Because The United Kingdom?

[R011]

1 hour ago, NickM said:

Cali happens to be governed by bone heads who reportedly said there was no sense in expanding the state's reservoirs because rain will never fall in Cali again--usually just before a storm dumps a few trillion gallons of water that goes running off into the Pacific 

And in other jurisdictions, government run utilities do fine.  For that matter, so do most private ones not in California.  For instance, in Ontario, water and electricity are government or owned mostly by government while gas is private.  It works well enough but far from perfectly here.  It sounds as if it isn't working well in the UK.

[Stuart Galbraith]

8 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Ryan, do you really think that you do?

If so, you're not very successful, are you? Maybe the way you're doing this is less than optimal. And as a result, the constant Stu and Ryan show is, frankly, making Tanknet less enjoyable for the rest of us (and I suspect not even you two like it).

It would be considerably more enjoyable if he would equip himself with actually listening to what I say, rather than busily convincing himself he is talking to Leon Trotsky that refuses to be educated by American know how.

Ill leave it there, im done with trying to talk bloody sense into him.

[Ssnake]

7 hours ago, rmgill said:

How to adjust then? 

Maybe you don't have to reply to everything that Stuart writes. Maybe keep in mind that you're writing for the other readers of the thread.

[Stuart Galbraith]

4 hours ago, R011 said:

And in other jurisdictions, government run utilities do fine.  For that matter, so do most private ones not in California.  For instance, in Ontario, water and electricity are government or owned mostly by government while gas is private.  It works well enough but far from perfectly here.  It sounds as if it isn't working well in the UK.

Well, the system is working exactly as its supposed to. This is how private investment works in the UK

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555

How did Thames Water end up with so much debt?

When the company was privatised in 1989, it had no debt. But over the years it borrowed heavily and is currently £14.7bn in debt, by one measure.

A large proportion of that was added when Macquarie, an Australian infrastructure bank, owned Thames Water, reaching over £10bn when the company was sold in 2017.

Analysts say Thames Water's current debt amounts to about 80% of the value of the business, making it the most heavily indebted of England and Wales' water companies.

Also, interest payments on more than half of Thames' debt rise with inflation, which has been high in recent years, adding to the firm's woes.

Macquarie said that it invested billions of pounds in upgrading Thames's water and sewage infrastructure while it owned the company.

But critics argue that it took billions of pounds out of the company in loans and dividends - which is a share of a business's profits that is paid to shareholders.

Thames Water said that it has not paid dividends to external shareholders since 2017.

However, dividends can also be used to move money around companies that are ultimately owned by one parent company.

Thames Water has paid over £200m in dividends to other companies within the group in the past five years.

Most of this money has then been paid as interest to outside investors who have loaned the group money.

Critics argue that the dividends were paid with money that could have been spent on improving Thames Water's infrastructure and services. However, Thames Water is legally obliged to make those debt interest payments.

[sunday]

7 hours ago, rmgill said:

Trying to at least. 

How to adjust then? 

There is a friendly button for that.

[Rick]

A good article in my opinion.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/12/queen-greta-has-exposed-the-truth-about-the-green-movement/

[rmgill]

14 hours ago, NickM said:

Cali happens to be governed by bone heads who reportedly said there was no sense in expanding the state's reservoirs because rain will never fall in Cali again--usually just before a storm dumps a few trillion gallons of water that goes running off into the Pacific 

Victor Davis Hanson has a very expansive talk on the Water system planning success and utter failure to implement. The Government of the 50s 60s and 70s had a very good plan. Then in the 80s they basically became lazy and didn't do anything. 


https://californiaagtoday.com/hanson-no-investment-water-infrastructure/

Hanson explained, “When the federal Central Valley Project (CVP) was envisioned in the forties, fifties, and sixties, and the California State Water Project (SWP) in the sixties and seventies, there was a consensus that the state was growing, agriculture was important and two thirds of the people lived where one third of the rain and snow was. To fix the state’s water needs, they had to transfer water. We built the aqueducts. They were brilliantly engineered and we did not have a water problem.”

“The entire model changed in the 1980s,” Hanson said. “A decade I have picked because the New Melones Dam was [filled in] 1983. New Melones was the last major reservoir that was almost not built. Two or three issues happened. One, the state’s population grew rapidly, up to 30 million, and now 40 million people, so it became more crucial to have water. However, more and more water was diverted from agriculture for municipal usage. Then, for a variety of complex reasons, the demography changed. We had a lot of immigration into California; one out of every four Californians was not born in the United States. Also, 4 million people over 20 years of age who were conservative left the state, so we went from a red to a blue state model. Our population went from 25 million to 40 million.”

