We can use the privatisation of water in the UK as a case study.
The water companies in regions across the UK were privatised.
Lots of big international companies borrowed lots of money to buy these companies.
The water companies then borrowed large amounts of money, secured against their ability to extract rent from their customers, and the owners used that money to pay of the debt they had incurred in buying the water company, and also paid it as dividends.
So basically the debt burden moved from the buyers to the company they had brought. Neat!
Now a couple of decades later you have these water companies with silly amounts of debt, the technical debt of not maintaining and investing in the infrastructure (they keep blaming the Victorians, but that is just blame spin) and an owner who would be happy to cut ties and let the water company flounder to be rescued by the taxpayer...
You are derailing my question above with a whataboutism here and I am being downvoted for pointing that out.
There are problems with a lot of things in the world, for instance the rentier economy you mention here. But I don't owe anyone a solution to that just because I want to know which privatisations are the cause of the Swedish energy production and price crisis.
willvarfar|1 year ago
The water companies in regions across the UK were privatised.
Lots of big international companies borrowed lots of money to buy these companies.
The water companies then borrowed large amounts of money, secured against their ability to extract rent from their customers, and the owners used that money to pay of the debt they had incurred in buying the water company, and also paid it as dividends.
So basically the debt burden moved from the buyers to the company they had brought. Neat!
Now a couple of decades later you have these water companies with silly amounts of debt, the technical debt of not maintaining and investing in the infrastructure (they keep blaming the Victorians, but that is just blame spin) and an owner who would be happy to cut ties and let the water company flounder to be rescued by the taxpayer...
hurril|1 year ago
There are problems with a lot of things in the world, for instance the rentier economy you mention here. But I don't owe anyone a solution to that just because I want to know which privatisations are the cause of the Swedish energy production and price crisis.