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New Capitalism Old Capitalism Except Taxpayer Money Is At Risk

New Capitalism: Old Capitalism except taxpayer money is at risk Sunday Herald  Iain Macwhirter 4 July 09 – “………………………..Old Capitalism has long gone and has been replaced by New Capitalism, which is like the previous system, but without the risk of failure………

…………make lots of profit from running it, but then when they stop making profits they hand the keys back to the government and walk off leaving all the losses with the taxpayer. This is a great improvement on boring old capitalism, because it removes all the danger from the investor, and turns public contracts into a licence to print money…………….
…………..Then there’s the nuclear industry. The cost of decommissioning the last generation of nuclear power stations was around £100bn – paid for by us. It was the most expensive way of producing electricity since the Van Der Graaff generator.

The next generation is going to be totally different. Private companies will build and operate super-efficient and totally self-financing nuclear power stations earning healthy profits. Except that, under the deal, when something goes wrong they’ll be handed back to the government.

This is because the insurance costs are so high for these power plants that if the government hadn’t taken on the financial liability for nuclear disasters, the private operators wouldn’t have been able to make a decent profit. And, of course, the bulk of the decommissioning costs and the disposal of the nuclear waste, radioactive for a thousand years, will naturally be the taxpayer’s responsibility.

New Capitalism Old Capitalism Except Taxpayer Money Is At Risk (from Sunday Herald)

July 6, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, business and costs | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, radioactive