this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
107 points (88.5% liked)
Asklemmy
43766 readers
1758 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
As I said in reply to other person, in my country there's private businesses providing those services for cheaper price than the government alternative. Infrastructure for the most part is provided by 3rd party.
Also I keep hearing this talk about "government accountability", but what mechanism of accountability does government have? Private firms at least can go out of business or sued. Government in worst case will just pay you some of its "tax money"
What specific services are you referring to? If there are multiple firms and the government competing then that really doesn’t sound like the situation I was describing.
Governments can also be sued though they sometimes grant themselves immunity. But utilities really can’t go out of business, can they? Generally they are providing what are considered essential services, so if they fail, the government will generally bail them out because they are the only provider and the loss of those services would be catastrophic. So there really is very little accountability. Just ask PG&E customers how much say they have in that company’s practices.
As far as government accountability, that’s what elections are for. Do you not have those in your country?
My point is they don't lose hard earned money, they just pay you money they collect forcefully from people. Basically it's not a deterrent, but simple restitution
It's quite rare for any candidate to talk about utilities in their campaign at all.
People here tend to not associate govt owned corporations with the government itself. And when someone brings it up, they just make some kind of excuse about what terrible person you are for accusing such a benevolent government of incompetence when they don't fix their stuff, and increase price 2
And besides, chances of reelection are so slim I doubt any politician actually going for it. It's much more profitable to simply lie about your promises
They should declare bankruptcy and be sold to someone
Government failed to consistently provide power — no catastrophe. Government failed to provide any water at all — no catastrophe (some people just started to pump and sell underground water)
So why private buisness not providing just one of those services for the period before it's bought, must result in catastrophe? (Just for time reference, the absence of water I described earlier already lasts longer than a year)
My point is they don't lose hard earned money, they just pay you money they collect forcefully from people. Basically it's not a deterrent, but simple restitution
It's quite rare for any candidate to talk about utilities in their campaign at all.
People here tend to not associate govt owned corporations with the government itself. And when someone brings it up, they just make some kind of excuse about what terrible person you are for accusing such a benevolent government of incompetence when they don't fix their stuff, and increase price 2
And besides, chances of reelection are so slim I doubt any politician actually going for it. It's much more profitable to simply lie about your promises
They should declare bankruptcy and be sold to someone
Government failed to consistently provide power — no catastrophe. Government failed to provide any water at all — no catastrophe (some people just started to pump and sell underground water)
So why private buisness not providing just one of those services for the period before it's bought, must result in catastrophe? (Just for time reference, the absence of water I described earlier already lasts longer than a year)
That sounds like a pretty insane situation that would not be tolerated in most developed countries. Generally lapse of service for essential utilities is considered a major problem that would absolutely be relevant to local elections in my area. It sounds like your government is very poorly run and needs dramatic changes—such changes could be implemented through elections. In the meantime it’s good that private entities are filling the gap but I doubt they are able to provide the same level of service as most people expect from utilities.