The fact there’s profit to be made from water never fails to blow my mind
Absolute bullshit, the companies should go bankrupt.
“You can’t just wipe out the debt”
Wiping out debt if it fails is LITERALLY one of the key parts of a Limited Liability Company. And Thames water is a Ltd company.
I think few talk about practicalities in renationalising and there are solid points here.
Agree that company ownership where they invest in companies and mess them up needs fixing. Not sure how much positive impact has on seeking profit like this.
Surely shares will disproportionately be owned by the wealthy? So why can’t we let the companies fail, then buy them up cheap?
How much did they pay?
His officials at the department told him it would cost £100 billion. What about a second opinion? Further proof that the civil service control and run this country. What about turning water companies into non-profits?
Just fucking seize it
Would interesting to see his workings to establish that Scotlands water is more polluted than Englands…
this is the sort of clear and consise comms that Labour needs
Fuck the pensioners, they were quite happy profiting from the mismanagement.
Not to be stupid here but couldn’t the government implement laws on these utility companies that mandate a) the prices are lowered to a threshold that essentially makes it not profit making and b) the systems must be maintained or they will be fined a percentage of income (equal to the profit amount) which would c) ensure that they aren’t palming everyone off and d) reduce the incentive for private companies to operate in this way and at this scale? Genuinely asking
Off he pops back to Strangers’ Bar no doubt; he’s done his media rounds for the day. Spineless, feckless, inept.
Customer bills pay for maintenance/upgrades, not shareholders. Customer bills also service the monumental debt pile, with ever increasing interest rates, too.
Just appropriate Thames Water now – it can be justified under the premise that the company is worthless because it cannot fulfil its obligations. The company has abjectly failed – just take it off the shareholders.
Bond holders/debtors surely aren’t stupid enough to be massively overexposed to Thames after all the negative news headlines in recent years. If they are, then screw them – live by the sword, die by the sword.
Those remaining with sizeable exposures are likely vulture funds who plan to rinse the environment and bill payers in order to line their pockets with gold. Well, it’s high time we rinsed them – and the government should be doing that on our behalf.
I’m pretty convinced that the haircut that the shareholders/bond holders/debtors face would not be financially ruinous. Still though, live by the sword die, die by it.
We need leaders that have a spine and will stand up to wealthy, vested interests. Not this vacuous, self-serving cabal.
He’s simply being dishonest in his answers. Funds and pension funds invest in companies that fail more often than we realise.
What he’s actually saying is that Thames Water is, in the Governments view too big to fail. But all that does is set a precedent like the bank bailouts in the past for utility companies. Business continues as usual and we carry the costs.
Thames Water should be allowed to fail, it sends a clear message to all the other in utility companies. As for the pension funds, they did their due diligence as well and knew the risks.
It was always a bad idea to privatize water. There’s no element of competition, the regulator has stood-by and watched them exploit loopholes and they had greedy incompetent management right from the start.
Those were a lot of words to say that he thinks we have no choice but to live with things fucked as they are. so what’s the point of it all????
A water company sells a product that everyone needs, which quite literally falls out of the sky, via a distribution method which is already established and exists with a monopoly – if they can’t break even in those circumstances they should be nationalised
Fine the companies so much money it pays for the nationalisation or makes them go bankrupt and they have to sell off their assets cheaply.
I wonder how much money we got from nationalising these companies in the first place… I bet it wasn’t the equivalent of £100bn.
A lot of Labour grandees and exmps work in private water, it’s a revolving door so you can never expect anything good to come from them when it comes to water. Ditto with gambling/betting.
Not to say other parties aren’t also corrupt in a similar way, but it’s worth listening in when Labour have to deal with crisis on water because it’s such a known thing for Labour higher ups to move on to
I hate how financial companies have persuaded politicians that pensions can never ever lose on an investment. Yes pensions invest in water companies, and freeholds, but so do huge multinations from other countries who absolutely can and should lose on investments sometimes!
Put laws in place saying that they can’t extract ‘X’ percentage of profits, have to re-invest whilst we do a hostile take over.
Be. A. GOVERNMENT. Govern for the people.
