Comment by rayiner
9 hours ago
What is the number? It is a huge red flag if you see an article that cites a profits number without citing a number for capital invested. You literally cannot reach a conclusion either way without comparing the two numbers.
EDIT: The UK water regulator has the capital investment data here: https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/publication/long-term-data-series-o.... What does it say?
> You literally cannot reach a conclusion either way without comparing the two numbers.
You certainly can reach a conclusion, and the GP did.
What you can't do is to compute the rate on return on their investment. But as a user of a water system, why do I care about that?
You cannot reach a conclusion. A conclusion is a rational thing based on comparing realistic alternatives.
As the user of the water system you do have to care about the return on investment. Because the alternative is to have the government take out bonds to pay for that work, and you’d have to pay the interest on those bonds with your tax dollars.
The conclusion in this case is very simple: 86 billion has been taken in profits, with very limited capital investment.
Now .. what to do about that? That's a bit more complicated, but we could at least start from the premise that had the water systems been public, that 86 billion could have been spent on capital investment without a single bond being issued.
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