[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/9051107/Water-bills-to-rise-by-up-to-8.8pc.htmlAnother example of utility companies ripping off customers by raising its prices way above inflation.[/url

It seems that, if you're a private utility or train company, then inflation is not a barrier to price hikes.

If you're a humble worker, on the other hand, you absolutely cannot expect your pay to rise even in line with inflation, let alone above it.

We're all in this together – right?

I'm certainly in it.

Orange Mobile have just done the same thing with a 5+% increase in their monthly charges even if you thought you had a contract with them.

In fact in their "FAQ" they've answered what everyone must have shouted at their email when they saw it with "Yes, we can increase your contract charges by the inflation rate set at August in each calendar year", fact is their revenues must have been falling (like most mobile operators) and they thought all their christmasses had come at once when inflation hit its high in August last year.

I was going to renew my contract with them in April, but they'll have to work hard to keep me now.

People should just agree en masse not to pay the increase. Pay the same as this year, and leave the balance outstanding on the final payment.

Everybody should send a standard letter back when they get their water rates demand, saying in effect "No, i don't agree to the new prices, I can only afford to keep it on at the existing rate, and I'll adjust my last payment accordingly. Hope this is OK".

If everybody or the overwhelming majority agreed to do it, then the water companies couldn't do anything about it. They are hardly going to spend a few hundred quid on enforcement costs per person to possibly recover no more than fifty quid. They are hardly going to cut off the whole country.

However nearly all of those who have to pay will moan but will still pay. The water companies know this, and so can do whatever they like.

I'm going to empty and then refill my pond every Saturday morning in protest (not on meter

) or if not in protest then at least to get my money's worth - and I'll use the toilet a lot more next year too.

Or you could write and say, for a small discount of say, oh, 8%, you won't?

I'm still laying low from Yorkshire Water after the last time I filled it and it ended up taking my garden all the way down to Horsforth ... [urlhttp://jerrychicken.blogspot.com/2007/04/dude-wheres-my-pond.html[/url

You socialists should be pleased that at last some investment is taking place in the water industry. That's why the price is having to go up after all those years of unionised labour holding us to ransom. You had the chance to buy shares like everyone else.

My word. Foes bin from 0 - 3 in 2 days! Better stats than my Peugeot . . .

I thought of you this morning, when I saw a range of cards like [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/images/B005L9F73U/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=11052681&s=kitchenthis[/url in a shop.

To add, if I remember correctly, water was sold off at a knock-down price to start with, in recognition of the fact that much needed doing on the infrastructure, so that excuse won't wash (so to speak).

Don't start with the Guinea Pigs please....

What's a foe bin and can I have one please?

You click on a twart's Profile and add them as a foe. Then you no longer have to read their drivel, as by default it is removed.

It would be a good feature of the site if each person could see somewhere their own current "foe'd" count.



=#8080FFAnd you'd be wise to leave the Guinea Pigs alone, they have eyes and ears everywhere . . .

Mmm shame, moderators have to read everyone's drivel.

Twart.

Good word.


I shall bear in mind the Guinea Pigs, we have one lurking behind the door as I type.


And thanks for the advice on the Foe bin, off to use it now. Not as much as I could, I need Robinson and Dally for my daily hate.

Using terms like 'ripping off' shows a lack of understanding as to how monopoly businesses are regulated. The regulations are highly formulaic and based on agreed allowances for operating costs and acceptable rates of return for investent in capital. These rules in turn enable the company to raise both equity and debt finance.

Increased capital spend leads to higher prices - otherwise the investment simply won't happen. Delaying necessary investment simply leads to a more significant price shock further down the track. Would you rather a 30% increase in three years time than 8% today (together with deteriorating services in the meantime)? That tends to be what happens when you delay investment in asset-intensive industries.

That's even before you get to the multiplier effect of the investments being made (especially important in times of recession when investment elsewhere is subdued) and the fact that anyone with a pension fund indirectly owns shares in a number of such utlities.

Indeed. Water was sold off at a reduced price in recognition of the investment in infrastructure that would be needed. That was around 23 years ago. So yes, it's quite clear what happens when a private monopoly decides to delay investment – we get to foot the bill. Just as we all face above-inflation price hikes for other utilities (and transport etc). Because they are no longer run as important services, but as ways of making as much profit as possible.

The government spent over £20,000,000 to advertise the water privatisation over a 3 month period. That is a massive amount in any budget for 3 months nearly 23 years ago. but similar in budget to the electricity one and there was one other that escapes me. It might have been the railways, but I really can't recall.

They spent £20m of taxpayers' money to sell off something the taxpayer didn't want selling off in the first place.

The cost of ideology, eh?

It's rather amusing, in a dry sort of fashion, reading the forums at the [iTelegraph[/i of late, where there are increasing numbers of contributors posting things such as: 'I never thought I'd say so, but we should never have privatised X, Y and Z.'

I know, i have the live video feed from Chief Pig HQ



Oh, you wouldn't bin off anyone like that. Just the very rarest of beasts with not even a molecule of point to their existence, where on reading their posts, the answer to the question, "Do I begrudge the wear and tear on my optic nerves for having to transmit this to my brain" is a clear "Yes". I give you Captain Capslock, for example.

With a water board that we all own, we rightly accept that we really are all in it together when there's a water shortage.

But, in the same drought, having to pay a water bill to a profit-making company that doesn't actually supply you with any water is completely different.

What no one can ever adequately explain to me is given we pay for this capital investment with higher prices anyway is why those prices would not be lower if a profit was not being taken.

If people really do believe privatised companies are more efficient than nationalised ones why not run them along the exact same lines but minus the shareholders and use the profit to keep the prices down?

The idea we need these companies as they are because our pensions invest in them is a no reason for privatisation either. Our pension funds would simply invest in something else.