How Energy Privatization is Bankrupting Britain
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A video about the energy crisis, privatization and profiteering.
Written, directed and presented by Tom Nicholas.
Edited by Georgia Burrows.
Chapters
0:00 The Energy Crisis in the UK
05:42 Part 1: Maggie Thatcher, Energy Snatcher
12:53 Part 2: Supply Guys
22:37 Part 3. The Generation Game
28:19 Nebula!
31:25 Part 4: Poles, Pipes & Proft
38:28 Part 5: Price Wars
46:17 Part 6: The Case for Nationalisation
Some Copy About this Video for the TH-cam Algorithm
Britain is in crisis. A cost of living crisis. And, in particular, an energy crisis. Since 2020, the typical UK energy bill has risen by 400%. And many are having to choose between heating and eating.
Some of this is the result of global oil prices which have spiked since the beginning of 2022. But, much of it is the result of much longer-term trends which and, in turn, the product of a radical experiment the country undertook starting in the 1980s.
Under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher (and, later, John Major), the UK began selling-off the entirety of its energy infrastructure to the private investors. Beginning with British Gas in the 1986 and continuing with the electricity supply industry in the 1990s, every part of the UK’s energy supply system has been handed over to corporations whose primary motivation is the accumulation of profit.
This is the story of how energy privatisation bankrupted Britain.
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Select footage courtesy of Getty
#EnergyCrisis #Privatization #TomNicholas
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U should have cut in merica fuck yeah song for americas electrical accent
do you do private tutoring on subjects and presentation? I'm sure you do, i am in no doubt that this can be true. I've seen your students in the newspapers, news channels and all over social media. I'm going to take wild guess and say that all these politicians like Boris Johnson changing costumes and talking a lot. Although i'm not totally sure the message they took away was the same.
@TomNicholas Could you link to the source for the UK company profitability and Gas and electricity distribution companies?
Isn't a bit iffy using anita's work to pitch your nebula, that is good, without providing a easy link for her content?
The crazy part is South Africa is thinking of privatizing electricity
Because of the ineptitude of government and corruption of government suppliers
😩😩😩😩😩
It's insane to me that we as humans allow certain things that are necessary to life to be ran by profit driven corporations. It's such a stupid thing to do..
The Gilded age tycoons became tycoons because they controlled industries that governments were dependent on.
They effectively became more powerful than government because the government needed railroads, oil, and steel, especially for war.
Once they had that power, they could shape government because what could any PM or president do if their supply of oil, steel, or transportation was cut-off?
Edit: this is based on the idea that once Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Carnegie got a foothold in America they built an international culture over generations that gave other nationalized industries the pathway to cut a check to some politicians (like Thatcher and some boomers) in exchange for them relinquishing power to a private organization
It's because we live in a capitalist system, where the most important thing is profits, not people. They always ask "how're gonna pay for it?". Even though we can pay for it easily, they'll find a nitpick and dismantle that. Really, it shouldn't matter how much we pay for it - any price is worth it. If we can't afford to pay the salesman, then the problem is the salesman. And whatever it takes, live-saving care and power and food should be accessible to all.
@@austinfletchermusicbeing in America.. it's weird that "how would we pay for it?" Is always a problem when it comes to anything that would help Americans.. yet, billions and billions upon billions of dollars are always ready to be sent to any country that needs it..
It all just hurts my brain.. this entire system just isn't sustainable.
@gamingwiththisguy8106 Blame Pete Peterson. He's an ultra-rich guy who managed (after failing Hard with the general public) to convince news networks to push this question in recent years.
@Gaming With This Guy huh, you think we send money to other countries without strings attached?
Every dollar of aid is designed to benefit a US based corporation. Every bit of corruption funnels money into corporate contracts, corporate tax breaks, etc.
You're focusing on the wrong things. The aid is a form of power that allows us to dictate what policies other governments will implement, always policies that benefit US corporations. You know, the corporations we keep failing to tax. We keep doing handouts using public money to corporations. The profit driven corporations are the ones pulling the strings, and the investors, CEOs, and board of directors are the main beneficiaries. That's who the US government works for. Military aid ends in corporate contracts. That's why we spend so much on the military, funnel it into private defense contractors. Additionally, to bully other countries more directly to force them to implement policies that benefit US corporations. That's the "democracy" they tell you they're spreading. Installed governments that spend another countries money on US contractors and sells off public goods to US investors.
"We have money for aid" no, we have money for corporate handouts.
people are freezing to death but profits are up is the most dystopian thing ever
Shortages are always government generated.
You noted they would make a lovely profit if they could supply all the power people can buy.
It should have been called corporate games instead of hunger Games
Helping the poor and commons aint profitable.
@@Commievn the poor don’t donate to political campaigns.
@@thorinbane maybe with a little 1984 thrown in lol
Back in Bulgaria mass privatisation in the 90s went so horribly that growing up I thought that to "privatise" a factory simply meant to shut down said factory. 😂
they couldn't find private buyers so they shut it down?
@@MustaphaRashiduddin-zx7rn Nope, they'd buy the factories, fire employees and stop production if needed, disassemble the whole thing and sell it for scraps. These went for such low prices, that the "investors" became billionaires just pulling this stunt a few times. Most of these facilities were not capable to turn a profit without massive investment and restructuring, and even the ones that tried mostly failed.
Same happened in Romania. Some people suspect that a few of these industrial assets were actually strategically disabled and wiped out to prevent competition with western companies. Or, at least, to provide "a better environment" for western investment - which the politician were very happy to facilitate (I wonder why).
Of course, privatization of various sectors of the national economy was the IMFs favorite demand.
@@MustaphaRashiduddin-zx7rn more likely the buyers were 1) stripping it for parts as corporate raiders 2) deliberately shutting down competitors at cost to ensure a monopoly
Nah, new owners usually knowingly bankrupted said factory for financial gains.
Why run factory and try to make it profitable when you could take loans, effectively steal them, sell of factory's assets at discounted prices and bankrupt what left?
Happened in Russia too at crazy scale
Same right around 1993 in Bolivia.
There was a story in the UK news this week about an elderly woman died of hypothermia in her home because she was terrified of not being able to pay her energy bill.
Really ? Oh dear. That is terrifying !!
@@DipayanPyne94indeed it is😊
it is not a new thing that happen every winter in UK at 1000 people die every year.
i thought uk was a first world country. had me fooled
Yeah I think she lived in Bury, a small Town next to Bolton in the North West. I told my 89 year old Gran Dad not to worry about putting the heating on. It's not worth worrying about, if you can't pay it, what are they going to do, cut off a 90 year old? To my knowledge they are not allowed to cut off OAPS, which I'm guessing this lady didn't know. So sad that are OAPs are living in cold homes.
"Let's take our most essential and most dangerous industries and incentivize spending as little as possible on maintenance and improvements"
-people who should never have been in charge of anything but somehow are ruling the world
"What could possibly go wrong?"
**looks at East Palestine, Ohio**
We live in an idiocracy. The dumbest and least qualified people succeed while the most intelligent and most capable of leading starve on the streets
They just wanna speedrun revolutions again and frick around to find out :)
@@sonicboy678 i don't see the problem, there are 1000 of accident every year, what so special about this one?
*Texas has entered the chat*
When you think about it for even 2 seconds, "privatization is better because people only work well if there's profit in it for them" is an incredible self-report from a politician.
Group of 20, you're the only one who works. No disabilities or anything, just extremely lazy. You going to provide for all those people with a smile on your face til you die?
😂🤣😂👍👍👍
Your comment is underrated)))
Yeap, the fact that people don't seem to realize that politicians are just influencers makes it worse. We give stupid people too much power
...I don't want to take away from Lizbet's amazing comment, but I just realized Among Us has reached mainstream-enough popularity that we can now use "self-report"
lmaooo imagine salivating over poor granny's electric & gas money
I'm fortunate enough to live in a town in the US that has its own municipal electrical service. Electricity is .08 cents per KWh here. In the 1950s, my town signed on with the FDR Power Project initiative to source power from the St. Lawrence River from a dam on Bernhart Island. Towns were given the option to vote and pay into the project. Mine did, and now, 70 years later, we still reap that reward.
