Without the funding, Thames Water will run out of money in March, which could force the government to temporarily nationalize the company. Both the government and Thames Water say water will continue flowing to customers regardless of what happens.
Thames Water, which has about 17 billion pounds ($20.9 billion) of debt and has been repeatedly cited for illegal sewage spills, is at the center of a nationwide backlash over rising water bills as Britain seeks to modernize its water and sewage systems to cope with climate change and a growing population.
The company has been the focus of criticism from consumers and politicians who say Thames Water created its own problems by paying overly generous dividends to investors and high salaries to executives while failing to invest in pipelines, pumps and reservoirs. Company executives say the fault lies with regulators who kept bills too low for too long, starving the company of the cash it needed to fund improvements.
Private business
It’s insane that this isn’t nationalized immediately. Privatizing it in the first place is the work of people who are corrupt as hell, inhumanly evil, dumb as rocks, or, most likely, all of the above.
In this case corrupt and evil. Thatcher had tried it twice before and had to back down because it was (and still is) an incredibly unpopular policy that was at risk of losing them the 1987 election. Immediately after the election they privatized the lot before anyone could complain.
Smart evil is so much scarier than stupid evil.
Eh I’d argue trump is scarier than like Jeff bezos or whatever. He’s so dumb he fucks everybody over with some of his policies. Like sure, maybe some of it is on purpose but I’d be willing to bet a lot isn’t.