So when was the last time "Privatization" worked ? Energy in CA

[EVDebs]

was a real fiasco; I heard they even wanted to privatize sewage treatment plants...Prisons, now there's a winner. Water systems is another big target I'm hearing about. Foreign companies owning US water systems without much public oversight.

In fact at the turn of the century most 'Railroad commissions' were set up just because private enterprise couldn't be relied upon to look out for the public's interests.

Comment please. Is SS privatization going to carry with it HUGE penalties if things don't go right ? Why bother with it in the first place, just raise the income cap of $90,000 on SS right now ?

[politicaholic]

1. I dumped a loud mouth girl last month so I could "privatize" my sex life.

It worked pretty damn well.

[Canuckistanian]

2. Exactly!

When was the last time privatization/deregulation improved anything? By improvement, I mean:

1. Increases "choice" for consumer/client
2. Lowers prices
3. Encourages small businesses to get involved
4. Encourages lucrative investment opportunities

Dos anyone know of such a sector? The airlines? Power companies? Communications companies? Hospitals? Anything???

[johncoby2]

3. Trash collection in Houston

Prices doubled.

[blondeatlast]

4. Fire department in Scottsdale. Arizona was a miserable failure.

Voted to put it back into city government recently. Response times had slowed and it was costing more, firefighters were very unhappy and campaigned hard to get it back into public sector.

[cattleman22]

7. Airline deregulation has resulted in much cheaper fares. n/t

[Nederland]

5. California's Energy market wasn't "privatized"

Anyone who thinks it was needs to do some research.

[EVDebs]

6. That's right, deregulated and sourced to the highest bidders

so that 'gaming' (or privatizing profits to Enron et al) could occur. Meyer Lansky kept the mafia in business all these years by keeping 'skim' to a minimum of 15%...in CA's energy monopoly days, PG&E and the other regulated companies were guaranteed a 12% profit, and little ol ladies and the stock market could go to the bank on that year after year after year. Then greed got in the way: privatization and deregulation.

Wall Street and The Economist magazine sold the politicians on the coming natural gas economy. It came, and the result was chaos.

[gfr4656]

8. they privatized soc. sec. in

england. don't know any hard facts, but i heard it didn't work to well.