The trouble is they don't make great characters like Franklin and Elleanor who was apparently key in influenceing his decision regards the new deal
Today's Republicans will call what you have Kaamunism. People are so easily fooled.
Cleveland, Ohio's public power company has survived since 1907. It avoided a privatization scam in 1983 that forced the City into default and cost the mayor his job. It's currently taking over streetlight maintenance from the privately owned utility company that can't seem to manage it anymore; one step in the direction of public administration of the local grid itself.
Privatisation is an evil leading the march toward the corporate hellscape of cyberpunk 2077
They turned the energy industry over to private competition, but they conveniently forgot that these companies are competing to make the most money, not to provide the best prices.
And that a power grid only has one line to each endpoint so there is no possible way this could be anything but a monopoly with no real competitive forces to self regulate profiteering.
At best of we ran like 5 of the same wire to each house we could maybe hope to have an oligopoly and try to regulate that.
This is very succinctly put. Thank you.
@@5353Jumper And that power grid was initially built with taxpayers money. "Private Profit, Public Costs".
Doesn't anybody understand economics anymore? Get the Govmnt out of the way..
Let the drillers DRILL. Let the refineries refine. They will make money and you will have
the energy you need. Ramp-up supply, and prices go down...
OR start building Gen IV reactors, YESTERDAY! Energy fuels Civilization.
Reasonable Speculation - dude we are talking about power grid not power generation, and definitely not extraction and refining.
Generation is not a monopoly so it functions OK as a market economy. Arguably it is a bit leaning toward oligopoly but that can be worked around.
No one on this thread said anything about nationalizing extraction and refining. That is definitely open market model due to the vastness of the market.
We are talking about nationalizing the actual electricity and gas grids which take the energy from the refineries and generation to each endpoint. That is what is called a Natural Monopoly because there is no practical way to make it competitive. There is only one wire and one gas pipe and one water pipe to every house, so there is no way it can actually be "competitive".
The national grids would buy from the open market generators and refineries to distribute to households based on competitive bidding.
1. This would allow a variety of different generation sources including gas, nuclear and "green renewables" to all compete against each other for sales.
2. Also a national grid may reduce regulations on endpoint generation which have been put in place strictly to preserve profits of the formerly privatized grid. Allowing endpoint generation sites (your rooftop solar) to be bigger than your demand so you can sell the excess energy back to the grid for a profit, giving more competition to the free market generators. Or you could put in solar heating or geothermal to compete with the gas refineries.
Who is stopping the drillers from drilling and the refiners from refining? They are the most privileged industry on the planet and receive the most subsidies of any industry, actually pretty close to the same subsidies as all other industries combined. Plus their infrastructure crammed through communities risking disaster.
The "greens" do not want to ban oil (only a few uneducated say that, every movement has them). They want to add new energy sources on top of the oil growing supply, which would reduce demand for oil and give it competitive market forces to reduce costs for energy. Many actually do support the nuclear power you are fond of as well.
One of the biggest, longest national cons was utilities privatization. Water is especially galling to me. It's literally a monopoly!
Don't forget privatizing the airwaves!
What do you mean? If you want cheaper water just...move house by 50-100miles!
Even the most capetalistic politician in other places have objections to water privitisation.
It's not so bad on its own. It just costs 4x the value you rolled. But if they also get the the electric company, it jumps up to 10x. Getting into housing and hotels is much more lucrative.
Yeah this is the worst one, while the gov makes it more profitable to dump the waste in the rivers than to fix the infrastructure
The summary of Thatcher privatisation reminded me of Russia's 1990s privatisation effort. Each citizen got a voucher to buy shares with. The idea was to introduce capitalism in an equitable way.
My family got Gazprom shares, but many others sold theirs for cash, needing the money.
I have a strong suspicion this was instrumental in propping up Russia's oligarchy.
It was absolutely. I recommend Trauma Zone. It very nicely explains how global business industries conspired with local Russian oligarchs during the "shock therapy" to disenfranchise the Russian people and lay the path toward the fascistic oligopoly that has gripped the Kremlin right now.
At least it was nationalised under Putin
@@kabzaify to bad he's focused spending it on external issues rather then internal ones.
When it comes to industries that require massively expensive, permanent infrastructure like energy generation and railroads, "more competition = lower consumer prices" is a lie and they know it's a lie.
The main goal of privatization is to create new sources of revenue for the already wealthy.
Privatization achieved this goal. It's working as intended.
It's not as bad in Denmark as in England currently, but kind of same story. Privatization -> price hikes. EDIT: And honestly, it feels like, to me, that selling your infrastructure is like pissing your pants to keep warm. Or, I don't know, selling off your organs to pay your bills.
Yeah, it's a scam like everything else nowadays
Both metaphors are accurate.
Argentinian here, we privatized a massive ammount of our infrastructure in the 90s.
As far as i renembered we have power cuts in summer that went from 12 hours to several days, several times in a daily basis in summer. Now with the Ukraine crisis we had in winter too
Everyone belive it's a bullshit system safe for our former president that has shares in the company, and now he insist if he wins again to privatize even more
Our problem in Denmark was generaly that the old state run instiution was HORRIBLY ineffecient.. privatisation could have been done better but yet we are still mostly in control of our grid.
NoW yOu SoUnD lIkE a SoCiAlIsT
It makes me feel so much better to know that Privatization of industries best left to the government( and thus held accountable to the people) is ruining countries other than mine 😭🤣
-Me, an American
I'm glad to provide such a service.
What about hearing such information from this video from the government & not from a private individual? 😄😅
Can't privatize what was never nationalized in the first place!
@@yengsabio5315 The smaller the government the more indistinguishable public and private becomes.
@@Furiends I concur.
I love that central heating companies in Denmark aren’t allowed to make a profit. I only pay around €30/month on average to heat my apartment.
They set their prices to what their expected expenses are in the coming year, and use their “profits” to expand and maintain the central heating network.
Anglosphere thinks it's socialism therefore communism therefore authoritarianism therefore totalitarianism therefore bad. Low utility bills = government tyranny 😂😂
@@richhornie7000What happens if they make a profit?
Netherlands has the exact same thing. Energy and health have been privatised resulting in exactly what you are describing in this video.
Also the whole thing about the customer not caring about changing every single year is super true. Every Dutch person has to write a paper to the 6-ish major health and energy companies about why they are not interested in switching because they're just trying to live through december. (hyperbolly of course, but all major companies WILL go door to door like salesmen and ask you if you want to switch. Every Dutch person hates it and knows that it happens from since they were kids.)
The 'heating or eating' thing hit hard. We have the exact same slogan in the Netherlands. People here also have to choose between heating their homes or having food on the table....
In November of last year the government gave a 23 billion Euro blank check to make sure the energy companies didn't fail. This is almost enough to buy them all up and nationalize the whole system.
I was alive in 1986 and just entering the job market, the wealth never trickled down and being at the mercy of private corporation for basic services is a free market hellscape.
Yeah, anyone that remembers the push to privatise across the Commonwealth and suffered as a result pretty much had one response to the news of Thatcher's death "Ding dong...".
If you aren't happy with a private company, you can withdraw your funding and go to a competitor. If it's a state monopoly, and you are forced to pay for it via taxation, what power do you have, as an individual, to withhold your funding?
@@lochnessmunster1189 yes, you're a propagandist who has never been right. tell me more about trickle down wealth and other lies from eth extreme right, the NEO CONS. Not neo liberals, you don't get to try to shift the blame decades after the fact, it was NEO CONSERVATIVES who stole our future using the 'but tax is theft" bullshit you're still peddling even though there's no proof of any of the bullshit you are pushing ever worked the way your side claimed it did.
@@dawggonevidz9140 So, tax cannot be theft, in any way, shape or form?
@@lochnessmunster1189 The main underlying assumption is that a government acts as a not-for-profit organisation, but is there any way to guarantee that a government doesn't act for profit (known more commonly as corruption)?
