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Started by K-Dog, Aug 30, 2024, 10:52 AM

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K-Dog

This is so good I downloaded our own copy.  I am deregulating information by doing this.

This passage I read yesterday sets the mood.

QuoteThe Tramway Company, the Water Works Company, the Public Baths Company,
the Winter Gardens Company, the Grand Hotel Company and numerous others. There was, however, one Company in which Sweater, Rushton, Didlum and Grinder had no shares, and that was the Gas Company, the oldest and most flourishing of them all. This institution had grown with the place; most of the original promoters were dead, and the greater number of the present shareholders were non-residents; although they lived on the town, they did not live in it.
 
The profits made by this Company were so great that, being prevented by law from paying a larger dividend than ten percent, they frequently found it a difficult matter to decide what to do with the money. They paid the Directors and principal officials--themselves shareholders, of course--enormous salaries. They built and furnished costly and luxurious offices and gave the rest to the shareholders in the form of Bonuses.

There was one way in which the Company might have used some of the profits: it might have granted shorter hours and higher wages to the workmen whose health was destroyed and whose lives were shortened by the terrible labor of the retort-houses and the limesheds; but of course none of the directors or shareholders ever thought of doing that. It was not the business of the Company to concern itself about
them.

Years ago, when it might have been done for a comparatively small amount, some hare-brained Socialists suggested that the town should buy the Gas Works, but the project was wrecked by the inhabitants, upon
whom the mere mention of the word Socialist had the same effect that the sight of a red rag is popularly supposed to have on a bull.

Of course, even now it was still possible to buy out the Company, but it was supposed that it would cost so much that it was generally considered to be impracticable.



K-Dog

#1
Those were the days my friends.

The tragedy of the the commons.  Before Trump, before 911, before privatization sealed our doom.  The Tragedy of the commons was discussed by doomers.


https://aeon.co/essays/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-is-a-false-and-dangerous-myth

That enormous fucking piles of money pay attention to essays without research backing up claims is no surprise.

Doom Déjà vu.

RE

Kangaroos and Koalas don't vote.

RE