“Not only did we not invest in infrastructure, such as general roads, freeways, and airports,” Hanson said, “but specifically in the California water project. This third and final phase of water infrastructure would have given us, depending on how many of the reservoirs such as Sites, Temperance Flat or Shasta Dam raising would be constructed … enough water. If we did not have to talk about it. It would have been fine.”

[rmgill]

7 hours ago, sunday said:

There is a friendly button for that.

If we ignored everyone we disagreed with sport, it'd be a very boring discussion forum. 

[sunday]

2 hours ago, rmgill said:

If we ignored everyone we disagreed with sport, it'd be a very boring discussion forum. 

You and I have our disagreements, but you are not impervious to reasoning.

Edited May 14, 2024 by sunday

[rmgill]

20 minutes ago, sunday said:

You and I have our disagreements, but you are not impervious to reasoning.

I should hope not. I am stubborn though. Almost bulldog-ish. 

What strikes me is he keeps asserting that things in the UK are different. As if British Human Nature is somehow entirely independent of the same sorts of malfeasance, incompetence and corruption that the rest of humanity has struggled with for it's entire span of civilization. 

Edited May 14, 2024 by rmgill

[sunday]

26 minutes ago, rmgill said:

I should hope not. I am stubborn though. Almost bulldog-ish. 

What strikes me is he keeps asserting that things in the UK are different. As if British Human Nature is somehow entirely independent of the same sorts of malfeasance, incompetence and corruption that the rest of humanity has struggled with for it's entire span of civilization. 

Not only on the UK.

When I needed multiple posts to make him aware there is a quite big mountain range along the northern side of Spain that prevents easy rail communication between the interior plateau and the northern coast, mountain range whose existence could be easily checked with a summary google search, I decided it was not worth the effort to try to discuss less physically evident matters.

Edited May 14, 2024 by sunday

[rmgill]

1 hour ago, sunday said:

When I needed multiple posts to make him aware there is a quite big mountain range along the northern side of Spain that prevents easy rail communication between the interior plateau and the northern coast, mountain range whose existence could be easily checked with a summary google search, I decided it was not worth the effort to try to discuss less physically evident matters.

Perhaps he thinks all mountains are like those little foothills they have in the Cotswolds? 

Also, all it takes is a passing recollection of the key battles of the Peninsular Campaign to wonder how/why Wellington was able to keep Boney's troops bottled up and out of Portugal...its almost as if the few key passes weren't easily defended... I've played enough EU4 to grok that there are some routes around Europe that are quite constrained by terrain. 
 

 

[sunday]

Well, first time I was told the highest mountain in Great Britain is Ben Nevis, towering at an elevation of 4,413ft (1,345m), I was distinctly unimpressed.

The Cantabrian Mountains, while rugged, is not the highest mountain range in Spain and the tallest peak is only 8,688ft. The Pyrenees, between Spain and France, and the Penibaetic System, south in Andalusia, have lots of higher peaks.

No wonder English mountaineers went to the Alps to find mountains to climb.

The Portuguese-Spanish border, at least in the center, has only two easy areas around Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo, corresponding to the Tagus and Douro rivers, thus the importance of those two towns in the Peninsular wars. Crossing south of Badajoz into Andalusia could be easy, but from Andalusia to the central plateau there are the Sierra Morena mountains, another of those looked over Spanish mountain ranges that proved difficult to dealt with.

Perhaps, in Western Europe, such mountain-constrained terrain could only be found on the Italian border, as the battles of the Isonzo in WWI proved, and the failure of Mussolini attack on France by the Alps during WWII also showed.

Then one goes to the State of Colorado, and there are 14,000+ft mountains that have a road to the top, or even a cog railway...

Edited May 14, 2024 by sunday

[rmgill]

we have numerous mountains in the Eastern US that are above 11 that are above 4000 foot elevation. Heck, there are parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway that run up and over 4000 foot and one part that hits 6000 (Richland Balsam). 

And yes. The westerly Rockies have the BIG stuff, much younger mountains and not well worn by time. Alleghenian Orogeny and all that. 

[sunday]

Yes, the Appalachian range was a big obstacle for the westward expansion of the 13 colonies.

[rmgill]

Theres a reason the Cumberland Gap was so important. 
 

 

[sunday]

35 minutes ago, rmgill said:

Theres a reason the Cumberland Gap was so important. 
 

 

The Hudson Valley too, and how the New York Central used it in their so-called water-level routes.

[Ivanhoe]

5 hours ago, sunday said:

Yes, the Appalachian range was a big obstacle for the westward expansion of the 13 colonies.