It's not like these end results weren't already economically well understood. In Smith's Wealth of Nations, he talks about how the effects of profit have a very significant outcome on increasing prices, and privatising things is just the act of introducing profits. Of course, the term "privatisation" did not exist in his day, it was only coined in the early 20th century to describe Nazi economic policy. He also talks about how the profit motive itself, left unchecked, is just going to result in an effective "tax" being placed on society, as companies reduce competition.
So you've got to wonder. If all this was obvious to Adam Smith, the so called founder of modern economics, where the hell do these people get this idea that simply privatising things increases "efficiency"? Smith also gives a hint as to the source of such ideas in wealth of nations, talking about how the merchant class tends to have a far better understanding of their self interests than anyone else, and will convince themselves, and everyone else, that it is their self interest, that is the common interest, even though it is usually contradictory to the common interest.
Relevant quotes
"His employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit, which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labor of every society. The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operations of labor, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension, of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin. The interest of this third order, therefore, has not the same connection with the general interest of the society as that of the other two. Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order, the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals, and who by their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of the public consideration. As during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and projects, they have frequently more acuteness of understanding than the greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts, however, are commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch of business, than about that of the society, their judgment, even when given with the greatest candor (which it has not been upon every occasion), is much more to be depended upon with regard to the former of those two objects, than with regard to the latter. Their superiority over the country gentleman is, not so much in their knowledge of the public interest, as in their having a better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to give up both his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction, that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."
...
"In reality high profits tend much more to raise the price of work than high wages. If in the linen manufacture, for example, the wages of the different working people, the flax-dressers, the spinners, the weavers, etc., should, all of them, be advanced twopence a day, it would be necessary to heighten the price of a piece of linen only by a number of twopences equal to the number of people that had been employed about it, multiplied by the number of days during which they had been so employed. That part of the price of the commodity which resolved itself into wages would, through all the different stages of the manufacture, rise only in arithmetical proportion to this rise of wages. But if the profits of all the different employers of those working people should be raised five per cent, that part of the price of the commodity which resolved itself into profit would, through all the different stages of the manufacture, rise in geometrical proportion to this rise of profit. The employer of the flax-dressers would, in selling his flax, require an additional five per cent upon the whole value of the materials and wages which he advanced to his workmen. The employer of the spinners would require an additional five per cent both upon the advanced price of the flax and upon the wages of the spinners. And the employer of the weavers would require a like five per cent both upon the advanced price of the linen yarn and upon the wages of the weavers. In raising the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates in the same manner as simple interest does in the accumulation of debt. The rise of profit operates like compound interest. Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people."
Hence why Marx came to the conclusions he did, both of them were similar in terms of goals but not method
@@Joostmhw Marx was heavily inspired by smith, he even makes this explicit. I see Marx's Capital as a natural updating of wealth of Nations given the developments of capitalism that did occur between them.
Holy Frick the second quote made me realise just how disastrous an artificially enforced "2% inflation" is in an environment where capitalists do not accept falling RATE of profit. Each year, every single middleman in the chain for...anything...demands their profits rise by at least 2% and it compounds geometrically, the more sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-contractors you have!
Economists and neoliberal politicians only read the first couple of pages of Adam Smith.
I always love how “competition” is viewed as a universal good under neoliberalism. There is zero thought given to what they are competing over.
They are not competing over your patronage, they are competing over profits. The company that makes the most profits wins the day. This is a good thing when it comes to commodity production. Some companies compete for profits by lowering their prices in a bid to undercut their competition and steal some of their market share. Other companies compete by improving their products to a point where the increased cost to consumers is acceptable given the quality of the product.
This model, however, becomes very perverse when applied to major industries that we need to survive. Given the way energy grids work, it makes zero sense to introduce competition. The infrastructure needed to supply power to an entire city is too expensive to justify multiple providers. Therefore, you end up with 2 or 3 competitors with little to no overlap in coverage area. You have one power line coming into your house. The power company isn’t going to run a new line to your house every time you switch providers. You’re just stuck with the provider in your area.
Therefore, if you have 2 or 3 businesses competing for profits in an industry with very little overlap, it is a recipe for oligopoly. If I’m a CEO trying to show the shareholders that I’ve won the competition for profits with the other energy company, then my goal is to increase my prices as high as possible before people just decide to live without power. Who are they going to turn to? There are competitors in the market, but if you can’t move your home into their coverage area then you’re stuck paying whatever I demand. I therefore have a de facto monopoly.
Arguably more important (at least of equal importance) to the idea of "what they are competing over" is also "are they actually fucking competing?" Competition can be quite good! If they're actually competing, and not say.. Creating fiefdoms and then colluding to raise prices across the board.
It's really illogical especially when competition is irrelevant to industries like power generation, where it is a geographic monopoly. There's only one company sending the juice from the power plant to your home. It's not like a TV streaming service or a cell phone provider. You can't just drop your electric company and switch to another unless you move.
@@krisstarring It would make some vague kind of sense if the competition was between like.. Oil, natural gas, green, and other forms of energy generation? But we all know that's not the case so it really don't apply too much here.
they can still get competition from places which they would not ecpect if their prices would be so high so other options could be more profitable, for example in my country when prices raised after war on Ukraine started there been a huge demand for solar panels so there been actual shortage of them and even now when market stabilized little bit I see new solar panels on lot of houses. People want to at least have their own electricity production in case of prices raising even more so they will buy less electricity from external supplier which will put a pressure on them to lower their prices. But there is still government which can regulate and outlaw individuals who want to be self sufficient.
@@nikdonic
I agree with you, but that is also a problem of private industry controlling government action.
If the government is the entity producing and distributing power, then what do they care if some rural people go off-grid with solar panels? All that means is that the government can save money on distribution to those remote locations. The only time the government cares about people going off-grid is when private companies profit off of the distribution of that power, because they rely on that distribution for their profits. If you start taking people off the grid, you are taking that out of their profits and they will lobby the government against it, hence you get stupid rules where you have to feed into the grid, which means you have to remain a customer of the private power distributors even though you produce your own power.
In SA most of our grid is still technically under state control, but the fuel gets mined by private companies and maintenance work is also largely outsourced. At this point, we have 6-10 hours without power per day. The other day it came out that the maintenance companies have been sabotaging our electrical infrastructure to get more work. Shocker.
As the public power provider in South Africa fails, many people think the solution is privatisation and when I say I am horrified at the thought.
It's so frustrating! I argued with my friend the other day about this, and they just repeat the talking points and don't ever engage with what I am saying. DA brain rot is a real thing...
Yeah. Even if a public power grid isn't the best, you can guarantee that the private version is gonna be worse, simply because the corporations are only ever gonna do enough repairs when something goes down to get stuff flowing again, not to try and make sure it won't happen again, unless it's in a super damage prone spot and they'd make more money not having to go out and fix it constantly.
Don't have to privatize the whole thing. Just production, which is what is lacking right now.
@@sharmarke3314
Private companies are only concerned if profit
@@sharmarke3314 Give an inch and they'll take a mile. Never privatize any part of it
Great well researched documentary. The fact that similar analysis is never presented by today's national media says it all.
Thank you very much. Yes, I really hope it adds something to the conversation that is usually missing in more mainstream analyses.
Private Eye have been calling out the privatisation of utilities since it happened. so have the guardian, just less loud and often. Its not ignored by ALL media.
@@keefymckeefface8330 Yeah and when they were provided with an electoral candidate, truly opposed to privatisation, they opposed him.
Media wont bite the hand that pays the ad bills. Its also why they hate any public broadcasting
Yes, but I feel like this video could be shortened by a significant amount, even while retaining the information provided.
Living here for work for a few years has also shown me how difficult it can be to even get the account set up with these companies. The logistics are all over the place and it is a mess.
I'm not even British and this was a truly brilliant video. Seems like it was researched really well and the arguments were put across in an entertaining, educational and non-condescending way (which is unfortunately a high bar on YT for video essays these days). Fantastic video, keep up the good work!
