America, Socialism, and Healhcare

[Cole]

in my opinion...ALL public services should be nationalized, privatization sucks BIG TIME.

They should remain as they are, if it means joblessness increase, in countries already in private systems.
But also, not privatize public services where they are public..
Keep things as they are. In both kind of countries.

[[KMA]Avenger]

public utilities and services are just that...public!

example, water belongs to us all and not some greedy profiteering multinational corporation that can and does cut people off from water supplies because they cannot pay an overinflated water bill while fat-cat corporation CEO's get oversized pay-packets.

the same applies to all infrastructure, corporations have no business in our services...

a few years back i decided to have a good look at my British Gas/electricity bill and found on the right hand side something strange, it said and i quote "energy supplied by EDF", i called British gas and queried what was on my Bill and was told and i quote "EDF (a French Company) now owns the electricity grid and supplies most of our gas"...i was like WTH?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! , British Gas and the electricity board used to be public owned and then went private and are now just suppliers buying from EDF. this in my opinion is NOT acceptable, as well as the British Public not being told of this...


Jim, i'm very sure if the tables were turned, you would not be happy to find your French gas/electric suppliers buying its resources from a British company.

[Taure]

as well as the British Public not being told of this...

It's been common knowledge for a number of years.

And they don't own the grid, which remains under government control. They just own the rights to use it. There are still British companies out there if you would prefer to use them.

[Juliette]

Jim, i'm very sure if the tables were turned, you would not be happy to find your French gas/electric suppliers buying its resources from a British company.

I fail to see why nations matter to you? If you can get your gas from The Netherlands, your oil from Russia, your energy from France, why would that be a bad thing? Because you wouldn't have jobs in your country in that sector? Think again, long and hard, before you jump to your conclusions..


As for the public not having been informed about EDF and Britain:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... 2.5bn.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7632853.stm
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft ... 0354082213
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008 ... df.nuclear

So we have the Telegraph, BBC, Financial Times and the Guardian all reporting on that. Seriously.. if you want to complain, G, do it with a reason. These are things you could have known. Especially with a mind as inquisitive as yours. (Yes, I do admire that, whilst disagreeing with many conclusions you draw.)

[Cole]

Jim, i'm very sure if the tables were turned, you would not be happy to find your French gas/electric suppliers buying its resources from a British company.

But they aren't..

And in all seriousness, it's not that bad, it helps prices to decrease even sometimes.
As long as efficiency doesn't decrease, it's not *that* bad.

Just curious, what political party/ideology do you belong to? I have difficulties to find out.



I think goal would be to reduce poverty, not to increase it (what neoclassic system about absence of aids would cause in long term, utopia that everyone can find a work as long as they accept the perfect [*] wage is unrealistic, even if it can appear to be ideal in some people's eyes). Communism would cause economy to collapse. Both systems are having side effect of black market/underworld development.

Using poverty as a threat to families having several youngster criminal scums among them, I agree 100%. Threatening both honest and dishonest poor and modest families with poverty, I disagree 100%.
Only the *real* guilty parasites and annoyances have to be punished. But people do generalizing, and it leads to the fail of problems solving. If people stopped to generalize, then perhaps problems could be solved for real.

Punishing everyone even the honest ones makes it be unfair/arbitrary, turning honest people into dishonest and cheating ones, them ending in the bad side of the society.

If we want to create more criminality, of course...let's do this!

[[KMA]Avenger]

you guys have missed it completely...

EDF is now supplying ALL electricity and most of the gas to ALL the company's, including British Gas and the electricity board, so changing suppliers is pointless because EDF supplies it to your new supplier anyways!

i don't belong either right, left or middle so long as we have a central bank controlling our credit, and if you look closely Jim, you'll see there is not left, right or middle.

[Juliette]

you guys have missed it completely...

EDF is now supplying ALL electricity and most of the gas to ALL the company's, including British Gas and the electricity board, so changing suppliers is pointless because EDF supplies it to your new supplier anyways!

i don't belong either right, left or middle so long as we have a central bank controlling our credit, and if you look closely Jim, you'll see there is not left, right or middle.

IF there really is something wrong there, I'm sure Neelie Kroes will take care of it. She likes breaking big companies, and it's her job.. can you imagine.

[Taure]

EDF is now supplying ALL electricity and most of the gas to ALL the company's, including British Gas and the electricity board, so changing suppliers is pointless because EDF supplies it to your new supplier anyways!

And EDF in turn get their gas from Russia and various other sources.

It would be impossible to have a purely British chain of supply because we don't possess significant natural gas deposits.

[[KMA]Avenger]

buying a resource from another nation is 1 thing (and there is nothing wrong with that, after all, buying resources from other nations is how trade started in the first place i would imagin), but buying it from a foreign company and having that company be the biggest supplier (and main supplier to our national suppliers) is a totally different matter.

