water

Apparently we are being subjected to hose pipe bans because we are short of water.

So THAT'S where it all is! Send some down to Cornwall please.

As my Granny used to say "T,is either a feast or a famine" !

It's a global emergency! It's a climate catastrophe!

Not one proper reservoir built since 1979

Off in my Range Rover to the airport now for a 30 quid flight to Ankara

Despite severe flooding early in the year 2022 is the driest year in the UK since 1976. Strangely it's also the driest year ever recorded in California whilst North Texas had 2 feet of snow. Just examples: unusual droughts, downpours, heatwaves, extreme cold, doldrums and storms all around the world. Extreme weather extremes that occurred a few times per century are now happening every 5 years or so.

I wonder what could possibly explain turbulent weather across the whole planet? I thought scientists had a jolly good explanation but the forum put me right: obviously you can't trust anyone who knows what they're talking about! Common-sense innit.

Dave

2022 is the driest year in the UK since 1976

I've waited 45 years for another decent summer

Unfortunately, the heat knackers me out pretty quickly nowadays...

People pay good money for this weather and this year we got it for free!

I seem to recall that shortly after privitisation, Yorkshire water sold 2 reservoirs and bought a large hotel in Wales so the directors could have free hols there.

For years, the engineer that proposed the site of the reservoir to feed Bradford was ridiculed as the scale was far too big to be needed. Years later, it became the norm for extra revenue to be generated by selling excess water to the surrounding townships.

In the past, common sense was regarded as a virtue, sadly, this has been superseded by stupidity.

Regards Ian.

Think you'll find 'Yorkshire water' is now a French conglomerate.

The air con is U/S and the head gaskets gone ! A second class ride is better than a first class walk, This REALLY was the right year to have a motorcycle ! Noel.

There is only one answer to the resources crisis

The re-Nationalisation of water and energy

Leaving a bunch of private sector wide boys in charge is no longer an option

They've had their fun and frolicks, and now it's time to get serious again

Ady, I am definitely with you, our energy and water is too precious to let the wide boys destroy, we need to get this sorted as soon as possible, unfortunately it looks like all we can look forward to are more years of the same, the country is rudderless at the moment while a pantomime is being played out, the meeting with energy chiefs yesterday appeared to solve nothing. Dave W

That would probably make it even worse by the time you incorporate the many admin systems and multiple departments that nationalisation appears to require plus local and National government oversight (interference).

We should however have prevented other nations buying up our infrastructure IMHO.

Edited By V8Eng on 12/08/2022 10:24:50

Edited By V8Eng on 12/08/2022 10:25:54

We get 2400mm of rain a year where I live. And we still have restrictions on garden watering in the dry season.

It's all about reservoirs, pipes and pumps, oh and government incompetence, which seems to be globally universal.

The theory of national ownership of basic resources is sound. However one ends up with too many chiefs and few indians and investment constraints to divert funds to the latest vanity project.

It'd be nice if we could start with one set price nationwide for all utilities and avoid wasting time chopping and changing suppliers. Even something as simple as car insurance... should all be working from similar actuarial figures but costs may vary 4 fold.

Normally the 'El Nino' and 'La Nina' cycles in the Pacific run in fairly regular cycles, however we have been 'enjoying' a 'La Nina' event for the last three years which is unprecedented, I think. More here - scroll down to see the the background;

Severe-Weather-Europe - Long Range

..interesting stuff, the predictions made earlier this year were pretty good..

Edited By DiogenesII on 12/08/2022 12:02:28

I seem to remember that all these services such as power, gas, phone,  insurance, shipping parcels etc via railways and airport parking etc etc etc were all cheaper when owned and run by government before they were privatized with the promise that competition would lower prices to the consumer. Still waiting...

Edited By Hopper on 12/08/2022 12:05:40

Be careful what you wish for. In the days of the GPO it took months to get a phone put in. Competition makes them smarten up their act. Having said that, with a natural monopoly like water/sewage there has to be regulated prices, so the water companies cut costs by dumping sewage in the river and allowing lots of water to leak from their pipes. All a balancing act, politicians and civil servants seem to be totally incompetent, at least in the UK.

So, is it time for, 'Flat tax', one set percentage for everything? If so, what would you set it at?

YorkshireWater, French-owned now? (Like EDF - French State-owned...)

At least France is nearly local. It starts less than 400 miles South of Manchester Ship Canal.

My supplier, Wessex Water, is owned by a cement-hotels-&-quarrying outfit called YTL, based in Malaysia.

'

I used to be in favour of private-ownership, Not now, and not just because Mr. Blair sold me via a very dodgy deal indeed.

The services being State-owned avoids the heavy profit overhead that so often vanishes abroad, losing the nation's money, under the deceitful guise of "inward investment" - American lack of 's' , and all..

State ownership's problem is not the principle itself, in my view. It is that it lets Governments of all flavours, and a Treasury that only ever knows cost not value, keep playing with things they don't understand, in their efforts to be seen Doing Something Useful.

Nationalising them does not require all the administrators V8Eng alleges are thought necessary. It is politicians who think that, and won't let the real managers who know the business, manage them properly.

As for Government oversight... we have that now, more so than in the past! Whether effective or not is another matter. Maybe we need an OffOff to oversee the OffWat, Offcom, Offqual, Offxxx bodies set up after the great sell-&-destroy drives, to ensure that the new, privatised companies behave themselves. In theory.

(Is an Offqual, an unwell marsupial?)

.

Hopper -

I do not recall there ever being State-owned insurance companies. The other services you list, were, and I think should be, but insurance has always been commercial - but probably just as adept shysters then as now.

Well since the rich own everything anyway, the tax rate only determines how long it takes the rich to suck out all of the annual wealth generated by a society

So the tax rate only determines how many times money gets to circulate through the system, before the rich can stash it away forever

So 50%tax would be 3-4 years while 90%tax would be 8-12 years

(Most people only view tax rates within the terms of their own tiny universe )

Edited By Ady1 on 12/08/2022 18:29:30