There was condescension in the video and that's one of the reasons I love it 😂
It's a shame MSM don't allow factual discord
Not British either but lived in London for about half my life, and shit like that is why I moved out
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means
We did the same in New Zealand, the private power companys made record profits and still do to this day they are barely competitive and most users are too lazy to keep switch over to better plans that give little gains for little periods of time, we basically sold our country's backbone to corporations.
The UK's situation is worse. It's like if the government sold its remaining controlling stake in Mercury, Meridian and Genesis and on top of that sold Transpower as well
The amount I want to destroy the "stop 3 waters" posters increases ever day
Neoliberalism moment
Too lazy, or there is no real choice in pricing
Did you lot sell off as many services as we did in Australia? Banks, telephone network, electricity, we’ve got nothing left here.
Thank you Tom. Entertaining, informative and chilling in equal measure. I'm 67 years old, and as a British citizen, I can remember a time before "The Dear Sainted Margaret" and I experienced first hand, the wholesale destruction of communities and livelihoods that she wrought.
Rule number 1, Never trust a tory, Rule number 2, Never forget rule number 1.
I seem to remember that, at the time, National Insurance and State Pension funds were raided to fund the several privatisation schemes. And before I forget, the privatisations were done for one reason only. To enable private companies to price gouge the entire population, and pass on kick-back to their friends in government.
given your rules, i feel the need to ask: well then, why do you folks keep having an endless parade of tory PMs? seems like you, as a country, are complaining that each new one is worse than the last, but you can't seem to stop.
@@perfectallycromulent They are not voted for by the general population, that would require a general election.
And Those who fail to ACTUALLY learn from history are DOOMED to repeat it. I’m sure you will!
Every problem in a TH-cam video about the UK/US begins with Thatcher/Reagon.
It's so criminal. It just so absolutely criminal. This has been repeated by these types of scamming assholes many times over.
I'm not necessarily against a for profit business model but I am when political thugs apply it in this manner, towards fundamental public needs and resources.
You have made me incredibly happy that most electricity in Canada is both made and sold by government-owned companies called “crown corps”.
It reminds me of the 'privatization' and 'deregulation' of electric distribution markets in California in 2000, which led to price spikes. Does anyone remember Enron? Will we ever learn?
The rest of us will, but the rich bastards that set policy are rich enough to eat those costs no problem
You didn't really mention it but in the late 90s the supply companies initially tried to make price comparison as baffling for consumers as possible. IIRC the offers would look like
you pay this much for the first number of units per quarter... but then that much for the remaining units per quarter providing you buy at least some other number of units per year etc etc. you'd have needed to be a spreadsheet master to make any sense of it.
Then once you'd found a slightly cheaper deal it'd suddenly turn into an expensive deal after 12 months.
Absolutely. I did have a whole sequence about this in an earlier draft but the video just became far too long and needed some pruning! But, yeah, making things confusing was a deliberate strategy for some time and led to them being referred to the monopolies commission.
@@Tom_Nicholas
I would have loved even longer version of this!!!
As always Thanks for your hardwork!!
Your work is really really good!
@@Tom_Nicholas So how do you think you would sell the e.g. gas yourself? Do you think it is as easy as "buy X bottles of gas, store the bottles at the location at address Y, and deliver it to the address Z by mailman"? Genuinely interesting. Yes, the bills are confusing sometimes, but it is good if companies actually provide the breakdown for you. Your statement seems to be just a classic "oh, I have no clue about the thing, but it is definitely a alien lizards conspiracy!" I'm not saying that privatization of such a type of a company is "total good", but look at e.g. NYC metro - it is horrible! Do you think putting someone competent at the head, audit the black hole of spending and actually do something to make it profitable (while probably making the service better - or going bankrupt as an alternative) is a "bad" option?
@@TaranovskiAlex government can do that too, as long as they avoid corruption, cronyism, nepotism, to pick a CEO and auditor based on merit. (I mean, a government can indeed own a private company without running them as part of a ministry, in that case they act like a shareholder and hold the management accountable for their action)
@@xponen good luck with that!)))))
My house was sitting at 11 degrees at times. I can't afford to have the heating on and have health issues. When I mentioned it in passing my GP simply said they woke up to a house at 13 degrees and it was 'fine for them'... The irony being said Gp is on way more money than I am. She also said the best things in life are free. Some people just don't get it
Many of us in Australia have the opposite problem. Our former conservative governments sold us out too, and that leaves vulnerable people sweltering in 40+ degree temperatures unable to afford the electricity to run fans or air conditioning (if you’re fortunate enough to have it).
Does she work for free? Go steal her car, she can always conjure up another free one.
What were you expecting? GP to help pay your bill?
@@asilver2889 no but there are things Gps can socially prescribe and they can also offer a listening ear. In addition, she makes up to 4-5 times what I make so can afford heating. I once sat in on a group patient meeting where we were told after someone explained the impact of cost of living on their health that they should focus on the idea that the best things in life are free. Ironically coming from a medical professional who had just come back off a holiday
@@asilver2889 I: They said they only mentioned it in passing, and the GP started downplaying the issue. No, they weren't expecting the GP to help pay; only to have some freaking compassion
Coming from the US, it's pretty amazing how the privatization of energy producers and sellers seems to have become entirely decoupled from everything else in the country. Part of privatization is diversification; but somehow the energy companies in the UK forgot that in order for them to make money they can't profiteer so much that no one else can. Even American gas companies know that rule. It's just fascinating how many UK industries are so disconnected and decoupled from each other.
Fantastic work and really effectively brings it all home. Thank you, I know a lot more about the situation now because of your quality content
We must not only undo what Thatcher did, but reverse it. So ... not just un-privatize, but ... give to the people.
We need to ... take control of ... the way you make the thing. ... hm.
Hmm. Is that the thing where the, uh, producers obtain the... materials necessary ...for the creation of things?
I swear I've heard this before... it's on the tip of my tongue...
Like… Democracy… but where you work? Mmm…
Rise up, all victims of oppression
I think some guy named Mark, or Carl wrote about it…
@@Pensnmusic I see what you did there ;) ... I guess where Marx and/or Lenin went wrong was that he did not believe people would accept communism voluntarily hence single party dictatorship. And that did not work nor end well. An other thing they got wrong was the almost complete lack of private ownership and having everything controller centrally and by the government.
People who have no stake in ownership treat common property as trash and who cannot own anything substantial like a house have little incentive. And for most things centralised control and decision making leads to bad decisions because it is does not respond well to demand. However for utilities and health care centralised ownership seems to produce better results.
What seems to be working better is not ideological communism nor capitalism but having the more or less natural monopolies and utilities including health care in the hands of the government and let that part of the economy where there is actual competition and incentives for people to work be private.
AHHHHH Privatization! Because everything is better when there is someone making a profit from it. That's why I am still paying down my debt for parental services. Mom and dad were really nice. They only charged me 30% of all I ever make. Thanks guys. You're the best! I know that profit motivation made it so!
@@cloudycolacorp Lol! Like that's how that works! But don't let it stop us from calling it my choice.
I thought of running away to find my real parents. I could have. Maybe I would have found them. Who knows? Today I'm still not sure their mine. I never did a paternity test!
Why didn't I chose to run away and find them? 1) I didn't know where they could be. 2) I didn't know who they were. 3) I had no clues** as to who they were. 4) I didn't know how to drive. 5) I wasn't sure how I would get food and clothes. 6) I cannot remember the other reasons, but there were more, so I talked myself out of it.
**Mom said I was "the worst kid ever and the worst kid ever possible," so I knew these weren't my real parents. They wouldn't have said that!
So, keep that in mind when you're ever feeling low or you're the worst. Just tell them, "NO! That's David Peppers!"
@@davidpeppers551 Parental Services? What the hell is that?
@MarioW Presumably, OP was not raised by his true parents (whether biological or adoptive) but by a couple of parents provided by such a service, which charged a fee that somehow has been imposed on him. If that's the case, I find it perverse because naturally, children should be a cost to the parents, not the other way around.
@@jordias6436 Perverse like capitalism! Profit motive makes everything better!
@@mariow7818 It is a capitalist's logic. There is nothing so good in this world, that adding the profit motive cannot make it better. Nothing within current markets or without, that shouldn't be made a source of profit for some one.
