An Amusing Article

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Bryn Mawr
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An Amusing Article

Post by Bryn Mawr »

Whilst sitting here today I started to translate an article from the local newspaper. I chose it to practice on as it's the first article I've seen that describes England :-

"Water ... refreshing water! International examples of water privatization"



To my amusement they showed their opinion of the UK in the first sentence "Thatcherism was not natural".

It doesn't take a lot to amuse me :-)
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tude dog
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An Amusing Article

Post by tude dog »

I tried to look up where your article come from. Closest I come to was FEW Resources.org

The quote "Thatcherism was not natural" tickled me but water is a serious subject.

I grew up in semi-arid California where and the whole southwest USA water is big time politics. I suppose that is why water is always in the back of my mind.

Now I live in the middle of the country where main industry is agriculture, and of course water is important.

All that said, safe water to drink is a universal concern.

Just some thoughts.
What happened to Kamala Harris' campaign?
She had the black vote all locked up.
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Fuzzy
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An Amusing Article

Post by Fuzzy »

I live in a rural area on the driest continent on earth. Luckily it rains enough here in winter to keep my water tank levels up high enough all summer.
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
gmc
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An Amusing Article

Post by gmc »

I live in one of the wettest countries (scotland). All the water infrasructure, dams pipeleines etc etc was built by the town and city corporations it has never ever been owned privately until thatcher sold it all off. Now we pay our rates and foreign companies take the profit and don't bother reinvesting and demand subsidies from government to do so. There's something obscene about the notion that something so important be controlled by companies where profit is the main concern.

Water privatisation in England and Wales - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Water privatisation in England and Wales remains controversial. A 2001 study by the Public Services International Research Unit stated that

tariffs increased by 46% in real terms during the first nine years,

operating profits have more than doubled (+142%) in eight years,

investments were reduced and

public health was jeopardised through cut-offs for non-payment, however, this was made illegal in 1998 along with prepayment meters and 'trickle valves'.[2]

At privatisation the industry's £4.95 billion debt was written off. Privatisation critics argued in 1997 that infrastructure—particularly sewers—was not adequately maintained and that OFWAT implicitly "gave (its) approval to running down the underground network". Furthermore, OFWAT was accused of not comparing company performance with targets, not relating performance standards with past or projected levels of investment, failing to "publish information in a consistent form" and not requesting that levels of service indicators become mandatory. Instead company licenses were renegotiated to address performance issues. The critics concluded that in the "conflict between making profits and providing a certain level of services" the legislation "resolves it in favor of profit".[3]

It was alleged that the consequences of the 1988 Camelford water pollution incident were covered up partly because prosecution would "render the whole of the water industry unattractive to the City".






I still hate thatcher
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Bryn Mawr
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An Amusing Article

Post by Bryn Mawr »

The article was in a bi-monthly newspaper called Απατρις (Stateless) that's distributed in this part of Crete and it was, indeed, about Thatcher's privatisation of the UK water industry and it's repercussions - an odd subject for a Greek newspaper but it compared the UK to Nicaragua, France, India and Bolivia to the detriment of the UK and laid the blame squarely at Thatcher's door.
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