Economics – how hard can it be?

By Jim Moores Twitter: @jimmoores

I am no economist.

However as a mere human being, with nothing like the vast intelligence of our esteemed leaders, I am trying to understand “economics” as implemented by Mrs Thatcher and her most recent apprentice Mr G Osborne.

Just to set the scene – and I cannot guarantee all the details – the Anglo Saxon approach since Thatcher/Reagan (and before) has been to pass control over industry and commerce to private sector banks, finance houses and corporations. It was promised that the wealth would trickle down to the rest of us.

Everything for sale

In the UK that meant the selloff, at bargain prices, of British Telecom, the entire energy supply, water, rail, British Aerospace, Cable and Wireless, British Steel, Rolls Royce, Jaguar, British Petroleum, British Airways, British Leyland, Associated British Ports, Enterprise Oil, British Coal, British Shipbuilders, National Freight Corporation, Amersham International, British Airports Authority, Eurostar and more recently the Post Office and Royal Mail. If anyone is interested the full list can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_privatizations

Whole chunks of the NHS are now in private hands, with £billions being tendered for at any given moment.

We all benefit from privatisation?

So, how does the general population, which the Government is elected to “serve”, benefit from all of this? Because surely, that’s what Osborne’s economics is all about – making sure that we all share in the combined fruits of our labours rather then it being a mechanism to make a tiny number of people very, very rich.

Well, Margaret Thatcher created headlines and excitement with her speech wishing for a society ‘where owning shares is as common as having a car’ in 1985, at the Tory Party conference.

Some 76 per cent of households own a car or van today, whereas only 19 per cent of adults own shares now. Apparently the 1% bought the shares as the poor cashed them in to pay for increasing energy bills etc.

And we were promised that all of our services would be better once they faced competition and were not state owned monopolies. There have no doubt been improvements but, I would argue, those have been more about the advancing technologies than the simple fact that the private sector runs the show. Are our trains cheaper, in real terms, and better? Do we get cheaper energy and better service? Maybe there are lessons to be learnt from East Coast Mainline rail franchise. In 2009 National Express had to give up the franchise because they could not make any money; in 2014, after 5 years in public hands, it gave £225m back to the Treasury (making a total of £1bn over the 5 years); then in 2015 it was privatised again.

And who actually owns our utilities and industries?

When Thatcher had us all dreaming of the day when every citizen would have a stake in our national industries everything looked rosy. In actuality our water, electricity, gas, transport and a host of other utilities are now owned by the state governments of Spain, France, the Netherlands, German and others. Almost every time we take a train journey or turn on a light we are subsidising citizens of one or other of those countries. Fantastic! The dream of privatisation is well and truly fulfilled.

As we watch our steel industry go the way of our coal mines, a far right Conservative government is handing our nuclear power to the Chinese state along with HS2. Now that is irony. But not to worry, the Chinese have promised to build some theme parks, with shopping facilities, which we really, really need.

Oh and there are a few other, British, bits and pieces that the Chinese own :

Investor	Value	Share Size	Partner/Target	Sector
Nanjing Auto	$100		MG	Transport
China Development Bank	$800	1%	Anglo-American	Metals
China Development Bank	$3,040	3%	Barclays	Finance
SAFE	$2,010	1%	BP	Energy
CIC	$370	1%	Diageo	Agriculture
Sinochem	$880	100%	Emerald Energy	Energy
CIC	$450	19%	Songbird Estates	Real estate
CIC	$960	2%	Apax Finance	Finance
CNPC	$510	50%	INEOS Britain	Energy
CIC	$920	9%	Thames Water	Utilities
Bright Foods	$1,940	60%	Weetabix	Agriculture
SAFE	$440			Real estate
SAFE	$200	10%	Veolia Water	Utilities
Sinopec	$1,500	49%	Talisman Energy	Energy
CIC	$730	10%	Ferrovial	Transport
CIC	$400		Deutsche Bank	Real estate
SAFE	$110	49%	One Angel Square	Real estate
SAFE	$840	40%	UPP Group	Real estate
Geely Auto	$150	100%	Manganese Bronze	Transport
Dalian Wanda	$1,090			Real estate
Dalian Wanda	$500	92%	Sunseeker	Transport
Ping An	$390		Commerz Real	Real estate
Fosun	$100			Real estate
Huawei	$200			Technology
China South Industries	$100			Transport
Shanghai Greenland	$980		Minerva	Real estate
ICBC	$690	60%	Standard Bank	Finance
Shanghai Greenland	$990		Commercial Estates Group	Real estate
Geely Auto	$200	100%	Emerald Automotive	Transport
Sanpower	$790	89%	House of Fraser	Other
China Life	$950	70%	Qatar Holding	Real estate
China Construction Bank	$190			Real estate
Lenovo	$1,540	100%	PizzaExpress	Agriculture
SAFE	$170	49%	Statkraft	Energy
Minsheng Bank and Advanced Business Park	$1,510			Real estate
SAFE	$290	50%	Fosse Shopping Park	Other
China General Nuclear	$160	100%	Electricite du France	Energy
Ping An	$480	100%	Tower Place	Real estate
Ctrip	$160	100%	Travelfusion	Tourism
Fosun	$140	5%	Thomas Cook Group	Tourism
Geely Auto	$370			Transport
CSR	$190	100%	Specialist Machine Developments	Transport
	$28,530

© Data compiled by The American Enterprise Institute and The Heritage Foundation. All rights reserved

In the words of the Daily Mail :

“Without a thought to the future, we’ve sold four of our big six energy firms to foreigners who view us as little more than a useful profit centre.

In fact, the day may well come when we no longer own any of our vital public services at all.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2130221/Britain-sale-How-long-foreign-power-turns-Britains-lights.html

Thank you Mrs Thatcher and, of course, Mr Osborne. Simple really.

Contact:

Jim Moores can be contacted at: jim.moores@socialcarenetwork.com