NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 28
th, 2007 at 3:39pm:
Dave are you by any chance a Socialist Worker or even a Member of the Communist party? I am a disillusioned Conservative who sees many, many faults in the market system (usually associated with monopolies and cartels) but found even more with nationalised industries. Do you know how long it took to get a phone line in the days of the GPO which you seem to view with rose tinted spectacles.
There are many critical comments about Labour by you, but not critial of Conservatives, I would not know this. Did you prefer the Thatcher years then?
I will be the first person to say that comments I made in the above posts are somewhat 'idealistic' and at one extreme. But the other extreme is to say break it up and fragment it because that is always better isn't always the best either. But when I see that the competition that was supposedly introduced for our benefits is really just benefiting private investors at our expense, I do wonder what sort of telephone service we would have had it been left as a public utility.
The same thing is happening with the Royal Mail. It's network can be likened to the telecoms network whereby there must be a post box every so often and where deliveries must be made everywhere. Then by the same token it must compete with the Virgin Medias who take the rich pickings.
At the end of the day, the reason we are here is the same. I do not expect there to be one make, model and colour of car no. That's an extreme example of which you seem to be at the other end of the scale at times. I like to balance things out! I also repeat what I've just said about the fact that what is now BT started out as a public utility and compare that to the motor industry which didn't.
It is also worth looking at internet service providers which, like mobile telephones, have always been operated in a competitive way because that's how it's been done since day 1.
NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 28
th, 2007 at 3:39pm:
The market system can work if there is tough regulation and above all where customers have a choice. Where there is a private monopoly or a cartel that is a near monopoly high prices and bad service usually follow. …
But the key thing here is that BT as it currently is is the network infrastructure in this country. It has not become a big monopoly because of poor regulation, or greed, but because it was a public utility. It is poor regulation and planning that has left us in the current state we are in today.
So the exercise of privatisation and introducing competition hasn't achieved what were the original objectives. That is not to say that it would not work if operated differently. But this puts me in mind of the thing you said about speed cameras:
Dave wrote on Feb 23
rd, 2007 at 7:01pm:
Similarly, speed cameras generate that much revenue for the government that it must be a sizeable chunk of the Chancellor's budget. This is wrong as the point of a speed camera is to stop people breaking the speed limit. Therefore the 'fines' are not working. This is not to say that speed cameras should be scrapped, per se.
And your response...
NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 23
rd, 2007 at 7:09pm:
Yes it is because more and more money making civil liberty infrining Big Brother speed cameras enforcing speed limits that aren't sensibly set don't stop accidents from happening and contrary to the New Labour lies peddled most accidents have very little to do with absolute speed. Most of it is down to poor road design and reckless and careless driving.
So what you're saying is that if a certain solution does not work is that it is wrong through and through and not because the way it has been implemented is wrong?
My statement was not based on my knowledge of certain locations or situations that speed cameras
are worthwhile, but by the fact that I know little about road design. Similarly, the argument of scrapping the BBC licence fee so often surrounds the fact that what is currently on the BBC is not to one's taste, but avoids considering what will happen if revenue from advertising is the driving force of one of the nation's principal broadcasters. The fact that the current system may or may not be the best way of running things is also not discussed often enough.
NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 28
th, 2007 at 3:39pm:
… Your comments that people should not be able to choose the hospital they use I find very worrying. Real old style socialist rationing. So if someone knows a hospital has a very high death rate on the operation in question they should still be forced to go there should they?
Perhaps the hospital example is an extreme one, but your principal is based on the fact that you see that the 'system' allows for hospitals that have high death rates, for example. It also means that the all important statistics which are published must have graphs on death rates. The fact that statistics can be engineered to show or not show what one wants means that I don't see what basis they are for choosing hospital.
Also, by choosing you are introducing competition and therefore the possibility that one hospital could close because of this. The thing is that we don't want hospitals to purport that they are 'better' than their neighbouring ones, or better than any others within the country for that matter, but that they are the best they
can be.