Their assets are vital country infrastructure. Just take it from them, they have shown they cannot safely and efficiently handle that infrastructure so why do they get to continue holding it hostage? If the government want to do something badly enough they can push it through to just do it.
Just an idea, could the shares in Thames water held by pensions be ring fenced somehow – nationalised like the banks were in 2008, allowing them to be invested in national infrastructure projects? I guess it still means the debts are left and what do we do with those? Could we just tell the banks and lenders who hold those debts to suck it up?
Create a new water supply department to build your own water supply network.
Well you can actually. It would be slightly painful, but I doubt thames water are more than a dot in the balance sheet of pension funds.
In the end you’re worth what someone is willing to pay for you.
I think there’s also a point to be made that some things aren’t necessarily about practicality and what “makes sense”. In the long term, penalising these investors, and potentially even looking at retrospective taxation is about what’s *right* and moral.
The country wasn’t built on the basis of what was “practical”. It was built on us having a high trust society, where people didn’t do these things because they knew there would be consequences.
Much like how we pay to put people in prison, maybe we should consider paying to make it clear that we don’t get pushed around by rich bullies.
Bullshit. Pensions are diversified enough to withstand the shock given the trouble already known in water companies. Strip them and pay pennies on the pound. Do it through law. I don’t care. Get the sharks out our water.
Apply the actual fines they receive every year (~£130 million to Thames water 2025) enforce the others that aren’t being applied. Force Thames water into debt with the government. Buy for £1…
When will people learn.
If you privatise infrastructure, all that happens is companies run it at the lowest operational cost it can get away with, so they can extract MAXIMUM profit for shareholder dividends.
There is no benefit in the long run.
Thatcher absolutely fucked this country when she sold off most our national infrastructure.
The answer feels simple – they should mutualise it, capitalising it with redeemable shares, and put it in the ownership of its customers. This would mean it has to be run in the interest of its customers, and the Government gets its money back as the firm makes money. It would also mean that the debt it has been issued for pensions is still protected.
he is talking utter nonsense,our water is fine up here
The part I don’t get is that they have a monopoly on water.. claim to need to hike prices to avoid going bust… Yet are apparently worth that sum of money.
This doesn’t track at all.
So corrupt 🤣
We are basically fooked.
Whatever happened to this country
If there’s so much debt that we couldn’t possibly nationalize, how is it going to afford to do anything we need it to in it’s current state? It’s just going to go more in debt and by his logic harder to nationalize?
Surely this is double counting. The value of the debt should be taken off of the purchase price of the company as the debt will be bought with it?
Yeah this is bollocks. Pension fund managers that have still invested in water companies are bad managers who’ve made bad bets. That’s how investing works. No one’s pension is 100% invested in a water company and a properly divested portfolio would take this loss and recover.
This is a weak excuse because the current government is still in thrall to neoliberal economic theory.
Nationalise them. Tell the creditors to fuck off. They lent a failing company money – that’s on them. That’s a risk you take lending businesses money. This is vital national infrastructure and should belong to the country.
Many pension companies have already written off Thames Water. I have heard the actuaries discuss this company first hand and how the valuation could easily be zero in a real world scenario.
Could the government legally stop Thames water being able to pay out dividends?
If the pension funds invested badly that’s their fault, why should tax payer have to pick up that cost?
Boomers gotta boom I guess.
Thatcher’s triumph.
The government should print the money and buy the water companies. I rather pay more bills towards public ownership than to greedy shareholders
Start a new water company in London.
Translation: it’ll cost 100bn to be able to continue pretending that that current system isn’t a steaming cake-and-arse party.
The biggest issue is that debts for these water companies are risk free to investors. The government won’t let water companies to go bankrupt.
There should be laws that you cannot recover debts from water companies’ infrastructure like pipes. So that these companies can “bankrupt” and clear their debts.
It will no doubt harm water companies’ ability to get investments (because risk free debts no longer exist), but 1) they are essentially monopoly with no competitor and stable revenue streams, 2) most other companies also don’t have risk free debts for investors, so if you are privatised, follow the market rules, and 3) even with risk free debts, the current water infrastructure is so bad which shows they never benefit from the potential investment. The only one benefited are the shareholders and investors.
For a London based sub, the spelling is very overseas biased.