Why are so many surprised when the economy and economic motivations behave as they are supposed to? When people lock up clean water and put guards on it and charge $6 or more per liter while all around homes have been devastated and men, women and children are getting deadly diseases and parasite infections for want of clean water, why are people appalled and shocked? The system is working like it is supposed to. I took numerous courses on economics, including some at college level. Find a need, fill the need, maximize profits. You cannot maximize profits by just letting people have what they need for free!
In the press you see this too. Let people have their profit making. If something is important enough, some charity will eventually come along later and take care of those needs after the profits have been made. Never mind that the very profit making enterprise may be ever undermining the efforts to see that those needs are met. The government should not interfere by guaranteeing anything for health or general welfare -- no matter what the US Constitution might say -- with the possible exception of national defense and the livelihoods of defense contractors. Interference only makes markets fail more.
In France, the motorways have been privatized. We are paying for them twice, with taxes that paid for the land and construction, and with tolls for their maintenance. I pay as much in tolls as for the fuel when I travel. This is why car sharing is so popular in France. The companies (like Vinci) that profit from this have huge lobbying power.
sold off?
That is somewhat comforting to hear. I know of places where you pay taxes in buying a car, taxes for using that same car, if its a gasoline engine you get away with only paying additional taxes in the fuel price, if its diesel, you pay taxes for the car being a diesel powered car, and also pay taxes on the diesel fuel. This is a country that is sparcely populated.
I am Swedish currently living in Scotland. Our flat was a toasty 14-16 degrees Celsius before we noticed whenever we caught colds they weren't going away like at all and we caved in and turned the heating on (to a whopping 17 or 18 degrees, so still just bordering on that "probably not detrimental to your health" temp, thanks WHO...). It is now end of May and we have had the heating off for months and for some reason our energy company decides that NOW is a good time to increase our energy bills from £70/month to £189/month. That is a 170% increase in our electricity bill. I saw an ad at a bus stop "informing" people that lowering your heating by just a degree could help you save up to £30 a year or something ridiculous like that. And that's when I decided I can't live in this country anymore.
I'm so sad that I have to leave the UK, I love the social life and a lot of the general culture, I've absolutely loved living here and I would have liked to continue that. But it is simply unaffordable. SCANDINAVIA is cheaper to live in. It is absolutely fkn insane and I'm so upset that this decision was an escape route rather than a choice that I could make for myself in my own time when I felt ready.
Great video, as always!
One thing I'm surprised you didn't mention is that gas prices have dropped to 2021 level by now, and are expected to drop further. Yet the consumers in the UK don't experience any of that price drop.
Course not
Once they know they can charge that much they will
Tbf there is always lag on such. The gas prices sale and resale are done over months in advance. So current wholesale prices would be reflected in retail prices. This would be true even if state owned.
@@tisFrancesfault so why did gas prices for the consumer rose at the same time as gas prices for the provider, yet gas prices for the consumer haven't dropped with gas prices for the provider?
Maybe this entire industry as it stands is inheently predatory?
@@tisFrancesfault Tbf, the "lag" is always much greater when the wholesale prices have gone down than when they have gone up, when the lag can be in nanoseconds.
@@KyrieFortune It depended on whether the energy companies were buying futures contracts (which didn't track directly) or buying gas from the market live. All the companies which were doing the latter were the ones who went bust in quick succession. Now the only ones left are the ones who buy the futures contracts hence why we're seeing more of a lag doing down (also there wil be profitieering I am sure too)
I live in Bath with other students and we don’t even turn on the heater unless the temperature outside goes negative. Even before the energy increase, rental housing has such inefficient heater and bad insulation that most of the heat just yeeted out the window anyway. It has been like this for 3 years and I’m honestly surprised I haven’t gone terribly insane yet.
great work, Tom. Well researched.
Very proud of you Tom I remember subbing 5ish years ago and you're still at it, keep it up!
Don't worry lad, we're used to being ignored up in Scotland. I'll cry myself to sleep hugging my free degree and sense of loss over my lack of student loans.
The worst thing is that many of us that were around in the 80s knew that public utilities shouldn’t be privatised. I could have made a few quid buying shares but didn’t because of my fundamental opposition to the principle. Even those that did mainly made a modest short term windfall as the number of shares available for individual investors was small and the majority were quickly seduced by the idea of taking a quick profit.
The neoliberals are pretty hell bent on taking people's money hostage in the stock market.
"Oh, we have to bail out the market, think of your retirement!"
I mean obviously any money made from shares in British Gas was value fleeced from the taxpayer i.e. everyone in the country, shareholders in British Gas or not. But I know people don't always see the big picture in that way.
If only the rest of your generation showed the same principles
If you see Sid, tell him he's a c**t...
@@Cream147player Cryptozoo was worth a lot of money at one point,
I don’t see why people can’t see the bigger picture.
I'm glad you've utilised this video to spark conversation, got to the point and not gassed on about it. 😊
41:43 - This is why the Victorian state government here in Australia did the homework for you and based on your inputs, listed the best priced energy companies for you - and it gave you a VERY good bribe of $250 to use their website. And not just a once-off either. This is season 2 of it and yes, you can apply for it even if you've got it before.
It got down to 13° in my newly-insulated flat this winter. I couldn't afford to heat when it dropped below freezing, despite the £66 a month (which would have paid for one inadequate storage heater for about 5 days).
I was with a socialist energy company prior to the big collapse in 2021 and they made such a difference - and they were lovely people, too.
There was a socialist energy company pre-2021?! Wish I’d bloody known! 😆
If you ever want to do a spotlight on the other consequences of the privatization of electricity, you could look at Texas here in the US. Every time it gets under 40F or over 95F (relatively frequently), we get emails telling us to remember to turn our thermostats so low or so high that we might as well not have them, all so that the grid the state refuses to repair doesn't completely fail.
Very much this. Over 3 cents higher kwh average than neighboring states too and raising per year nearly 1c/kwh while Oklahoma, Louisiana, etc. went down this year. But always happy some of my bill go towards lobbying!
Brilliant explanation of the whole debacle. Thank you
Excellent video. I appreciate how long this must have taken to make.
Dude, where's the content warning for that Maggie photo in the thumbnail? I saw that decrepit old ghost and nearly had a heart attack
My apologies, clearly TH-cam's filters haven't worked out how to catch such horrific images yet.
@@Tom_Nicholas Yeah, great video, but it should have come with a health warning. I live in an area of the country that suffered horribly under Maggie, and still hasn't recovered, probably never will either.
I remember this talk, growing up in the 80s.
These days I provide advice to older people on how to keep their homes energy efficient. It is both fascinating and disturbing to see how the country got into this mess.
You allowed it to become a mess by expecting that other people than you will start sticking their necks out. It is pure laziness, political lethargy that's allowing your political system to go corrupt. Britain is doomed, just like Big Brother USA. Both Labour and the Tories are being payed to advance your elite's agendas.
Unfortunately, not all homes can be made energy efficient due to local laws such as conservation or listed buildings..
@@ascelot Even when they're not listed, the age and design of certain homes is a limitation. I live in North Wales and there is a LOT of older housing stock here!
@@MatthewCaunsfieldWhat can be done to make homes more energy efficient?
@@gregorymalchuk272 Various measures, it depends very much on the house.
Loft insulation is normally a pretty good first step though!
I feel for you Brits. Down here in Aus we are facing similar.
Great stuff Tom, enlightening & entertaining
The timing of this dropping is wild. The ice storm in the US this week knocked out thousands upon thousands of people's power. I work at a public library, and we've been flooded with people without electricity or heat. We're doing our best, but there's only so much a library can do. Our infrastructure is a joke, and everyone is paying for it. In more ways than one.
Well, you know what entertainment to put on for the masses now. :)
Thankfully Iowa's power grid was made public before become MAGA territory
Ive been told its going to take a week to restore my power. Over 200k people just in michigan, just serviced by Consumers Energy, have lost power. I have no idea how im gonna afford to keep a generator running for that long, im extremely fortunate i have a natural gas heater otherwise my family would likely have to freeze.
