Forum Archive Index - September 2001

["Ian & Jean MacLachlan" <ianjean@xtra.co.nz>]

Yes, Ben, and I'm angry with myself, because I let all those business people tell me that THEY could run an airline better than the government, when in fact they couldn't.

 

I've flown with Singapore and Turkish, government owned airlines that ran superbly because the greedy business I-ams were kept out.  And I kept quiet while the round table told us how well they could run things although all the time I felt uneasy.

 

Now look.

 

Thousands out of work.

 

Thousands on the dole.

 

NZ Railways' privately-owned successor a total sham that can't manage in spite of getting its hands on the assets for peanuts, selling what it can, scrapping what it can, sacking who it can, and still unable to make a bob.

 

 BNZ and the other banks, notorious for foreclosing on the victims when their inept loan management, inevitably, collapses.

 

The power companies, unable to make the system work in spite of years of telling us how much better they would be than the State Hydro Department, and now attacking power consumers for - ah - consuming power.

 

And now the fat cats who got their cream-covered paws on Air New Zealand after years of telling us how much better they could run the company failing - failing dismally - and covering their failure by screaming that it's the government's fault for not bailing them out.

 

I thought they could run a company?

 

Better than the government.

 

Oh dear.

 

It must be the government's fault.

 

For not stopping them from being idiots when the government KNEW the Board were being idiots and they didn't stop them!

 

Muuuuummmmmyyy!

 

I fell over.

 

Pick me up.

 

It's YOUR fault for not stopping me.

 

Oh dear.

 

Ian