45 comments
The fact there’s profit to be made from water never fails to blow my mind
Absolute bullshit, the companies should go bankrupt.
“You can’t just wipe out the debt”
Wiping out debt if it fails is LITERALLY one of the key parts of a Limited Liability Company. And Thames water is a Ltd company.
I think few talk about practicalities in renationalising and there are solid points here.
Agree that company ownership where they invest in companies and mess them up needs fixing. Not sure how much positive impact has on seeking profit like this.
Surely shares will disproportionately be owned by the wealthy? So why can’t we let the companies fail, then buy them up cheap?
How much did they pay?
His officials at the department told him it would cost £100 billion. What about a second opinion? Further proof that the civil service control and run this country. What about turning water companies into non-profits?
Just fucking seize it
Would interesting to see his workings to establish that Scotlands water is more polluted than Englands…
this is the sort of clear and consise comms that Labour needs
Fuck the pensioners, they were quite happy profiting from the mismanagement.
Not to be stupid here but couldn’t the government implement laws on these utility companies that mandate a) the prices are lowered to a threshold that essentially makes it not profit making and b) the systems must be maintained or they will be fined a percentage of income (equal to the profit amount) which would c) ensure that they aren’t palming everyone off and d) reduce the incentive for private companies to operate in this way and at this scale? Genuinely asking
Off he pops back to Strangers’ Bar no doubt; he’s done his media rounds for the day. Spineless, feckless, inept.
Customer bills pay for maintenance/upgrades, not shareholders. Customer bills also service the monumental debt pile, with ever increasing interest rates, too.
Just appropriate Thames Water now – it can be justified under the premise that the company is worthless because it cannot fulfil its obligations. The company has abjectly failed – just take it off the shareholders.
Bond holders/debtors surely aren’t stupid enough to be massively overexposed to Thames after all the negative news headlines in recent years. If they are, then screw them – live by the sword, die by the sword.
Those remaining with sizeable exposures are likely vulture funds who plan to rinse the environment and bill payers in order to line their pockets with gold. Well, it’s high time we rinsed them – and the government should be doing that on our behalf.
I’m pretty convinced that the haircut that the shareholders/bond holders/debtors face would not be financially ruinous. Still though, live by the sword die, die by it.
We need leaders that have a spine and will stand up to wealthy, vested interests. Not this vacuous, self-serving cabal.
He’s simply being dishonest in his answers. Funds and pension funds invest in companies that fail more often than we realise.
What he’s actually saying is that Thames Water is, in the Governments view too big to fail. But all that does is set a precedent like the bank bailouts in the past for utility companies. Business continues as usual and we carry the costs.
Thames Water should be allowed to fail, it sends a clear message to all the other in utility companies. As for the pension funds, they did their due diligence as well and knew the risks.
It was always a bad idea to privatize water. There’s no element of competition, the regulator has stood-by and watched them exploit loopholes and they had greedy incompetent management right from the start.
Those were a lot of words to say that he thinks we have no choice but to live with things fucked as they are. so what’s the point of it all????
A water company sells a product that everyone needs, which quite literally falls out of the sky, via a distribution method which is already established and exists with a monopoly – if they can’t break even in those circumstances they should be nationalised
Fine the companies so much money it pays for the nationalisation or makes them go bankrupt and they have to sell off their assets cheaply.
I wonder how much money we got from nationalising these companies in the first place… I bet it wasn’t the equivalent of £100bn.
A lot of Labour grandees and exmps work in private water, it’s a revolving door so you can never expect anything good to come from them when it comes to water. Ditto with gambling/betting.
Not to say other parties aren’t also corrupt in a similar way, but it’s worth listening in when Labour have to deal with crisis on water because it’s such a known thing for Labour higher ups to move on to
I hate how financial companies have persuaded politicians that pensions can never ever lose on an investment. Yes pensions invest in water companies, and freeholds, but so do huge multinations from other countries who absolutely can and should lose on investments sometimes!
Put laws in place saying that they can’t extract ‘X’ percentage of profits, have to re-invest whilst we do a hostile take over.
Be. A. GOVERNMENT. Govern for the people.
