“The greatest obstacle to living is expectation, which depends on tomorrow and wastes today”
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 49-55AD
Month: October 2015
On the £800m windfall for the water companies.
Sir,
Is it not a good time to re-nationalise the water companies (Watchdog accuses water groups of retaining £800m excess, 14th October)? It is hard to regulate natural monopolies, like public utilities, water in particular. With reduced corporation tax and lower borrowing costs water companies have benefited greatly resulting in the £800m windfall as reported by the NAO. Some of these companies are also publicly listed, such as United Utilities, Severn Trent and Pennon Group, paying generous dividends. Water companies should follow gas suppliers (albeit belatedly) and start passing on savings to consumers, or the government should threaten to nationalise partly, some of the companies, as Ofwat, the regulator seems to have not been able to do its job properly.
Ferhat Culfaz
Susan Sontag on what is a Flaneur in photography
Robespierre on foreign incursions
“The most extravagant idea that can arise in the mind of a politician is the belief that a people need only make an armed incursion into the territory of a foreign people, to make it adopt its laws and its constitution. No one likes armed missionaries; and the first counsel given by nature and prudence is to repel them as enemies.”
Robespierre, Virtue and Terror, p. 31.
Ferhat Culfaz 