Ray, you sure hit a bunch of my hot buttons there! You have picked an excellent example of state versus free. That one has all the ingredients.
Heck, I could write a record rant on this one.
So far they have cost me about NZ$8000 [US$4000]. Other electricity customers of other power boards got their money years ago and now buy electricity on normal commercial terms.
I got the dubious pleasure of being a serf of the Auckland Consumer Trust instead of the loot. Those losers give me a cheque occasionally, being my share of the profits, except they seem to have decided it's silly to give the shareholders money and much better to keep it for management to have a lot of fun with.
It was about the only power board in the country which didn't give customers the shares of the company and leave them to do what the heck they liked.
Now, hordes of immigrants, who did nothing to build this country, move into the area, open an electricity account and immediately have the same ownership as I do of the electricity supply, not to mention roads, hospitals, schools and a lot more besides.
<"UnitedNetworks has announced it is considering a possible sale of its operations, either as a whole or split into its various assets, and we feel we should look at the opportunities certain assets may present for Vector," said Vector Chief Executive Patrick Strange in a statement Tuesday.
Strange said the application to the Commerce Commission is a preliminary step in the event the company decides to bid for any of the assets.
The company didn't state which assets would fit its business model or if it has decided on a timetable for making a bid. Interview requests by Dow Jones Newswires were turned down by the company.
Vector, which is 100% owned by the Auckland Consumer Trust, operates electricity networks businesses in the Auckland region with a customer base of 270,000....
>
Now, Patrick Strange is planning to play corporate acquisition games and pour the lot down the drain.
"Business model" is excessively fancy jargon for what they do. Use of such fancy jargon will cost millions for marketing consultants and business plan consultants and model manoeuvers.
The whole shambles was a pathetic attempt at 'privatisation' which has been a total shambles and waste of money and windfall ripoff for management and a few lucky customers. It would have been better to just leave the whole lot in public ownership. Communism beats the mess they achieved, which is communism, but on large salaries on steroids with all the accoutrements of big business budgets and price rises.
The way to privatise it was to raise prices to what the market would bear and use that income to lower property charges. Do the same with water and sewerage and telephone services and the publicly-owned land those services use.
Then property taxes wouldn't be necessary.
Then, sell 70% of the shares at auction - leaving the buyers to charge what the market would bear. That would make large profits and enable dramatic reductions in property charges [rates].
I'd trust the free market a lot more than I trust Patrick Strange and the self-important politicians running the show in my home village.
Long ago, the predecessor of Vector, and other power boards, were customers of mine [for transformer oil among other stuff]. They, like all government enterprises I ever dealt with, were remarkably inefficient, wasteful, extravagant, lazy and frustrating.
Okay, I shall simply stop now to save my 'breath'. There are lots of aspects to the subject of Vector, but I don't think many will be fascinated. The communist totalitarians will remain convinced that George Orwell was a loser, so I might as well just give up.
Mqurice |