[Juliette]

buying a resource from another nation is 1 thing (and there is nothing wrong with that, after all, buying resources from other nations is how trade started in the first place i would imagin), but buying it from a foreign company and having that company be the biggest supplier (and main supplier to our national suppliers) is a totally different matter.

Correction.

Let's look at the Dutch (once -in the Age of Discovery- a major world trader). The VOC and WIC, two corporations, took care of all trade on behalf of the Dutch government. The directors of the VOC appointed the governors of new colonies (which the VOC originally was not interested in, later turned into their main business). The corporation had political power beyond anything today, and anyone who was trading with the Dutch on a large scale had to go through the VOC (or WIC, depending on geographical factors).

Trade is ALWAYS a private matter. It can be delegated to centralised institutions, could even be delegated to the government, but realistically people will always work together with other people. Traditionally (in the Western world), that takes the form of a corporation.

If I have one million chipolata's that I want to sell, I won't write to the government of Germany to see whether they are interested.. I'll write to individual German buyers. That's individual to individual/corporation trade.
Same thing if I have a gas field in my backyard, or a few oil derricks here and there. If I want to sell my gas or oil, I don't write to governments, I write to people who possess refineries or energy plants.


Nations should not trade. Nations should unite and (passively) stimulate individual and corporate trade (in all branches, ranging from energy to industry to everything really).

[[KMA]Avenger]

i was talking about way back when, not recent or anywhere near recent history...

i have firs that keep me warm, you have a sharp tool to cut with...we trade!

[Juliette]

i was talking about way back when, not recent or anywhere near recent history...

i have firs that keep me warm, you have a sharp tool to cut with...we trade!

That's still private trading, not nations trading. Your 'way back when' doesn't even have nations at all.
(You're talking prehistoric times, right? I mean, "recent history" is so very subjective a term.. to me, the past 70odd million years are "recent history"..)

[RepliMagni]

i was talking about way back when, not recent or anywhere near recent history...

i have firs that keep me warm, you have a sharp tool to cut with...we trade!

That's still private trading, not nations trading. Your 'way back when' doesn't even have nations at all.

I always liked Mauss' ideas about reciprocal gift-giving.....before commercial economies, people gave each other gifts and it was socially expected that you return something of equal value.....when you think about it, parts of this system are still around today - inviting someone to a dinner party, it is expected that the guest hosts a party in the future....or even something as simple as receiving a Christmas card: how many times have you sent someone a card just because they sent you one?

[[KMA]Avenger]

i was talking about way back when, not recent or anywhere near recent history...

i have firs that keep me warm, you have a sharp tool to cut with...we trade!

That's still private trading, not nations trading. Your 'way back when' doesn't even have nations at all.
(You're talking prehistoric times, right? I mean, "recent history" is so very subjective a term.. to me, the past 70odd million years are "recent history"..)

sigh, that was my point in the first place, "how trade started in the first place" is what i said!

I always liked Mauss' ideas about reciprocal gift-giving.....before commercial economies, people gave each other gifts and it was socially expected that you return something of equal value.....when you think about it, parts of this system are still around today - inviting someone to a dinner party, it is expected that the guest hosts a party in the future....or even something as simple as receiving a Christmas card: how many times have you sent someone a card just because they sent you one?

give it a year or 2 at most and you can have the Govt label me a terrorists for not sending you a christamas card back

[CRASSUS]

public utilities and services are just that...public!

example, water belongs to us all and not some greedy profiteering multinational corporation that can and does cut people off from water supplies because they cannot pay an overinflated water bill while fat-cat corporation CEO's get oversized pay-packets.

the same applies to all infrastructure, corporations have no business in our services...

a few years back i decided to have a good look at my British Gas/electricity bill and found on the right hand side something strange, it said and i quote "energy supplied by EDF", i called British gas and queried what was on my Bill and was told and i quote "EDF (a French Company) now owns the electricity grid and supplies most of our gas"...i was like WTH?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! , British Gas and the electricity board used to be public owned and then went private and are now just suppliers buying from EDF. this in my opinion is NOT acceptable, as well as the British Public not being told of this...


Jim, i'm very sure if the tables were turned, you would not be happy to find your French gas/electric suppliers buying its resources from a British company.

You do realize that pumping water isn't magic, it requires water treatment plants and pumps that cost millions upon millions of dollars, then you have to factor in all the people who monitor the water going into the public system and so on and so forth, I'm sure you can fill all your water needs with a plastic bucket and a trip to the Thames if you'd like.

Not to mention having a french owner means nothing, the company will still be run by british, almost every aspect will be run by british employees. The only difference is all the profits go into the parent company.