Infrastructure bank
Motivation:
- privatisation means investors seek to extract profit from our national infrastructure
- investment and development are based on how much profit can be generated:
- this may work in a competitive market as customer satisfaction becomes a key indicator of profit
- most infrastructure is a monopoly and there is no better profit here outside directly cutting costs and extracting the profit - why invest in infrastructure if there is no competitive edge
- it does not value key indicators throughout the rest of the country that could be a direct consequence: such as happiness, education, welfare, mobility
- a nationalised company may have reason to invest in better service if it makes lives better.
- investment looks at making profit out of a business in terms of money, but the public get non-monetary benefits out of national infrastructure so perhaps 5% profit would be forgone for 5% better services.
- improvements most foundational elements such as electricity, water, transport, housing would have massive knock-on effects on the rest of the economy
Policy
An infrastructure bank where the public lend their money. This infrastructure bank takes either a direct hand in the fundamental national beneficial infrastructure or via interest free loans (bypassing the cost of lending the governments incur).
Really the main aim is not profit but efficiency and productivity in the service, and raising awareness that profit and growth doesn’t just come in a monetary format.
This means: - valuing a better product - long term improvement and investment
The target would not be direct growth in the infrastructure fund - ideally to make no loss (in real terms this would be an inflationary loss). All loss should be counteracted by improvements in the way of life.
Target Areas:
- Water
- Electricity & Gas
- Transport
- Education
- Housing
- Healthcare
- Food
but also less obvious areas such as: - community buildings, i.e. pubs / low cost food places where the outcome is social mixing