Power is out, again?
And the average American is so hopelessly stupid that they'll swallow the reactionary lies about how it's all Biden's fault, somehow. Not the companies running the private services, and certainly not the gas industry, no. It's the fault of an imaginary government cabal & a non-existent socialism.
We're doomed because the polity is a bunch of crayon-eating retards and we decided they should have political power via electoral politics.
I started this video skeptical, but you’ve done a wonderful job of breaking it down just how bad privatization has been for the UK’s grid.
The same is happening in the Netherlands, and our neolib government solves it by throwing more money at these corporations.
The farmers and supermarkets are calling the alarm that people can't really afford a lot of things anymore while the food megacorps make record (RECORD!) profits.
This is happening all over the western world. We are being robbed and we must take action now before it is too late. Together.
Free the market, the market will solve it. Hail the free market ....ah and here market, have my money😂😂😂
One of the ironies of grid privatization in the name of "consumer choice" is that it's a CLASSIC example of the sorts of things even orthodox economics would say shouldn't be privatized. Energy companies, especially power lines, are textbook examples of natural monopolies
Once I was your fan but now I am a complete air conditioner. Every video is a wealth of information. Best of luck brother.
😂😂
Took me a good minute before I understood this joke. I thought you were just being weird lmao
😂😂@@Cakeses
"The gas has to come from somewhere..."
He says, holding a can of beans...
Oh, come on...that was just low-hanging fruit there!
Look, I was just really keen to avoid putting any fart jokes in the video.
@@Tom_Nicholas And you resisted admirably, my friend!
@@Tom_Nicholas How could you hold it in?
Maybe even a musical fruit, the more you eat, the more you...
Great work. Thanks Tom!
Excellent. Informative and in-depth coverage of the origins of the current problems.
Moved from Scotland to the USA last year and found myself stunned when National Grid were my energy supplier in the USA. Yes. The same National Grid. Fingers in every pie that lot.
Technically national grid isn't an energy supplier it runs the infrastructure required to get gas and electricity to homes. Kinda funny it's actually an EU regulation that created the series of EDCs or electric distribution companies we see today. With national grid originally being called north west power. Ofc it was more of an excuse because what other countries did was just create a seperate public company to run the infrastructure and then also production.
As any large company, they have an obligation to expand and increase their market. What do you do when you've got 100% market share in your country of operation? You have to expand internationally.
@@vylbird8014 (Inter)National Grid 🥰
In Norway we _had_ a great transportation system when it was publicly owned.
When they sold it all off bit by bit, it became *terrible.* The trains are never on time and tracks aren't kept up well enough, the pricing is not nationalised, the actual routes and departures of most buses are stupid and the list goes on and on.
We are also suffering pricing issues with our electricity because we started privatising, so now people are _really_ feeling it here too.
Every time something is privatised, it just gets worse.
Additionally, they keep cutting the budgets of the public services we really need, like hospitals and education, while not making laws and agreements with other countries that ensure we don't have "tax refugees" who mooch wealth off our country.
We need to start making international agreements that make companies and owners pay proper taxes in the countries they produce AND sell products in, so they can't escape taxes by moving to places like Switzerland.
This might mean twisting Switzerland's arm, but they know what they are doing...
As a Swiss I need to counter your argument a bit, with the new international tax laws it will be fairer overall. And companies will leabe Switzerland but you know where they go?
Ireland, the Channel Isles maybe even Panama. Because they are actually far cheaper in corporate taxes than Switzerland.
In my opinion stuff should be nationalised much more often, we have the same problems here as well but still to a lesser degree since privatisation is often stopped by strong political resistance from citizens and left parties.
I think that you're missing a lot about how the electricity grid operates and how the battle to keep everything in balance (and the lights on) is affected by the changing landscape of generation. Admittedly, I have a lot of insider knowledge as it's my job and the subject is really complicated. Let's say that if it were left purely to the markets, there would be local powercuts all the time and probably total grid outages on a regular basis (this has _never_ happened in the UK)
The privatisation of the UK's energy sector happened in the 1980's under the leadership of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Even as a school child back then I immediately clocked on to the danger of this in terms of a strategic view. Imagine if an agressive nation who was looking to take an action that could lead to conflict with the UK were to gain influence over the companies that run the energy sector. No sooner do the enemy forces start marching than all the lights go out. Now, while I was a bit overly dramatic with that line of thought back then, I was not that far from the truth considering what happened to the UK's gas reserves shortly before the invasion of Ukraine.
And that ignores the lunacy of 'private companies offer better value for money than a nationalised service'. Any private company exists to create a profit in order to generate dividends to its shareholders. This means that with private companies any investment is curtailed by the need to pay their shareholders which is a large reason why there has been so little investment in things like reniewable energy sources and updating the rail network (another victim of Tory privatisation schemes) has been sorely lacking since the end of the 1980's.
This is why I would love to see the energy sector re-nationalised. Unfortunately there are a number of stumbling blocks that stop this from being viable. Firstly, there is the right-wing press. The UK press is overwhemingly made up of conservatives who would support Thatcherist policies any day of the week. This means that any political party going into an election with plans to re-nationalise this (or any other industry) would be absolutely crucified in the media. Secondly, there is the abysmal state of public funds. The UK national debt has been growing exponentially for a long time now. The latest official figures (from September 2022) I could find put it at £2.4 trillion. Even after bailing out the banking sector when Labour left office in 2010 the figure was below £1 trillion. The UK's tax reciepts were valued at £718 billion for 2021 - 2022 which means that there is no money left for a huge privatisation effort like this in terms of public finances since even a 20 year repayment plan would strip the budget of at least £120 billion per year.
You're really good at utilising very mild-mannered and historical language to describe events, (and please don't take this as an indictment) in the same way educational texts can lay out ideas in a clearer way than excerpts from primary sources or personal experience!
This means I can show this to a right-wing family member of mine as a reference to their lived experience, and it doesn't seem as aggressively politicised and personal as something identity related.
Useful stuff, thank you for your work!
Always a joy when you upload. This is absolutely the kind of media we need more of. You're doing important work.
Thank you, I really appreciate you saying so!
@@Tom_Nicholas Britain is NOT "bankrupt". Very disingenuous title here.
@@lochnessmunster1189 He did say "bankrupting" not "is bankrupt". But I can't take it literally because I don't know how it's possible for a country to declare bankruptcy. Apart from Greece. But that's obviously different.
@@ericmollison2760 Well, that is true. But it's not in the interest of the energy companies to actually bankrupt a country, because if they do, they will make no income.
@@ericmollison2760 No... if you want to be pedantic about it, the original title _was_ 'How Energy Privatisation Bankrupted Britain'. It's been changed. Not that it matters - the original more hyperbolic title was fine.
You can verify this by searching the original title in Google, in quotation marks.
This is my third video and the quality has never faltered. You've earned a sub.
It's great how virtually everything is privatised in the UK yet the taxes are that of a country with full privatisation
Very nice video.
Worth mentioning that international exchange of electricity is quite substantial in Europe. There are a bunch of systems in place to harmonize the market, such that if there is a ton of wind in one country their cheap energy is exported to neighbours. The UK left many of the mechanisms used to optimize the process after Brexit, making the electricity prices higher in the long run.
Worth mentioning is that with this "substantial international exchange of electricity" the horrendous gas prices in German make the consumer in the Scandinavia and Finland pay the same horrendous prices for wind electricity which is almost free to produce compared to gas. So in effect because German shunned and destroyed their nuclear energy and decided to rely on Putins gas the northern countries that made better decisions are now footing the bill.
@@Axel_Andersen This is unrelated to the UK but sure. Those utilities in Scandinavia are making profit by selling energy to Germany. Bringing in tons of money for Scandinavia in the process. Who makes the profit? Private companies? National producers? (I honestly don't know)
If they are private then tax the hell out of them, or nationalise them, and heavily regulate them... then the profit actually belongs to the people of Scandinavia, what would be so bad about that?