Their assets are vital country infrastructure. Just take it from them, they have shown they cannot safely and efficiently handle that infrastructure so why do they get to continue holding it hostage? If the government want to do something badly enough they can push it through to just do it.
Just an idea, could the shares in Thames water held by pensions be ring fenced somehow – nationalised like the banks were in 2008, allowing them to be invested in national infrastructure projects? I guess it still means the debts are left and what do we do with those? Could we just tell the banks and lenders who hold those debts to suck it up?
Create a new water supply department to build your own water supply network.
Well you can actually. It would be slightly painful, but I doubt thames water are more than a dot in the balance sheet of pension funds.
In the end you’re worth what someone is willing to pay for you.
I think there’s also a point to be made that some things aren’t necessarily about practicality and what “makes sense”. In the long term, penalising these investors, and potentially even looking at retrospective taxation is about what’s *right* and moral.
The country wasn’t built on the basis of what was “practical”. It was built on us having a high trust society, where people didn’t do these things because they knew there would be consequences.
Much like how we pay to put people in prison, maybe we should consider paying to make it clear that we don’t get pushed around by rich bullies.
Bullshit. Pensions are diversified enough to withstand the shock given the trouble already known in water companies. Strip them and pay pennies on the pound. Do it through law. I don’t care. Get the sharks out our water.
Apply the actual fines they receive every year (~£130 million to Thames water 2025) enforce the others that aren’t being applied. Force Thames water into debt with the government. Buy for £1…
When will people learn.
If you privatise infrastructure, all that happens is companies run it at the lowest operational cost it can get away with, so they can extract MAXIMUM profit for shareholder dividends.
There is no benefit in the long run.
Thatcher absolutely fucked this country when she sold off most our national infrastructure.
The answer feels simple – they should mutualise it, capitalising it with redeemable shares, and put it in the ownership of its customers. This would mean it has to be run in the interest of its customers, and the Government gets its money back as the firm makes money. It would also mean that the debt it has been issued for pensions is still protected.
he is talking utter nonsense,our water is fine up here
The part I don’t get is that they have a monopoly on water.. claim to need to hike prices to avoid going bust… Yet are apparently worth that sum of money.
This doesn’t track at all.
So corrupt 🤣
We are basically fooked.
Whatever happened to this country
If there’s so much debt that we couldn’t possibly nationalize, how is it going to afford to do anything we need it to in it’s current state? It’s just going to go more in debt and by his logic harder to nationalize?
Surely this is double counting. The value of the debt should be taken off of the purchase price of the company as the debt will be bought with it?
Yeah this is bollocks. Pension fund managers that have still invested in water companies are bad managers who’ve made bad bets. That’s how investing works. No one’s pension is 100% invested in a water company and a properly divested portfolio would take this loss and recover.
This is a weak excuse because the current government is still in thrall to neoliberal economic theory.
Nationalise them. Tell the creditors to fuck off. They lent a failing company money – that’s on them. That’s a risk you take lending businesses money. This is vital national infrastructure and should belong to the country.
Many pension companies have already written off Thames Water. I have heard the actuaries discuss this company first hand and how the valuation could easily be zero in a real world scenario.
Could the government legally stop Thames water being able to pay out dividends?
If the pension funds invested badly that’s their fault, why should tax payer have to pick up that cost?
Boomers gotta boom I guess.
Thatcher’s triumph.
The government should print the money and buy the water companies. I rather pay more bills towards public ownership than to greedy shareholders
Start a new water company in London.
Translation: it’ll cost 100bn to be able to continue pretending that that current system isn’t a steaming cake-and-arse party.
The biggest issue is that debts for these water companies are risk free to investors. The government won’t let water companies to go bankrupt.
There should be laws that you cannot recover debts from water companies’ infrastructure like pipes. So that these companies can “bankrupt” and clear their debts.
It will no doubt harm water companies’ ability to get investments (because risk free debts no longer exist), but 1) they are essentially monopoly with no competitor and stable revenue streams, 2) most other companies also don’t have risk free debts for investors, so if you are privatised, follow the market rules, and 3) even with risk free debts, the current water infrastructure is so bad which shows they never benefit from the potential investment. The only one benefited are the shareholders and investors.
For a London based sub, the spelling is very overseas biased.
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