Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 4h

If you are now a professional economist, working in a university, and you want to get an academic paper published, you have to basically assume that the world runs on the basis of what economists call perfect competition

But we all know that's bollocks

1 1

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 4h

Economists still cling to the fantasy of perfect competition — the idea that markets are full of small, powerless firms playing fair. But the real world is dominated by oligopolies, monopolies and brand empires.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/10...

Economic myths: perfect competition

Economists still cling to the fantasy of perfect competition — the idea that markets are full of small, powerless firms playing fair. But the real world is dominated by oligopolies, monopolies and bra...

www.taxresearch.org.uk

1 2

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 5h

Exactly ........what are they so fuckin scared of??

1

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 5h

Everyone should be able to afford a decent and dignified life. Confronting the cost of living crisis will require addressing the business models that have hollowed out Britain’s foundations and left the public to pick up the tab. The ones that reward asset-sweating over asset-building,

2 6

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 5h

When essential services move out of the market and become free at the point of use, two things happen at once. Households stop paying prices that include the privatisation premium, leaving them with more disposable income. And these rising private costs vanish from inflation statistics,

2 5

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 5h

There is an obvious way out of this. Water, energy and transport should be brought back into public ownership and run for public benefit rather than private extraction. This isn’t just about fairness – it’s sound macroeconomic policy

1 3

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 5h

take Ofgem’s systematic favouring of providers over consumers. The regulator has been reluctant to correct billions in excess profits because it’s scared that investors might take flight. Squeezing out the privatisation premium while these companies still hold the keys to our infrastructure

2 4

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 5h

Thames Water’s creditors have recently declared. "Since the government is unwilling to nationalise the water company", creditors have it over a barrel. They have handed the government an ultimatum: relax environmental standards for 15 years, or we will walk away and the whole company will collapse.

1 1 2

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 5h

But the government is in a bind. The corporations that profit from the cost crisis are the same ones it is desperately trying to get to invest in its plans for infrastructure, housing and the green transition. These companies have enormous leverage – and they know it.

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

The public pay twice over for essentials: first, through higher bills that pad corporate profits, and second, through higher taxes that help subsidise the private providers of essential services. This hidden tax is inherently regressive, because it hits people on lower incomes the hardest.

1 3

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

You could think of this privatisation premium as a poll tax that nobody voted for. Because these services are essential to everyday life, we have no choice but to pay for them, no matter how much they cost, often to monopolies that face no competition.

2

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

every time you get paid, a slice of your payslip flows out of your bank account and into that of a utility company, where it joins other streams of income from people across the UK, flowing into a gigantic river that siphons wealth away from working people and towards investors.

1 3

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

Households across Britain are paying a vast “privatisation premium” to access essential services. According to our estimates, the public have funded almost £200bn in dividends to the shareholders of the privatised water, energy and transport companies since the 1990s

2 3

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

The cost of living crisis is often framed as a regrettable but somewhat inevitable outcome of market forces and geopolitics. In truth, it reflects political neoliberal choices about how we organise the provision of basic necessities.

It's the ultimate failure of "the market is best" dogma

2 4

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

Almost a third of the average water bill goes towards funding shareholder dividends and interest payments. And the rail sector is much the same: more than 100% of its post-tax profits are distributed to shareholders, but most of the industry’s income comes from government subsidies.

3 1

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

Recent analysis from the thinktank, Common Wealth, estimated that a quarter of the typical energy bill in 2024 was profit. That is equivalent to every household paying £416 a year so other people can grow rich.

1 3

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

When external shocks hit our economy, they translate into people paying even higher prices here than they do elsewhere. This is because essential services, such as energy, housing and transport, have been designed as opportunities for profit extraction.

1 1

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

A cost of living crisis is not inevitable if there is the will to stop companies extracting profits from Britain’s essential services
Unless Britain’s crisis of livability is addressed, Labour will probably be the handmaiden of a Reform victory.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Soaring bills are the gift that keeps on giving for Reform. Shame Labour doesn’t have the guts to do anything about them | Mathew Lawrence

A cost of living crisis is not inevitable if there is the will to stop companies extracting profits from Britain’s essential services, says Mathew Lawrence of the Common Wealth thinktank

www.theguardian.com

1

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

The alternative is simple enough: less help for balance sheets, more help for pay packets. We’ve tried pushing growth through rising asset prices before. It ended badly in 2008,

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

Polls suggest that the public are already unimpressed with the government’s performance on raising living standards. A record of falling real wages and rising prices rarely wins elections.

1

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

In opposition, Rachel Reeves promised to review £174bn of tax reliefs, many of which channel “social spending” into asset prices – such as pension subsidies and capital-gains exemptions. She should keep that promise, and look at wealth taxes.

1 1

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

There should also be a shift in spending – via higher benefits and better-funded public services – towards households, not asset holders. As Mathew Lawrence of the Common Wealth thinktank argues, the state should intervene to make essentials such as energy, housing and transport affordable.

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

Britain doesn’t need more belt-tightening. It needs more spending targeted at helping those who are in need. This means a budget deficit big enough to substantially offset our trade gap – otherwise the squeeze just lands on families and firms

2 3

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) projects that by 2029 average disposable incomes will be £570 lower than today, a fall of 1.3% – the sharpest drop in living standards since records began in 1961.

We have useless idiots in charge yet again

2 2

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 6h

This while UK GDP growth per head crawls at 0.4%, the weakest of any major economy. Real wages have stagnated for 11 months. Meanwhile, official figures show that unemployment has climbed to 4.8%, the highest since spring 2021

Great work Rachel

Neoliberalism doesn't work does it

1