@@aitor9185 They are private companies. Yeah, taxing them would seem like a good option. Not likely to happen though in any meaningful manner. Also at the same time some large energy companies are getting large sums of government subsidies because they speculated with electricity prices with futures and would go under unless they get emergency funding. As tax payer and customer to those companies this does not seem fair.
@@Axel_Andersen privatisazion seems terrible in Scandinavia too. Certainly no one to blame but greed and subpar politicians. Like any other commodity if managed right it could bring large amounts of wealth to those countries, like the Norwegians with their Oil and Gas sovereign fund. That being said, them exporting their clean hydro and wind energy is pretty good for the environment. Also sometimes some countries produce more energy than they need with wind/solar, which if they cannot sell anywhere often goes unused. Energy trading across borders is the way for a renewable future. The exports are not a problem on their own, private profits on those exports is the problem.
@@aitor9185 "their cheap energy is exported to neighbours" - it's not even sold cheaply in their own countries as its pegged to the most expensive type of energy genius. Same old argument, ppl like you with your kind of thinking are so incredibility boring, "if it was this way" or "if we just do this" or "because this was'nt implemented in this way" bla bla bla, none of you have the ability to argue coherently as to why in Europe, the U.S or the U.K that privatisation has had 40 years to prove itself and has utterly failed, you just can't admit privatisation was a solution in search of a problem that never and still doesn't exist.
There was an interesting article in Jacobin about inflation. Before 1934, prices rose and fell according to circumstances - rising during war or in an economic boom, falling after war or in an economic slump - and averaging out at just above 0% for CENTURIES. That's what people and economists expected then. Since 1934 we've had 89 consecutive years of prices rising, even after WW2 and in recessions.
That is on purpose, by keeping a positive inflation we force the rich to invest.
@@Carewolf And ensure that those who do not have the means to invest get to see their "poorness" compound equally.
@@communist754 Technically inflation makes the rich constantly poorer. It is a wealth tax without any bureaucracy. They only gain wealth if they invest, but that is a feature of capitalism, not of inflation.
@@sigi9669 If you don't have wealth, then inflation shouldn't matter to you as your wages and general prices levels should follow. If you wages does not follow inflation, yes, you have a problem, I would suggest joining a union
@@Carewolf No, it doesn't. Because the rich own ASSETS. Inflation is the value if cash declining. Things like expensive art, property and gold hold their "value" and skyocket in cash price as the value of cash deflates. Now you know why the rich are so keen to hold those things!
Awesome video. Enjoyed it even more on Nebula.
It's honestly so easy to get engrossed in these videos that I've only just realised I forgot to subscribe, about 6 videos deep :P excellent quality with in-depth research :D
I live in the US in a state that has universal publicly owned non-profit electricity companies. For a few years in the early 2000s I moved to a state with privately owned electrical utilities and my monthly electric bills absolutely skyrocketed. Whenever anyone asked me what I missed most about my home state my answer was always “SOCIALIZED ELECTRICITY!”
By the way, when you were speaking about the investors who profited off the privatization British electrical utilities you mentioned 37:51 Warren Buffett who ironically lives in my hometown, you know in a state that’s had socialized electricity for over 80 years.
What state are you in? It can't be Texas which had the 2021 blackout.
@@absoleetBuffet lives in Omaha, Nebraska.
and wouldn't Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet's company, love to get their hands on your state power company?
Great video. I'm American so I knew it was bad, but didn't know the full scope or story. Fascinating as it is frustrating.
We make more in the US than most other countries, but the cost here is insane. Rent that takes half your wages, health insurance that costs thousands per year and yet we still have to pay thousands more for treatment. When the man said the utilities skyrocketed to over £2,000 and people can't afford it I was sitting here like... My utilities for a small two bedroom apartment are more than that in the US. Don't even get me started on the insane price of college or the fact that food costs have skyrocketed here the last couple years. 😅😢
That's capitalism you guy's in the states pay the most for health and get the least just so the one percent can keep collecting money that is impossible to spend in multiple lifetimes and it's highly unlikely to change just so long as the masses fall for the narrative that anything remotely left leaning is Stalinism.
The freemarket isn't free and will always be exploited unless regulated by strong democratic representation of for the benefit of the people. I can recommend yanis varoufakis "brief history of capitalism" to explain how we got here
Insane that society at large isn't up in arms about the way privatization of basic, necessary resources is being used to extract so much wealth from ordinary people
Let's say a new energy-provider came onto the market. Would this lead to an increase in the "extracting of wealth" from the ordinary people?
@@lochnessmunster1189 depends on the preexisting condition. If there's already 15 different private providers, one more changes nothing. If the only provider is public, then any money that goes to the private alternative's profit is money that exits the pocket of the community, so yes.
@@bacicinvatteneaca "one more changes nothing"- not correct. If there are 15 private providers already and another is to emerge, it must be competitive (undercut prices of others) if it is to exist at all.
@@lochnessmunster1189thats doesn’t happen tho does it.
@@lsmithhat8541 Would a free market make it harder, or easier, for new competitors to emerge?
the mention of boxes of space marines caught me SO OFF GUARD omfg 🤣
Must be some pretty big boxes when they contain not only one, but SEVERAL space marines!
Maybe one could conquer the British power industry in the name of the Emperor!
It pleased me no end that “Cans of Beans” and “Space Marines” rhymed.
@@Tom_Nicholas Space Marines in cans of beans?
@@Tom_Nicholas Well unfortunately these days GW will call them "Primarian Grobbleslaughterers" or some other trademarkable world salad, so rhyming them is a bit more of a stretch :P
It was brilliant along with the subtle reference to Star Wars when showing the logo of The Resistance
Loving your work, first time I've come across it. As someone who literally watched their family's financial struggles increase exponentially due to Thatcher's policies whilst they swallowed them whole and (still) blame the Labour party it's helpful to have later generations research and explain why it was all the lie that so many of us knew it was. Hope remains no matter how faded the light.
Well, as soon as people can afford to keep that light on they should be able to have hope again...
Hope is only warranted when something is being done to fix an issue, what is being done?
As someone who saw their father work 14 hour days, 7 days a week for years just to keep the house over his family’s head and have that business reduced to nothing thanks to the postal workers going on strike there are winners and losers in every political solution. Given what a basket cast the UK was in the 70s the thatcher years transformed the country on the whole for the better. The unions led to the downfall of the industries they tended to dominate. Union legislation was needed or the uk would have been forever trapped in a spiral of inflation through excessive wage demands, feeding money printing to pay for it, more inflation, more wage demands etc. thatchers policies led to inflation reduction and growth allowing the uk to become one of the top 4 economies by gdp in the world. Since then we’ve slipped back down to 6th or so.
However the balance against unions has tipped too far and we have an exploitative employment environment and are reaping the reward of the false growth under New Labour and epically incompetent Tory government who followed them.
The cult of the CEO and the disparate sharing of the rewards for profits where they are diverted to the very richest in society has caused the end of the road that we are sitting in now but the rich are still looking for ways to keep their ever increasing wealth increasing at the rate it has done for years.
The trouble is that people like this chap here look at the policies and make conclusions without the context of the time and apply post boom economics to the situation and conclude if we were more socialist then everything would be fine. It wouldn’t.
It’s an easy trope to throw out hitting Thacher and neo liberalism to an echo chamber and say everything goes would be better if it’s public owned but it isn’t.
Before you think I’m just a Tory bot, I have worked in the public sector (12 years+) and private sector. I’ve gone on strike when needed and I firmly believe in the unions, but I’ve seen too many unions that are more on changing the government than focusing on their members. Socialism dosnt work, but neither does capitalism because we don’t have capitalism. So in this world we need a capitalist system with elements of socialism baked in.
@davideyres955 I’m curious. In what manner was the economic growth under Labour “false”?
According to Finnish health authorities and experts, a healthy indoor temperature is not 20°C but 17°C, and when the price of electricity is at its highest, in winter the indoor temperature can be temporarily lowered to 15°C in order to reduce electricity consumption and save electricity without it affecting human health. And the reason why electricity needs to be saved during price spikes is that if we keep electricity consumption constantly the same, there will not be enough electricity for everyone even if we increase its production.
