Comments by "TheEvertw" (@TheEvertw) on "Richard J Murphy" channel.

Privatising services such that they give a monopoly to a for-profit business always was IDIOTIC. But in lieu of direct nationalisation, the government could simply cap the charges e.g. water companies can levy on the public, and fine them for every breach of regulations, until they go bankrupt. As a bonus, prosecute all the managers of these companies for mismanagement. Funneling off billions in dividends while not doing necessary maintenance most certainly is mismanagement.
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@adenwellsmith6908 It is. But the Tories have created a situation that is untenable. And your point is? It would be an outrage if The People have to bail out these water companies, after all the billions they sluiced off to share holders. Considering the current situation, I believe the government would have the right to prosecute these companies for endangering public health, to terminate their right to do business and to seize their infrastructure outright. That might be a third possible solution.
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@adenwellsmith6908 We all know how the Tories failed the public, in failing to properly monitor the water companies. My first proposal is to get back to properly regulating them, by capping the amount of money they can charge to the Public, and by (heavily) fining them for breaking regulations. The fines must AT A MINIMUM be sufficient to clean up their mess for them -- which means billions of pounds. The natural consequence of properly regulating the water companies in the current situation is that most will go bankrupt, and that no bank or company will be willing to buy them because of the massive investments needed to repair & upgrade the infrastructure. At which point the government can pick them up for a song, in effect nationalising them.
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@andybrice2711 The latter. They have pissed away billions in "dividends". Money paid by the customers and ear-marked for maintenance.
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@adenwellsmith6908 The usual Tory (neo-liberal, really) ploy to squander national services is to first massively under-fund them, and/or impose burdens on them that massively waste resources. Then they claim this is inherent to them being public services, and that privatization will lead to better and cheaper service. A few decades later, the opposite turns out to be the truth. Whenever a for-profit company is given a monopoly position, its service will decline and prices will increase. That has been known for more than a century. They are currently doing it with the NHS.
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@adenwellsmith6908 Let's start with PR. That will (in time) take the extremism out of politics, and will give The People more opportunities to express what exactly they want in their vote. Both by being able to vote for relatively small parties without wasting their vote, and because when a government falls, it will mean new elections. Because the government will usually fall due to a Vote of No Confidence instead of an (internal) leadership contest. And usually the coalition partner(s) will not allow a new government to be formed without elections. All successful democracies have PR. And no, I do not consider the USA a successful democracy. A successful economy, yes, but democracy, no. Rank like 30th in metrics that say something about how well their people are doing.
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Extreme-right standing up against neo-liberalism is a facade. Here in the Netherlands they made a coalition with the centrist neo-liberals and scuppered all their social policies, in stead of making a coalition with the left and following truly social policies. But you are absolutely right in pointing to the abandonment of social policies by the Left as the cause for the rise of the extreme-right populists.
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"economics" is not a science, as you describe it. The value of a model is in is the accuracy of is predictions. Thus models that are not validated against reality have no value. So, why are there no economists asking the simple question "how did you validate your model?" -- and crucifying anyone whose answer is lacking rigor?
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@maria8809ttt No, that isn't a Milton Friedmann quote. That is a quote from a man who was taught the proper modelling techniques that underpin all hard science: ME. In hard science models are valued ONLY on their ability to accurately predict the outcome of experiments. Because the Laws of Physics are nothing more than a model of physical phenomena.
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