything else, Portsmouth International Port offers a living, breathing argument for public ownership. Not only does it work – it thrives. The port’s cruise and ferry terminal, which opened in 2011, uses thermal energy from seawater to heat and cool the building – using only 20% of the energy one would expect from a traditional system."
Aaron Bastani on how one councillor's vote saved Portsmouth Port from #privatisation.
"Britain’s debt-laden water utilities are being encouraged by the regulator Ofwat to set up new privately financed companies to deliver billions of pounds worth of critical infrastructure such as reservoirs, treatment works and pipelines, which will be paid for through customer bills"
Outrageous. Nationalise them without compensation and abolish Ofwat, which is totally compromised.
Shareholder investment in the top ten privatised UK water and sewage companies has decreased by £5.5bn since privatisation. while dividend payments have increased to £72.8bn according to a new analysis by the University of Greenwich.