Will privitazitation become a dirty word around the globe?

["Don Ward" <donrward@hotmail.com>]

Fellow EO Privers:

Yhe United states news broadcasts on Tuesday carried a sound bite that 
privitization of the British Rail service may have caused the disaster at 
Paddington. Greed and cost cutting got an equal share of the blame.

In Louisville, Ky. we get a radio feed, practically all night, which allows 
us to hear  the late night and early morning broadcasts from London and 
other parts of the world, particularly Western Europe. As you might expect a 
lot of the conversation last night(Wed. morning where the broadcasts 
originated)was about the accident.

These were the themes:

Privitization of rail was the root cause of the accident. First, there had 
been a simillar accident at the same spot nearly two years. The 
investigations of that accident are just starting now. An expert commented 
that in other countries of the continent, I presume their railroads are 
state owned, the investigation would have been completed and the 
recommendations already adopted. The rather obvious conclusion  was that 
greed stonewalled the investigation.

The other main contention was that a kind of callous greed(My term) caused 
the railroads in England to be run on a shoestring. Safety be damned etc.

Is privitation getting to be a dirty word?

In the United States at least in  state of Virginia, it is my belief that 
some governments have become ESOP's, without privatizing. Dan Bell can you 
confirm or deny that? Whether or not that is so, is it possible for 
governments to create ESOP's without privitizing. In those instances, you 
would have government as well as the union, if a union is involved, looking  
out for the interest of the workers. The ownership culture might cause 
employees to show an interest in privitizing their entity and maybe get the 
kind of union suport I saw while attending Dan Bell's workshops.

If the rest of the world works like the United States, there will be all 
kinds of commissions etc. asking about the wisdom of transferring ownership 
to the capitalists. Will that slow those discussions down?

Don Ward

P.S. I consider myself a small government Republican so I perfer a strategy 
of selling off governmental functions. However, people are more important to 
me and if the private group cannot deliver the product, service or whatever 
with equal or better results, my vote would be to keep it with the 
government.

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