On 05/01/12 14:48, Lüko Willms wrote:
Am 05.01.2012 15:13, schrieb The Real Doctor:
All I asked was whether you believed that the holocaust (a) occurred and
(b) mattered.

I do not think that it matters for the issue under discussion. See the
Subject line, see the name of the Newsgroup.

But you did think it appropriate to introduce the Hitlerzeit, the
Falklands and so on. You raised 'em, you deal with 'em.

Ian

On 05/01/2012 14:30, Lüko Willms wrote (about Orwell):
The people who were on the list were not his friends any more, I think.

But makeing a big fuss about this list of people known for their
political stance is typical for the stalinists, who never forgave Orwell
his "Homage to Catalunya", where he destroyed all the stalinist lies
against the Spanish revolutionaries in the most effective way, and gave
a sober description of the counter-revolutionary role of stalinism in
the Spanish civil war. That is the real cause of the Stalinist hate of
Orwell, which you reflect here, not this list. The list is only a cover.

So thread drift is only a problem for you on selected occasions?

--
Graham Nye
news(a)thenyes.org.uk

"Lüko Willms" wrote in message

Am 05.01.2012 15:39, schrieb Graham Nye:
In the UK, shares of state-owned companies ("nationalised", in our
terminology) aren't traded on a stock exchange. All shares are
retained by the state and none are sold.

Only if the state decides to sell the company ("privatise" it) will
the shares be released for trading in a stock exchange.

or selling chunks of shares directly to an "investor".

Did they put the shares of British Rail up for sale on the stock
exchange? Not as far as I know.

No, the assumption was that there wouldn't be much interest in buying
the loss-making BR as a whole. They also wanted to introduce internal
competition within the railway system, so that there would be multiple
owners of rolling stock, multiple passenger operators, multiple freight
companies, multiple track maintenance companies, etc, all competing with
each other as far as possible (which never really happened). The belief
was that these companies would be potentially profitable (after the
government's subsidy for running socially necessary services), and small
enough for private buyers to be interested in buying/operating them,
particularly if the sales prices were quite low. The government was
initially going to retain Railtrack under state ownership, but then
decided to sell it anyway, and it was floated on the stock market. As so
much expertise had been stripped from it, Railtrack was initially run
more as a property company which simply bought in specialist services
rather than an engineering and service company.

It is an interesting speculative exercise to try and guess what might
have happened had BR been successfully privatised as one single
integrated company, as happened with some of the early privatised
utilities (eg, British Gas). It might well have been a great success,
just as many of the early privatisations have been (eg, BT, BA, BG).

On Jan 5, 3:01*pm, "Recliner" wrote:

It is an interesting speculative exercise to try and guess what might
have happened had BR been successfully privatised as one single
integrated company, as happened with some of the early privatised
utilities (eg, British Gas). It might well have been a great success,
just as many of the early privatisations have been (eg, BT, BA, BG).

I imagine it may have acted in many ways similarly to DB AG, which
operates in a far more politically-unencumbered way than BR ever did,
regardless of who happens to own it.

Neil

On 05/01/2012 13:45, Lüko Willms wrote:
Am 04.01.2012 14:26, schrieb Graham Nye:

I note that you've asserted your view that having a state government take
over 100% of the ownership of a company doesn't change the nature of that
company.

...

I've further noted you wriggling out of all attempts to engage
you in substantive discussion of that view.

No, why? Discuss this in relationship to the issue under discussion.
We are in uk.railway, aren't we? And the subject is the "Berlin Train
System".

Yes. Yes (in part). Threads drift. Welcome to Usenet.

What are you up to?

I'm wondering if you might give us a straightforward explanation of your
views without evasion or insults?

Given your constant evasion of questions about life in the DDR and its
fellow travellers you must be aware of its shortcomings. Why don't you
belatedly join the rest of your fellow citizens in welcoming the fall
of the DDR? If you don't like living in modern-day Germany you can at
least leave it without being shot in the back.



--
Graham Nye
news(a)thenyes.org.uk

On 05/01/2012 14:07, Lüko Willms wrote:
Am 04.01.2012 20:19, schrieb Arthur Figgis:
If 100% of the shares are owned by the state, how does trading happen?

Normally by selling and buying. How else?

Mostly on the stock exchange, which is made for that. Maybe also
bypassing the stock exchange, but then mostly in big chunks.

Who is actually doing the buying?

Anybody who is willing to pay the price offered by the seller. If the
seller actually wants to sell...

And if the seller won't sell, there is no trading.
And if the owner is the state, the thing is state owned.


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On 05/01/2012 14:42, Lüko Willms wrote:

Did they put the shares of British Rail up for sale on the stock
exchange? Not as far as I know.

Would anyone want to buy a few legal obligations regarding the Channel
Tunnel (which is more or less what BR exists for since everything else
was spun off)?


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On 05/01/2012 14:49, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 05/01/2012 14:46, Graham Nye wrote:
On 05/01/2012 13:46, Lüko Willms wrote:
Am 04.01.2012 14:26, schrieb Graham Nye:
On 04/01/2012 10:01, Lüko Willms wrote:
Under capitalist rule, you will find that most state owned
enterprises are actually operated with the objective to make profit.
I haven't found that.

Then open your eyes.

I did, and I noticed the behaviour you've chosen to snip from my post
so that you could add an insult.

Right of centre states aren't likely, by their own principles, to
retain profitable enterprises under state control. Can you give
some examples of capitalist states operating profitable enterprises?
(Shouldn't be difficult, as you suggest this is the majority position.)




The British government used to run a profitable brewery at one time.

But did they ever organise a **** up within it?


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

Wolfgang Schwanke schrieb:


You think the fact that a workshop was closed made no difference?

For trains delivered as ordered? No.


Technical problems can always occur.

No company keeps staff around for "something could happen", at least not
beyond certain reserves (for sickness, major events, etc)


But citing that as the core reason
for the disruption is missing the point. With the right staff any
consequences to the service could have been avoided.

Certainly not, because /almost any/ train has had the same problem.

And it is completely impossible, to run the S-Bahn in Berlin with the
maintenance crewing of the 1960s. Berlin no longer receives those
generous "front city" subsidies of Iron Curtain days, and simply can't
afford to produce the train kilometer at a much higher cost than other
cities in Germany - regardless wether produced by a private company or
an administration.

Having all the 485 available, instead of mothballing or scrapping them,
could have generated quite some relief.



Hans-Joachim



--

Frieda Uffelmann * 15. August 1915 â€* 9. Dezember 2011

http://zierke.com/private/tante_frie...abgestellt.jpg

On Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:20:01 -0600,
wrote:

In article ,
(Graeme Wall) wrote:

Is there a good book in English about the Berlin S & U Bahns?

Didn't Capital Transport do one? They did on the Paris Metro.

Yes, they did two books, I have the S-Bahn one (both by Brian Hardy,
1996). It covers the history and the separation of the city very well
but there's not so much on the reunification, which still had a decade
to go in railway terms. Still a very good book.

This page on the excellent UrbanRail site:
http://www.urbanrail.net/metrolit.htm

....lists a number of interesting books including these two.

Richard.