There are quite a few mountain passes, for example Rockfish Gap in Virginia.

Frontier farmers who settled between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies were able to cart their whiskey to the Virginia Piedmont, but had to time the trip to avoid snow and mud. Now of course with paved roads and motor vehicles, instead of wheat and corn for "squeezins" those mountain valleys produce megatons of beef cattle.

[rmgill]

One wonders if a gay, black Dr Who twerking, in a miniskirt, to defeat aliens will finally be enough for Stuart.  

Edited May 15, 2024 by rmgill

[DB]

On 5/13/2024 at 1:20 PM, seahawk said:

To meddle in a market, there has to be a real market. Fresh water and sewage infrastructure (or electric grind, or landline telecommunications, train lines or roads) have no real market. There will not be 3 sewage systems in the streets, giving customers a choice.

They manufactured a market in supply by separating out some infrastructure - an example is Network Rail versus the franchised train operators.

It's possible to be an energy supplier without owning any hardware, just by trading futures. Water supplies are slightly different, but in my region the freshwater supply service is not provided by the same company that maintains the sewers, for example.

[sunday]

16 hours ago, rmgill said:

One wonders if a gay, black Dr Who twerking, in a miniskirt, to defeat aliens will finally be enough for Stuart.  

The Lib Dems are already doing some progressive things:

Quote

Liberal Democrats are accused of breaching equality law by deselecting candidate 'because of his Christian faith'

By DAVID CHURCHILL CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

PUBLISHED: 01:14 BST, 13 May 2024 | UPDATED: 01:27 BST, 13 May 2024

The Liberal Democrats have been accused of breaching equality law by deselecting a candidate 'based on his Christian faith'.

The party has been reported to the equalities watchdog for allegedly tolerating a 'hostile environment' for people of faith, failing to investigate serious allegations of discrimination and harassment and emboldening 'those who believe Christians should be driven out of public life'.

The Daily Telegraph reported that the complaint to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) concerns the treatment of David Campanale.

The 60-year-old is set to be replaced as the party's prospective MP candidate for Sutton and Cheam after a two-year campaign against him by members of his local party and a number of LGBT activists.

The Anglican and award-winning former BBC journalist has faced opposition after being linked with the Christian People's Alliance (CPA) political party, which has campaigned against abortion and gay marriage.

Opponents of his candidacy also claim he didn't sufficiently declare his faith during the selection process.

(...)

I could imagine Saint Thomas More smiling sadly from Heaven.

Edited May 16, 2024 by sunday

[seahawk]

3 hours ago, DB said:

They manufactured a market in supply by separating out some infrastructure - an example is Network Rail versus the franchised train operators.

It's possible to be an energy supplier without owning any hardware, just by trading futures. Water supplies are slightly different, but in my region the freshwater supply service is not provided by the same company that maintains the sewers, for example.

Obviously you can have private companies providing the service, but you can not have them own the infrastructure. Trains are an excellent example. You can have a tender to operate a route at a certain frequency at regular intervals and can have firms compete for it, you can not do the same with building and maintaining the rail network.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, we tried that. We had about 4 different train operating companies operating individual rail lines, and a 4 providing the maintainance. Worked wonderfully. They employed poorly educated chimps to drive the trains, and the company providing the infrastructure fired all the track inspectors because they saw them as an unnecessary expenditure. it got to the point where they had one man inspecting both tracks of the West Coast Main line. Thats about 400 miles long. Then to make things worse, none of the 4 companies were talking to each other, so there was no feedback on failing infrastructure. The surprise is not that there was a spate of rail accidents in the late 90's and 2000's. The absolute wonder is there wasnt many more.

Basically, if you want to think up a truly epically bad idea on how to privatize something, you can bet your ass someone in the UK has already done it decades ago.

Edited May 16, 2024 by Stuart Galbraith

[rmgill]

How about you don't take it over by the government and then expect that you can just throw it back over the fence ot the private sector to run at a loss? 

See also Penn Central - Amtrak & Conrail and expectations that anything but the freight will be taken up by the private sector? PRR and New York Central ran tracks over the most densely populated part of the US both for industry AND people. And when they merged in 1968 with competition from the Airlines, Road Traffic/Trucks and the increasing costs/expenses. Penn Central didn't last 10 years. The merger was in '68, they were bankrupt by '70 and out of business by '76. 

 

Only the Staggers act was able to make the Conrail operations properly profitable which was then divided up and handed to CSX and NS plus a bit to some short lines iinm. 

Edited May 16, 2024 by rmgill

[Ivanhoe]

The memesters are going to town with this new portrait of Charles;