When the North Sea oil and gas rigs came up for sale, the two owners, Norway and Britain had a choice, retain the oil and gas fields or sell them off. Maggie had an election coming up where she had promised tax cuts. She decided to sell the rights so as to remain in power. Norway retained their ownership and created one of the largest Sovereign Wealth Funds in the world. Thus making Noeway a very rich nation, if Maggie had the nation's wealth at heart she could have made Britain compatible with Norway.
As we all now know now, when something is privatised, the price goes up and the service goes down.
If only Milton Friedman had not been born the world would be a different place, especially in the environmental sense. We now ravage the planet for profit and shareholder dividends.
“Politicians are a strange breed of bird. They sing about their noble intentions and charitable hearts, and they roost with the most contemptible and corrupt of creatures.”
“The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage & whup their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy-then go back to the office & sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.”
― Hunter S. Thompson,
"We now ravage the planet for profit"- if you lived alone on an island, and needed to utilise the resources, would you be "ravaging" the planet for profit, even in a tiny way?
Just reading an article about the loss of orchards in Kent due to the cost of electricity for cold storage. The prices have gone up 300% so consequently growers are digging up their orchards because it’s unsustainable. From now on we can expect to import apples. The knock-on effect of privatised energy is far-reaching.
The knock-on effect for all prices is far-reaching, in fairness.
@@lochnessmunster1189 you are quite the capitalist reply guy lmao, smh. I'd suggest you take a peek at Capital for beginners by Michael Wayne iirc, it will clear up many of the misconceptions you have been parroting around the comment section. Take care and please try to read something about economics, even Adam Smith realized the faults in the talking points you so enthusiastically repeat again and again.
WRONG. “Prices have gone up…” This is the result of the price shock from stopping Putin in Ukraine, and the consequent supply disruption of cut-off Russian energy. Six months ago, were I a political leader, I would have made peace with the evil Putin to cease the shortage. And their knock ons.
@@lochnessmunster1189How much you getting paid? One has to be particularly dim not to see through all your comments.
@@thecrimsondragon9744 What do you mean?
As a Scot, I got a big laugh at him saying we would take it well, being left out.
Privatization of public services is the downfall of society world wide!
“We’re going to ignore Scotland” while leaving Northern Ireland out of all the moving bits of the animations and not even acknowledging it exists. We’re used to it.
I feel you, I also live in an area of the country that isn't London or the South East, and the recent media coverage of the "new leveling up" is a joke, the media kept quoting 10's of millions going to this region or that region, whilst they failed to mention that 2/3rds of the billions on offer are being spent in London and the South East. Rishi just carrying on diverting funds from the poor regions to the rich regions, again.
'But what use is simple, when it's not creating any shareholder value?' basically sums it up
A couple of days ago, there was a train crash in my country, Greece, killing over 35 people, mostly young students travelling the busiest train route in the country. There was a single operator, and everything was operated manually, no GPS systems. Greece was forced by the EU to privatize Hellenic Train in 2017, selling it for peanuts to an Italian company.
In the US, an entire town is probably contaminated with unknown chemicals due to a train derailment by Norfolk Southern. The company carried out some very unbiased research and says it's totally ok to go home, so what if the water smells like burned plastic?
Nothing out of the ordinary, really.
This your best video so far in my opinion.
It was really easy to understand and the topic affects pretty much 90% of the population.
Unfortunately pretty much the same thing has happened here in Australia. Energy prices have skyrocketed.
Except in WA. The government still owns the companies. They are run as pseudo private entities owned by the government.
And the crazy part is that Australia has plenty of gas, but the government allowed private companies to export all of it overseas - just because it was more profitable!
@@simonabunker Not in WA. 10% of gasnos reserved. Gas prices are low, power prices never spiked. It's very possible to have a functional system, you just have to remember that gas and power companies are sometimes bastards.
@@letsburn00 I almost did say except WA! And I think that just proves even more how this is a product of corporate greed rather than being a real crisis.
@@letsburn00 Yep - if anything Australia has a direct local point of comparison about what privatisation does, insane so many people there still support it!
Though the traditional conservative response to that is to white-ant, scupper, or generally ruin anything they can't privatise to make it so dysfunctional the public will WANT it privatised (eg. NBN)
Can't believe I haven't come across this channel before. Excellent video. Well researched, and brilliantly presented. New fan!
Thank you! And welcome! I hope you enjoy some of my other stuff!
Great work Tom.
Excellent video as always Tom!
But totally incorrect title. Britain isn't "bankrupt".
@@lochnessmunster1189 _'Bankrupted'_ doesn't have to mean literally 100% bankrupt
@@SomeoneOnlyWeKnow. Now the goalposts are being moved; come on. You're better than a politician!!
@@lochnessmunster1189 I'm just saying that taking a youtube video title completely literally either means you're very new to youtube and the internet as a whole or you're just being silly
I think what anyone who claims private industry is more efficient than public government has failed to realize - is that private profit is mechanically the same thing as public corruption. And as profit is the entire point of private industry... There is no way it can actually be more efficient than public government.
Another exceptional video, if not one that made me incredibly angry as a young person who has recently moved into my own (rental) flat, and having to live in the cold over the winter since energy was so unaffordable. My Nebula subscription recently lapsed, and come payday I’ll find the change to use your link since my Patreon budget is still yet to manifest. Keep up the incredible work Tom! ❤
Completely dishonest title for this video. Britain isn't "bankrupt" in any way, shape or form.
@@lochnessmunster1189 When a large proportion of the country's population is unable to afford to heat their homes, one could say the country is broke/bankrupt.
It's even worse when you consider how mild the winter is in the UK, compared to places like Canada or the northern US, where people can heat their homes just fine.
@@thelight3112 But when you say "large proportion", which numbers do you have? And when you say "is unable to afford to heat their homes", do you mean, heat them in any way? Your claim is very vague: and I'm not meaning to be facetious.
Here's one you forgot to mention that left my jaw on the floor: he didn't just want you to go to the bare minimum for the thermostat, he asked who had their thermostat on 18⁰ or LESS
Amazing video man, very informative and well researched which did not put me to sleep. I think I will sub! :D
essentials like energy, transportation, healthcare, and food just shouldn't be privatized.
Also, housing.
Thatcher didn't get the memo
Are you suggesting collective Agriculture? How are you going to convince farmers of that. the farmers I know would probably barricade themselves in their homes and shoot anyone trying to force them out. This has been these families homes and livelihoods for generations, often centuries. The issue of food prices at the moment stems from the energy crisis and brexit. Import costs and refrigeration costs are what are driving up food prices not profiteering.
@@Jay_Johnson no, he is not suggesting collectivised farming. I think farmers should just be employees of the state, like teachers or firemen. This would give farmers much needed security aswell.
@@andreaslind6338 Pretty much government owning farmland and farmers working it.
Both France and Britain used to have civilian nuclear power as a part of the nationally owned electricity production authority. It has turned out that although reactors run by ordinary civil servants can be a brilliant success, private ownership probably doesn't know how to hire the right people. EDF used to be Électricité de France, and the energy companies of the EU could not compete with it. It is now a private company mostly owned by the French government, but it has lost its soul.
This is all the more horrid in that nuclear is the only technology that is both more reliable, safer, and environmentally cleaner than fossil fuels. The actual quantity of fuel and waste per unit of energy, or of average power for a year, is millions of times less than for fossil fuel.
Interesting extra tidbit: nuclear produces less radioactive waste than coal, except the one produced by nuclear is solid while that of coal is dust suspended in the fumes...
This is an interesting take on the privatisation of power utilities. Here in South Africa, we are looking at generating our own power because the Government cannot porvide power at all.
We are stuck between a rock and hard place. I can see this happening in SA with the current bozos in power. Our private sector is notorious for collusion which would kill us even further. I have no tangible solution but a half arsed public private solution with more leeway given to the private sector.
You got taken over by blacks your country is a joke
Eskom's monopoly on power generation is going to destory South Africa.
Great video Tom! Really love how deep your research and analysis goes - you give me hope in YT creators - thank you for your very important work 💚